Denali, Alaska, Gulf of Mexico, Oil and Energy

Connecting the unconnected dots from the string of executive orders

Trump changed the name of Gulf of Mexico and Denali Mountain on day one of his presidency. Day one. Most media outlets spoke about the name change, but didn’t expand on the reason behind the name change. Journalists and social media seemingly ignored that he also signed signed executive orders specifically about Alaska and oil and energy on day one, so let’s unpack how these are tied together.

Executive Order 14172 “Restoring Names That Honor Greatness” was fodder for social media posts and late night comedians, but what purpose did it serve for Trump?

WHY TARGET GULF OF MEXICO?

Five US states have coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. It is the largest gulf in the world and home to roughly 1/3 of the total US mainland coastline. Lots of tourism dollars are spent going to the coastal communities in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

Trump didn’t ask Americans to start calling Gulf of Mexico by a different name, no he asked the Federal Government to refer to it by a different name. Maybe a bizarre attempt to invalidate the laws that apply to the Gulf of Mexico. (It’s illegal.) Specifically to invalidate the contentious law banning offshore drilling that doesn’t sit well with the “Drill Baby Drill” crowd or the corporations salivating to have offshore drilling. Or more likely the name change is to change the perception of that area, so that the perception is that this body of water belongs to America and not Mexico.

The Gulf of Mexico is mostly shallow, 38% of the gulf is less than 20 meters deep. For oil companies looking to throw down a rig, it’s easier to get to the bottom of the ocean floor and obviously the closer to shore, the easier to get people on and off the rig.

The name change Executive Order even specifically talks about oil:

“The bountiful geology of this basin has made it one of the most prodigious oil and gas regions in the world, providing roughly 14% of our Nation’s crude-oil production and an abundance of natural gas, and consistently driving new and innovative technologies that have allowed us to tap into some of the deepest and richest oil reservoirs in the world.”

So when he renamed Gulf of Mexico, he was thinking about the oil possibilities because it specifically says that in the Executive Order.

“Does the US President have to power to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?”

Yes, probably, but it doesn’t really matter because no one is fighting it. If the name change is challenged it would get held up in court, or go to SCOTUS but Democrats seem to have bigger fish to fry.

Not only did Democrats not push back on this, Chuck Schumer was basically like, “Yea, whatever.” Schumer referred to it as a “zany new idea” and said he’d back it if Trump would work with Democrats to “help lower costs for Americans” but it seems like that comment was referring to prices in general, not specifically oil prices.

Currently no one seems to be publicly addressing the reason behind why Trump wanted to change the name. Journalists and lawmakers shrugged, “That’s weird, anyway, let’s discuss Pete Hegseth’s drinking and RFK Jr.’s brain worm.”

Day One Executive Orders

The 7th Executive Order that Trump signed the day he took office is EO 14153 was titled, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.” The 8th Executive Order after that EO 14154 is titled, “Unleashing American Energy” and his 10th Executive Order that day, EO 14156, is all about energy and the title of this one is “Declaring a National State of Emergency.”

These first two Executive Orders mentioned (14153 and 14154) were so important that he signed them before he established DOGE, before he withdrew from WHO, before he upended environmental protections and before he decided people born in America weren’t Americans.

Trump thought energy, not the economy, not TikTok, not the border, not the price of eggs, he thought energy was one of the most important topics to first address his first day in office with 4 executive orders related to energy on day one of his presidency.

The 7th Executive Order that the media has largely ignored says this:

Policy. It is the policy of the United States to:

(a) fully avail itself of Alaska's vast lands and resources for the benefit of the Nation and the American citizens who call Alaska home;

(b) efficiently and effectively maximize the development and production of the natural resources located on both Federal and State lands within Alaska;

(c) expedite the permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska

This executive order appears to be one of the longer and more specific signed executive orders, but for brevity it basically says just get rid of anything Biden did.

…rescind, revoke, revise, amend, defer, or grant exemptions from any and all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions that are inconsistent with the policy set forth in section 2 of this order, including but not limited to agency actions promulgated, issued, or adopted between January 20, 2021, and January 20, 2025.

The order has a lot of specifics about liquid natural gas and building pipelines and even specifically where he wants a road built, “between the community of King Cove and the all-weather airport located in Cold Bay” A quick summary is that there were a lot of protections placed in Alaska during the last year of the Biden Administration and Trump wants to get rid of all of them. It is the second longest Executive Order that Trump signed his first day in office.

The longest and most detailed Executive Order that Trump signed his first day in office 2025 is EO 14154, “Unleashing American Energy.” This hot mess of greed soup basically legalizes the right to exploit any natural resource for financial gain. The only thing I personally agree with in this long executive order is for Americans the right to choose what kind of lightbulbs they want.

