They said Donald Trump would be the worst Republican president ever, so incompetent and so liberal that conservatives should have stayed home and let Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election, losing in a “principled” way so the GOP could regroup for 2020.

Instead, President Trump has governed almost as conservatively as anyone could hope for, putting George W. Bush to shame (not that that would be hard to do) and even exceeding the great Ronald Reagan in one key area. And now we have another milestone to add to the “win” column.

The Washington Examiner reports that on Wednesday, Trump highlighted a little-noticed provision of the Republican Congress’s just-passed tax reform package, a plan to begin drilling for oil in a small, wildlife-free section of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over the course of the next four years, something that could produce billions in revenue and scores of jobs.

“Reagan tried to get it. Bush tried to get it. Everybody tried to get it. They couldn’t get it passed,” Trump said in discussing the energy piece of major tax legislation before the House passed it Wednesday and sent to him for his signature. After 40 years of failed attempts to open the Arctic reserve to drilling, “that just happens to be here,” Trump said. “And we did that at the request of the two great senators from the state of Alaska, which is a very special place. But I will tell you, ANWR is a big, big deal” […] “So, we’re going to have tremendous energy coming out of that part of the world, and people have wanted to do it it for 40 years,” Trump said.

Perhaps even more interesting is who we have to thank for this provision:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, author of the bill’s energy measure and chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said drilling in the 1002 area could produce hundreds of billions of dollars for the nation’s coffers as well as be a great source of jobs and wealth creation.

Murkowski, you no doubt recall, is a liberal Republican who infamously helped kill GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare earlier this year. But it seems ANWR drilling was added as a conscious effort to secure her “yes” vote on tax reform. It’s not every day we see Washington DC swamp creatures enticed to do the right thing with a giveaway that’s also good for the America people!

Alas, because the modern United States of America is dominated by nigh-omnipotent and unaccountable regulatory and judicial regimes that were never intended by the people who designed and instituted our federal government, questions remain about how soon the actual drilling can begin. Bloomberg reports:

Without detailing specific plans, conservationists have vowed litigation at every milestone on the long path to leasing in the refuge and potential oil-drilling there, stoking uncertainty about the potential activity for years after Trump signs the tax bill. That could translate into lawsuits challenging energy companies’ bids to do seismic research aimed at mapping underground formations that could contain oil and gas, the environmental reviews necessary before any lease sale and the process of issuing drilling permits. Authorities will have to comply with environmental requirements embedded in multiple federal laws, including mandates for extensive review and public comment before any leasing — providing another opportunity for legal scrutiny. Shoddy environmental evaluations can undermine lease sales long after they happen.

Here’s hoping that Ryan Zinke’s Interior Department, Rick Perry’s Energy Department, and Scott Pruitt’s EPA are ready to fight the Left’s eco-obstruction every step of the way.

In any event, though, this is a great start — a start that wouldn’t have happened, it’s worth repeating, if so-called “respectable” Republicans had gotten their way last year.