The federal government will continue to prohibit mining, drilling and other forms of development on 28 million acres of federal land spread across Alaska, the Interior Department announced Tuesday.
The move, hailed by environmental groups and scorned by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state’s congressional delegation, reverses an action taken in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration.
That administration sought to open the land to development, but after President Joe Biden took office, the Interior Department said that the Trump administration’s process was flawed and it would redo the work.
Earlier this year, the Bureau of Land Management published an environmental impact statement saying that the agency was inclined to keep the old rules in place.
The land in question is collectively known as “D-1 lands” because it was withdrawn from development under Section 17(d)(1) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
In public comments, more than half of the state’s federally recognized tribes urged the federal government to keep the land undeveloped.
The United Tribes of Bristol Bay was one of several groups celebrating Tuesday’s action, with the organization stating by email that the “decision is a significant victory for the Tribal communities across Alaska whose voices have been crucial in advocating for the protection of these lands.”
Anaan’arar Sophie Swope, executive director of the Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition, said the decision announced by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland “is an important step toward a future full of healthy lands, waters, and people who thrive on wild salmon, waterfowl, other migratory animals, and seasonal plant life.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a statement posted on social media, denounced the decision, calling it a “sanction against Alaska.”
Dunleavy has supported mining and drilling, calling it beneficial to the state’s economy and in turn, its people.
Joe Plesha, a spokesperson for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, noted that both Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, supported the Trump administration’s actions, which were issued as public lands orders.
“Under this administration, PLOs have become ‘political land orders.’ Alaskans have been completely railroaded as the BLM goes back on their own recommendation and commitment to return Alaska’s lands to federal multiple use status,” Plesha said by email. “That they won’t lift a single PLO on a single acre belies belief that this is anything other than election-year politics.”
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