The EO also terminates the Green New Deal, hits GOP talking point of criticizing the way scientists do carbon dating, talks about ports, about restoring America’s mineral dominance, disbanding a group researching greenhouse gases and the cryptic section 8 below that I’ll let you make your own determinations. I understood it as he wants the Secretary of Energy (Chris Wright) to restart reviews of applications of approvals of liquified natural gas exports to allies and partners. I’m not sure if “restart reviews” means approve people previously declined or that all applications were paused and he wants to start them up again. Either way, it’s odd that it reads like it is imperative to US National Security to make sure that we send liquified natural gas abroad to other nations.

Sec. 8 . Protecting America's National Security. (a) The Secretary of Energy is directed restart reviews of applications for approvals of liquified natural gas export projects as expeditiously as possible, consistent with applicable law. In assessing the “Public Interest” to be advanced by any particular application, the Secretary of Energy shall consider the economic and employment impacts to the United States and the impact to the security of allies and partners that would result from granting the application.

You can read the whole executive order here.

This from the 10th executive order on day one, EO 14156:

“From coast to coast” …you mean from Florida’s Gulf of Mexico to Alaska’s Denali Mountain?

This Executive Order was written as a lengthy rebuke of the Biden Administration, even thought at the end of the Biden administration, gas prices were the lowest they had been in years. Like Pavlov’s dogs, Republicans have been trained to be mad when they see the price, regardless of whether it is high or low.

There were no recent gas shortages because of lack of access to gas. Even after back to back hurricanes, those areas received gas rather quickly, and the delays were based on road conditions rather than US fuel shortages. The only time during Biden’s presidency there was an actual gas shortage was in May 2021 when the Colonial Gas Pipeline was temporarily shut down because of a cyber attack. If anything, this event highlights the importance of US needing the FBI and more cybersecurity, not more gas.

So it seems this gas talking point was predetermined long Trump took office, regardless of the actual price of gas or actual need for gas.

Excerpt:

The rest of this EO addresses taking federal land and using it for it’s natural resources. And also takes a paragraph to trash talk the West Coast where “dangerous state and local policies jeopardize our Nation’s core national defense and security needs.”

There are currently no oil or gas rigs offshore in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean has 23 oil and gas facilities in Federal waters off the coast of California. Most Californians oppose adding more oil drilling because of environmental concerns. So in Trump’s eyes, Californians are selfish and that leaves the Gulf of Mexico as the ideal body of water to put up more oil rigs.

With more and more people switching to electric cars, it doesn’t seem like a state of emergency to need to get more oil. In fact, it seems like things may trend the opposite direction and demand will go down. But electricity is another story. Electric Cars use a lot of electricity, driving an electric car for a year is roughly the amount of energy used in an average US home for 6 months. Electricity in the US is cheap compared to other nations. Because most Americans care about financial concerns over environmental concerns, Americans are constantly comparing the price of gas to electric when it comes to cars, instead of the actual amount of consumption. AI is projected to use a lot of electricity. Part of the reason the Chinese company DeepSeek made headlines recently was because it has produced an AI product that uses 40% less energy than it’s US competitors.

Why Alaska?

Alaska’s proved crude oil reserves are the 4th largest in the nation. Alaska is the largest US state by land mass and massive areas of the state remain unexplored for oil. In addition to petroleum, Alaska’s proved natural gas reserves ranks 3rd among US states.

Despite being one the the largest states, Alaska consumes less energy than all other states, except Vermont, probably because it is the 3rd least populated state. So that’s why Trump is talking about Alaska his first day in office. And it wasn’t even a whole day, he was only in office a half day when he did all of these EOs.

Also, the US has Clear Space Force Station 48 miles north of Denali Mountain. I sigh as I type this because I really can’t believe I’m about to dive into this, but yes, I said Space Force. This station was originally built in 1949 as Clear Air Force Auxiliary Field. The Clear Air Force Station was officially renamed to Clear Space Force Station June 15, 2021.

Why? Why during the Biden administration was this air field renamed? The lengthy official statement from 2021 is:

“The renaming was part of ongoing efforts to develop the Space Force, the United States’ sixth military branch, while identifying those Air Force installations that currently execute Space operations with Space Force Guardian personnel.

Clear will continue to serve as home to the 13th and 213th Space Warning Squadrons—comprised of Arctic Airmen from the regular Air Force and Alaska Air National Guard, and Space Force Guardians— which provide 24/7 missile warning, missile defense, and space domain awareness.

The renaming of the installation establishes a distinct Space Force culture and identity as Clear forges into the future, and space is recognized as a warfighting domain.”

