So many seemingly dry fields of the 48 states were resurrected with fracking. The oil industry plays Alaska politicians like that guy who caught record salmon with 2 pound test line. WIth a surfeit of oil production globally and the U.S.A. already producing about as much oil as Saudi while RUssia is already the number one producer and able to frack its 'dead' fields too, supply and demand factors may give Alaska fields low priority. Probably they can frack Prudhoe Bay  whenever they want (one hopes that doesn't poison the Arctic Ocean when permafrost melts someday or acellerate methane releases to the atmosphere). Producing more oil with lower demand just reduces sales value. big oil might have its own OPEC-like methods for keeping profits increasing.