Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska Universal Images Group | Getty Images

As the world's largest economy muscles its way back into the very top echelon of global oil and gas production, Alaska—once viewed as a linchpin of U.S. energy ambitions—has now become an afterthought. Shale drilling has turned North Dakota and Texas into an embarrassment of oil riches, while the Arctic state has seen its output collapse. Since the shale boom took off five years ago, the Lower 48 states have seen production skyrocket by 77 percent, according to an analysis by Global Hunter Securities. Simultaneously, Alaska's oil production has plummeted from a peak of more than 2 million barrels per day in 1988 to less than 400,000 currently, the Energy Information Agency says. The state fell to No. 3 in oil production, behind North Dakota, in 2012. Read MoreElite oil fields redefine meaning of crude's 'Big Three'

The divergence between Alaska and the Lower 48 can be attributed to a little-understood fact. The drilling boom in Texas and North Dakota is largely due to state and private ownership of oil fields. Data from the Congressional Research Service show that oil production from federally owned land, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, represents less than 40 percent. "The U.S. talks about an "all-of the above energy policy while strangling development of federal oil lands," said Mike Krancer, head of the energy practice at the law firm Blank Rome. "It's politics. National parks are one thing, but when you have the oil acreage in a state like Wyoming, Colorado or Alaska, they make it prohibitive."

Whatever happened to ANWR?

Unlike other parts of the globe, the U.S. owns only the surface rights of key land, leaving whatever lies beneath to private development. That has allowed the domestic shale boom to flourish in a way that it hasn't internationally. However, the dynamics surrounding Alaskan oil are different. Most tellingly about the decline in Alaska's fortunes, the ecologically sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR)—once the center of heated partisan battles over whether to drill on the pristine 19 million acre reserve—is seldom if ever mentioned as the holy grail of U.S. energy independence, as it was just several years ago. Read MoreThe oil spike that wasn't: Prices defy global turmoil

"The urgency to supply the nation with oil continues and hasn't fallen at all. But [Alaska] has to navigate the political quagmire of Capitol Hill to do it," said Adrian Herrera, D.C. coordinator for Arctic Power, an advocacy group for the wildlife reserve drilling. "In the case of North Dakota and Texas, you don't have to deal with Capitol Hill. It's all on state and private land." Herrera argued that Alaskan oil capacity would even obviate the need for the hotly disputed Keystone XL Pipeline, which the group opposes. He cited U.S. Geological Survey data that ANWR's estimated reserves hold 5 billion to 16 billion barrels of black gold. Although the state has its own share of state and private lands, those are nowhere near as prodigious as the sliver of wildlife reserve that backers say could satisfy virtually all the country's energy needs. "Here we've got this pipeline that's three-quarters empty with all the mechanisms to deliver the oil, and a potentially large field," Herrera said. Yet opposition from conservationists has made ANWR "politically caustic, and you can't debate it without having a huge war."