“Warfighting Domain” seems a bit dramatic. And this is the rest of the press release that again, was released during the Biden administration. Basically acknowledging that Space Force that was set up under the Trump administration was expanded during the Biden Administration. This is from the 2021 announcement referring to Space Force being established in 2019:

On Dec. 20, 2019, United States Space Force was officially established and 13 SWS was realigned under the newest branch of the Armed Forces. On July 24, 2020, the 13 SWS was transferred to Space Delta 4 headquartered at Buckley AFB, now Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado.

“The future of Clear Space Force Station remains bright, and it will continue to be an indispensable location conducting critical national missions supporting missile defense and space domain awareness operations,” said Bourquin.

Clear Space Force Station was the third Air Force Station renamed as a Space Force Station, out of several planned, along with Space Force bases. As the stand-up of the USSF continues, additional installations, including overseas locations with space-focused missions, may be identified for renaming.

That’s Space Force, roughly an hour’s drive north of Denali. Denali National Park says no official military base in the park, but rather “US Military actives.” Alaska is home to 20,000 of the 1.1 million US active duty military personnel.

Also worth pointing out that Trump is changing the name of the mountain and not the national park. If his problem was with the name Denali, wouldn’t he change both? You know to “restore the names to honor greatness.” Why only the mountain? Is it to differentiate the mountain from the national park? To somehow redesignate the mountain as a separate entity from the national park? This is from his EO, “The national park area surrounding Mount McKinley shall retain the name Denali National Park and Preserve.”

Denali is technically the tallest mountain in the world, roughly 3,000 feet taller than Everest, if you measure from base to peak.

The rumor, conspiracy theory, unsubstantiated claim, unproven assertion, whatever you want to call it is this: The US has access to a powerful alternative energy source at this mountain. If true, this could potentially diminish the need for coal, oil, petroleum and natural gas.

I have no idea what is or isn’t at Denali. But I know Trump thinks something is there. And since it’s Trump, I assume he thinks it’s something the thinks he can either profit from selling or destroying, because that’s all he seems to know how to do. He breaks things or sells things, that’s his thing. Or maybe there’s no magic energy source, he just wants to plunder Alaska for whatever publicly known natural resources are there, and if he stumbles across something he didn’t know about that he can sell then that’s great too.

“But he’s the president, wouldn’t he know what’s there?”

Probably. This isn’t an answer to that question, but merely a POV to ponder. You could brief a president on every military event happening globally, or every research project, but do you have to? Do you need to brief the presidents on every little thing? Aren’t they merely temporary employees? Wouldn’t it be nicer to give them plausible deniability?

The unsubstantiated claim that seems to be mostly coming from the right, but also not properly denied by the left is that under Mount McKinney or Denali Mountain, whatever your preferred name is, there is a black pyramid shaped energy source that may or may not have been developed by and placed there by non-human beings.

Look, I just wanted to be a normal travel writer. I only wanted to write about travel to other cities and countries, not traveling to other realities and timelines. Nobody wanted this, but here we are.

The current Space Force logo is black triangle or pyramid shape that was modeled after a pyramid shaped logo with a sphinx on it that was used at the National Space Intelligence Center. The National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC) was activated on June 24, 2022, during Biden’s presidency and was designated as a field operating agency of the U.S. Space Force.

The logo appears to give a wink to ‘oh yeah, we have a pyramid’ and to UAP enthusiasts, validates unsubstantiated claims about the Denali mountain rumored energy pyramid.

The explanation of the symbolism in the design unfortunately gives even more credence to the rumors.

I do not believe that Trump just randomly picked to places on a map to rename the day he got in office that both coincidentally are linked to oil and energy, then wrote even more EOs about energy. The statistically probability of this being a coincidence is low. However, the probability of Trump exploiting US natural resources for financial gain is quite high.

According to their website, Space Force is 50% civilian employees and they are actively recruiting more civilian employees. So while Trump is trying to fire Federal workers left and right, Space Force is hiring.

The “Space Force Guardians” reference in both the press release during the Biden Administration and in current Space Force marketing is comprised of both military and civilian employees.

There is more to this story than just honoring a former US President from the 1800’s.

The ditzy character Phoebe on friends was played by actress Lisa Kudrow who studied psychobiology at Vassar. Rebel Wilson’s comedy is countless idiotic characters, but she graduated from high school in Australia ranking 99.3 out of 100 in grades and has both a law degree and acting degree.

My point is that you have to be pretty smart to play an idiot convincingly. I don’t believe Trump to be unserious. I don’t believe him to be stupid. If he wasn’t serious or was just an idiot, he wouldn’t have been publicly called a danger to the country by his former top conservative advisors and generals. If Trump was just your run of the mill idiot, people who know him well wouldn’t have been so distraught about him returning to the Oval Office.

According to the executive orders signed January 20, 2025, the government has 30 days to comply. So the big question is, what happens on February 20th? What does Project 2025 have planned? What will Trump be rolling out on February 20th when the requests in the executive orders have to be fully implemented?