Yes, but Businesses are very clearly not the antecedent of the "they" you used upthread to reference "Alaskans". You can't make a nativist argument about the rights of the local population and then try to extend that to a Texas-based petro-behemoth wanting to drill new holes.
There’s tons of people who want those “Texas based petro behemoths” to “drill new holes” for the exact same reasons folks want San Francisco based ad behemoths to build offices in their city.
That's true to a degree, but there's always the not-in-my-back-yard condition.
I got to see this first hand during the Barnette Shale gas drilling boom in the mid-2000s. As Texas, particularly the DFW area was very pro-oil&gas, many people were very much in favor of fracking and the possibilities it opened up.
Many of those people stopped being in favor once actual wells appeared in their neighborhoods. At one point I could see five different wells from the second floor of my suburban home. Their noise was audible all the time, and our roads became clogged with heavy trucks delivering liquids and materials necessary for the fracking process. Oh, our roads got destroyed rapidly from those trucks as well.
The few landowners who got lucrative mineral lease deals were very happy, but "the people" living all around were definitely not happy. So a small few individuals profited well, a few oil and gas companies profited very well, and the general population suffered.
That was even before the earthquakes started.
Keep in mind also that "the people" are generally speaking rather like sheep -- not stupid necessarily, but given to following the herd. "Everybody knows" that Texas is an oil state, so it's only natural that you will be in favor of the industry your state is famous for. To go against that means you no longer fit with your neighbors, colleagues, church members, sometimes even your family (if you're from Texas you probably have a cousin who works in the industry) etc.
However, after negative outcomes appear too often or too clearly, the concept of "the people" fractures. I can't speak for the SF folks, but I would bet that there are quite some strong differences of opinion amongst them, just as there are people living in nature who are very opposed to development around them.
And there's "tons" that don't, aren't there? So... maybe we should do this democratically and let the elected government decide what happens with federal land and not resort to this kind of "who matters more" nonsense?
Most people would say that they should have more say about jobs versus community trade offs in their local area than folks somewhere else. It’s only due to accidents of history that New Yorkers can veto economic development in Alaska in a way Alaskans can’t do with New York. Not just due to numbers but due to the historical development of the relevant property rights.
> in Alaska in a way Alaskans can’t do with New York
This is wildly incorrect. Alaskans have vastly higher relative representation in the federal government than New Yorkers, and it really isn't close. It's something like 3x as many house/senate votes per capita!
It's just not absolute. New Yorker are Americans, just like Alaskans, and so New Yorkers get a say about what to do with American resources like federal wilderness areas, just like Alaskans get a say with how to regulate New York guns shops, medical procedures or tax rates.
We call that "democracy", and while it's currently sorta falling apart in this country (due in no small part to the kind of absolutist arguments being deployed right here in this subthread) it's the best scheme we've picked. People really need to start finding ways to live with it instead of burning everything down.
