Dan Sullivan on Climate and the Environment: The Endangerment Finding Repeal, Arctic Refuge Leasing, and the Boundary Waters Vote

On January 29, 2025, Dan Sullivan voted to confirm Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator, and in February 2026 Zeldin's EPA published its rescission of the Endangerment Finding, the legal basis for federal limits on greenhouse gases. On July 1, 2025, Sullivan cast one of the 50 votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which ended clean-energy credits, pushed the methane fee on oil and gas to 2034 and ordered lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In April 2026 his vote was one of the 50 that opened Minnesota's Boundary Waters watershed to copper mining, in a resolution that passed 50 to 49.

In late 2025 Sullivan voted for resolutions that overturned federal land plans for the Arctic refuge's Coastal Plain and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whom he voted to confirm and praised for rescinding the 2024 reserve rule, has since opened the 1.56 million acre Coastal Plain, habitat for Porcupine caribou, denning polar bears, to oil leasing.

Dan Sullivan's Confirmations, Votes and Statements on Climate and Public Lands

• Sullivan Voted to Confirm the EPA Administrator Who Repealed the Federal Climate Finding. On January 29, 2025, Dan Sullivan voted to confirm Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator; Zeldin was confirmed 56 to 42. On February 18, 2026, Zeldin's EPA published its rescission of the Endangerment Finding, the 2009 conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger health, so the agency no longer regulates GHG emissions from US vehicles. In 2026 it also rescinded all greenhouse gas emission standards for existing fossil-fuel power plants, a sector that makes up roughly 25% of US total GHG emissions. The rescission is in force while a group of 24 states and a dozen of counties and cities filed a petition against it. Policy Integrity estimates the administration's rollbacks put 3,299 Annual Premature Mortalities at Risk.
• Sullivan Cast One of the 50 Votes for the Law That Cut Clean-Energy Credits, Delayed the Methane Fee and Ordered Arctic Refuge Lease Sales. On July 1, 2025, Sullivan voted yes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 50 to 50 with the Vice President's tie-breaking vote. The law ended clean-energy tax credits, repealed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, rescinded the methane emissions reduction program money, and requires not fewer than 4 lease sales in the Arctic refuge's Coastal Plain. In March 2025, Congress prohibited EPA from collecting the Waste Emissions Charge until 2034, and the law wrote that delay in. Rhodium Group now projects that the U.S. is on pace to reduce emissions 27-44 percent below 2005 by 2035, down from a projection of 38-56 percent before the law.
• Sullivan Cast One of the 50 Votes That Ended the Boundary Waters Mining Ban in April 2026. On April 16, 2026, Sullivan voted yes on H.J.Res. 140, which passed 50 to 49, so it would have failed without his vote. The resolution nullified the 2023 order which withdrew 225,504 acres of Superior National Forest lands from mineral and geothermal leasing in the watershed of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Environmental groups say tailings from metal mining can be dangerous sources of toxic chemicals. Minnesota voters oppose sulfide-ore copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed (23% favor / 57% oppose) in a December 2025 Impact Research poll for Save the Boundary Waters.
• Sullivan Voted to Overturn Land Plans and Open the Arctic Refuge, the Alaska Petroleum Reserve and Western Coal Lands. From October to December 2025, Sullivan voted for resolutions overturning federal land plans for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's Coastal Plain, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, and the Miles City, Montana and Buffalo, Wyoming areas, where the plans had limited new coal leasing. The Miles City vote was the first time the Congressional Review Act has been used to overturn a land use plan. The Interior Department has since opened the 1.56 million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas leasing, land that is habitat for Porcupine caribou, denning polar bears, and moved toward reopening almost 82% of the reserve to oil and gas leasing.
• Sullivan Voted to Repeal the Methane Fee on Oil and Gas Companies in February 2025. On February 27, 2025, Sullivan voted yes on H.J.Res. 35, which repealed EPA's rule charging oil and gas companies for excess methane emissions; it passed 52 to 47. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and Policy Integrity lists the methane fee rule as Fully Repealed, with $236 million a year in net benefits lost.
• Sullivan Voted Against Restoring Methane Deadlines for Oil and Gas Wells in November 2025. On November 19, 2025, Sullivan voted no on taking up a resolution to overturn EPA's extension of deadlines in its oil and gas methane standards; it failed 46 to 51. In November 2025, EPA finalized the deadline exemptions for those standards.
• Sullivan Voted to Revoke California's Clean-Car and Clean-Truck Standards in May 2025. On May 22, 2025, Sullivan voted for three resolutions revoking the waivers that let California enforce its Advanced Clean Cars II, Advanced Clean Trucks and low-NOx heavy truck rules, standards that 11 other states (plus the District of Columbia) have now also adopted these rules for cars. The Senate acted although the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian had said the waivers were not rules Congress could overturn this way. California regulators had estimated the car rule's health benefits included a reduction of over 1,000 premature deaths, and California is challenging the revocation, a move the state has challenged in court.
• Sullivan Voted Against Rehiring Fired Park, Forest and Wildlife Workers in February 2025. On February 20, 2025, Sullivan voted no on a budget amendment to make room for reinstating the fired Federal employees at the Forest Service, National Park Service, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management; it failed 48 to 52. By the end of 2025, the NPCA puts full-time Park Service employment at 12,600, down 24 percent.
• Sullivan Voted to Confirm the Interior Secretary Who Halted Offshore Wind and Reopened the Arctic Refuge. On January 30, 2025, Sullivan voted to confirm Doug Burgum as interior secretary. Burgum's department issued a series of stop work orders that blocked construction of five large offshore wind projects until courts intervened, and opened the 1.56 million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic refuge to oil leasing.
• Sullivan Praised Burgum for Repealing the 2024 Alaska Petroleum Reserve Protections in November 2025. In November 2025, when Interior repealed the 2024 rule that protected special areas in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, Sullivan said, "I want to commend Secretary Burgum for taking action to rescind this rule". Interior has also moved toward reopening almost 82% of the reserve to oil and gas leasing, Harvard's Environmental and Energy Law Program reports.

What the Rollbacks Dan Sullivan Backed Mean for Alaska's Arctic and Parks

• Arctic refuge. Interior opened the 1.56 million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas leasing, land that is habitat for Porcupine caribou, denning polar bears.
• Petroleum reserve. BLM moved toward reopening almost 82% of the reserve to oil and gas leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, on Alaska's North Slope.
• National parks. Park Service staffing nationwide fell 24 percent in 2025, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.

Frequently Asked Questions About Dan Sullivan on Climate and the environment

Last updated: 2026-10-25

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