The United States has been blessed with immense natural resource wealth. The nation could easily be one of the world’s dominant energy producers, yet radical progressives in the Biden-Harris administration are committed to preventing this from happening. In an August 27 statement, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced that the Biden-Harris administration was reinstating prohibitions against oil and natural gas development and mining on more than 28 million acres of public lands across Alaska.

These prohibitions, which were established in 1971, were removed by President Donald Trump. So Haaland’s announcement returns the old ban. She claims her department finalized the decision after seeking input from native tribes and the general public. Yet Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy disagrees.

“Today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of the Interior locking up another 28 million acres of land is the latest sanction against Alaska by the Biden-Harris administration and the radical environmental organizations it relies on,” he said in an X post shortly after Haaland’s announcement. “They are attempting to turn Alaska into one big national park. Alaska is still owed five million acres of land under the Statehood Act. Every one of these sanctions harms Alaska’s ability to prosper.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) also criticized the decision, calling it a “betrayal” of the “promises that Alaska received when it became a state in 1959” and noting that it will harm the Alaskan economy.

You can’t argue with this logic. Alaska is still owed 5 million acres of land under the Statehood Act, so the Biden-Harris administration should not be able to lock up more than 23 million acres of this land. Yet Haaland does not care much about the Statehood Act. Shortly after Joe Biden nominated Haaland for the office of Secretary of the Interior, Communist Party leader John Bachtell wrote a gushing piece in the Communist Party usa publication People’s World about how Haaland was on track to make history as America’s first Native American cabinet secretary. Since she has taken office, Haaland has been more interested in uncovering “the truth” about government policies that forced past generations of Amerindians to assimilate into U.S. society than in managing U.S. natural resources.

“The Interior Department will address the intergenerational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be,” she said. “I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know that this process will be painful. It won’t undo the heartbreak and loss we feel. But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we’re all proud to embrace.”

Haaland is spearheading an initiative to ban fracking on public lands; her decision to ban oil and natural gas extraction on 28 million acres of Alaskan land is part of this initiative.

Of course, it’s important to take care of the environment. Yet environmental stewardship is about the wise use of natural resources, not the non-use of natural resources. The late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote that America’s oil and coal reserves are blessings from God that most people no longer appreciate.

In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Mr. Armstrong explained that the American people are descended from ancient Israel. He cited a prophecy that Moses made before his death about the mineral wealth America would possess in the end time. “And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof … let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph [Ephraim and Manasseh both] …. His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns [Great Britain’s national seal today]: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh” (Deuteronomy 33:13-17).

The “chief things of the ancient mountains” and “the precious things of the lasting hills” refer to mineral wealth that must be dug out of the ground. This includes petroleum products like coal, oil, and natural gas.

“Whoever is Ephraim and Manasseh today must have been in possession of the Earth’s choicest agricultural, mineral and other wealth—the great gold and silver mines; iron, oil and coal; timber and other resources,” Mr. Armstrong wrote.

What nations fulfill these prophecies? Why, only Great Britain and America! More than half of all tillable, cultivatable, temperate-zone lands of this Earth came after a.d. 1800 into the possession of our two great powers alone! The rich agricultural lands of the Mississippi Valley; the vast wheat and grain fields of the Midwest, of Canada and Australia; the great forest lands of the Pacific Northwest and many other parts of the world; the gold fields of South Africa, Australia, Alaska and the United States; the great coal mines of the United States and British Isles; the natural waterfalls and means of power and consequent prosperous industrial and manufacturing districts of England and the eastern United States; the choicest fruit lands of our Pacific Coast and Florida. What other nations combined ever possessed such material wealth?

Today, the United States is still the world’s top oil- and natural gas-producing nation, but it has shut down its rare earth mineral production in favor of buying these minerals from China. Now Democrats have a plan to shut down America’s oil and natural gas production as well, to make the nation almost completely reliant on foreign powers. This desire to sabotage America’s energy dominance fulfills another prophecy uttered by Moses.

In Leviticus 26:18-19, it states that if Israel turned away from God, then God would “break the pride of your power.” God has blessed America with the resources to be energy-independent, and many conservatives want to utilize these resources. But millions of Americans would rather let China and Russia control the world’s mineral wealth. Instead of being grateful for their blessings, they have become ashamed of them. They lack the will to use their power, so other nations are stepping up to fill the power vacuum.

To learn more about how foreign nations will use the world’s natural resources to besiege and attack America, read “Superpower Under Seige” by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry.