Ambler road
Rick Smith
Greenwire (Washington, DC)
Thursday, April 04/2024 01:22 PM EDT
Republished in E&E Election Digest
Thursday, April 11, 2024
TRUMP CASTS SHADOW AS FEDS WEIGH OPTIONS FOR ALASKA MINING ROAD
The Ambler Road would cut through pristine lands to provide access to a remote mining district in northwestern Alaska.
BY: HANNAH NORTHEY
A mining road that would cut across pristine land and critical caribou and salmon habitat in northwestern Alaska is directly in the crosshairs of the coming presidential election — and conservation groups, Trump administration alumni, Alaska lawmakers, tribes and miners are all angling to have their way.
The Biden administration is poised to decide the fate of the proposed Ambler Road by the end of June. Opponents of the 211-mile-long private road, which would cross federal, state and tribal land to access a remote mining district, are hoping the Interior Department opts not to approve the project.
But they also anxiously acknowledge any decision could be reversed if former President Donald Trump gets reelected to a second term, and are keenly aware that approving Ambler Road is a key priority outlined in a playbook that conservatives have crafted for the next Republican administration.
“We’re taking that document seriously,” said Sam Zeno, a policy analyst for the Center for American Progress, which opposes the project. “If Ambler Road is in there, it’s at risk.”
The Ambler Road battle highlights the tensions inherent in a national push to extract valuable metals needed for electric vehicles, military technologies and renewable energy, and the Biden administration’s vow to elevate tribal voices and protect fragile ecosystems already feeling the brunt of climate change.
While the Trump administration approved a record of decision, or ROD, for the Ambler Road project in the summer of 2020, that move was later challenged in court. And in 2022, the Biden administration reversed course, suspending approval to address “deficiencies” in the Trump-era environmental review, including inadequate consultation with Alaska Natives and a need to review how subsistence fishing and hunting would be affected.
Former Trump Bureau of Land Management leader William Perry Pendley, who authored the “Project 2025” language calling for approval of the road, said the project is part of a long list of mining-related activity that the Biden administration has stymied, much to the chagrin of lawmakers from mineral-rich states like Alaska.
“These projects are hugely important to the country, but their importance is magnified in the state of Alaska because so much of the state is owned by the federal government,” said Pendley. “A lot of these important deposits are involved in federal approval in one way or another, either [because] they’re on federal land or they have to have access to cross federal land, like Ambler Road.”
The proposed road has been the focus of divisive public meetings across Alaska in recent months following the BLM’s issuance of a supplemental environmental impact statement late last year. The BLM in its analysis laid out detailed information around the impacts of specific routes the road could take through remote and pristine swaths of Alaska, and cataloged the effects on subsistence hunting and fishing in dozens of communities.
In addition, the bureau did not rule out rejecting the project through a “no action” alternative. Should the agency make such a move, the BLM would not grant land-use authorizations, and the road could not be constructed or operated.
A spokesperson for the BLM confirmed the agency would make a decision during the second quarter of this year.
Alaska officials and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), the state-owned development bank that is developing the project, say the road would give mining companies access to large prospective copper and zinc deposits along the Brooks Range — materials they say are critical for both military and green energy applications.
The Ambler district, targeted for exploration since the 1950s, is home to one of the state’s major mineral belt. Mining companies have staked out more than 160,000 acres of mining claims in the region, according to federal data. One of those projects is the proposed open-pit copper and zinc mine, the product of a joint venture between Australian firm South32 and Canadian company Trilogy Metals.
Proponents are also touting support among Alaska Native communities living close to the proposed routes. Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy in a March 24 letter to the BLM urged the bureau to consider recent tribal resolutions backing Ambler Road before making any final decision, even though the comment period closed in late December. “The resolutions from these tribal communities are a clear indication of the importance of this project,” Dunleavy said in a statement. “Their inclusion in the final decision process by the BLM is not only appropriate but essential for a project of this magnitude.”
Yet critics cite the BLM’s own findings that the road, as proposed, would cut through pristine wilderness, harm fish and caribou that support Indigenous communities in Alaska, and likely accelerate the thawing of permafrost. The road would cross BLM-managed plots as well as National Park Service-managed land within the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Any assertions of mineral wealth and jobs, opponents say, are premature.
“It’s a road to speculation,” said Zeno with the Center for American Progress. “No mines exist, and no critical minerals exist there either.”
Political fireworks
The Biden administration’s final Ambler decision is bound to have ripple effects on Capitol Hill, with a top House Democrat facing off against a bipartisan Alaskan delegation pushing to get the project approved.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska in a statement blasted the Biden administration for claiming it wants to reduce reliance on China and accelerate adoption of mineral-dependent EVs, while also delaying domestic mineral projects like Ambler Road.
“It makes no sense,” Sullivan said. “Career Interior scientists and officials brought the Ambler Access Project to a robust record of decision during the Trump administration after ten years of permitting and review.” Sullivan said that progress came to a halt under Biden and the Interior Department, an agency he said is “led by political appointees who don’t feel bound by federal law.”
Added Sullivan: “It is a lawless administration that has targeted Alaska with 56 executive orders and actions since January 2021.”
Sullivan late last year joined Alaska’s Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in accusing the Interior Department of delaying the Ambler project, which they blamed on leadership changes at the agency. The lawmakers complained that the BLM was going beyond its original court request and instead taking on a broader review that could delay or even kill the proposed road.
Murkowski, Sullivan and Peltola also urged Interior to comply with timelines set out in court documents and issue a record of decision no later than the second quarter of 2024.
Sullivan said he believes Trump, should he be reelected, would support the project. “I hope to work with President Trump and his team to pick up where they left off, responsibly advancing American mining projects, like Ambler, prioritizing U.S. national and energy security, and releasing the Chinese Communist Party’s vise grip on global mineral supplies,” he said.
But Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, in a statement said the Ambler Road proposal would be an “irreparable blow to the people, wildlife, and sustainability of the Brooks Range, an area that is already suffering disproportionately from the worse impacts of the climate crisis.”
Grijalva said he’s optimistic the Biden administration will “honor their commitment to tribal consultation by selecting the No Action Alternative in support of the more than 60 Alaska Native tribes who depend on the area for their traditional way of life,” while acknowledging a future administration could change course.
“But even if the Biden administration makes the right decision, I’m afraid that a future administration with far less regard for tribal sovereignty, human health, and the sustainability of the planet would indeed put the interests of a few international mining companies over the American people and do everything they can to reverse it,” said Grijalva.
‘Chump change’ or jobs?
Deep divisions have emerged in communities along the Ambler Road’s potential path around the promise of jobs tied to the road and the looming threat to subsistence hunting and fishing.
The BLM’s own analysis found there would likely be damage to subsistence farming and fishing for 27 communities along the Kobuk River; Kotzebue Sound; and areas around the Koyukuk, Tanana and Yukon rivers in northwestern Alaska. The road, the BLM concluded, could reduce populations of harvestable fish and western Arctic caribou, a highly migratory resource for communities in western and northwestern Alaska.
Those fears were echoed at public BLM-led meetings last year, where Indigenous activists and community members warned that past industrial spills continue to scar inland Alaskan rivers, and increased traffic and pollution from the road could hurt caribou and salmon.
Danielle Stickman, speaking on behalf of the Wilderness Society at a Dec. 13 hearing in Anchorage, said families like hers eat caribou meat year-round. Stickman, of Dena’ina and Koyukon Athabascan descent, urged the BLM to select the “no action” alternative to block the road. “We cannot survive without caribou,” Stickman said. “The Western Arctic Caribou Herd provides food for the entire northwest region of Alaska and will forever be changed by Ambler Road.”
Others warned that tribes would see little benefit. “They will destroy our land, and we will be left with chump change from anything that’s taken from the mines on this road,” Clarence Wood Griepentrog said during a Dec. 6 hearing in Ambler, Alaska. “We will not be enriched from that road or any of the mines on it. We don’t even get shareholder hire preference.”
Yet state officials say tribal support for the road is growing, fueled by the promise of new jobs and economic opportunities.
Randy Rudero, AIDEA’s executive director, urged the BLM in a March 28 letter to consider recent resolutions from various tribes near the proposed route of Ambler Road in support of the project, even though the public comment period has closed.
“Our future generation needs to have opportunities to earn a good living and support our families, as well as, stay in the community and practice subsistence,” said Thelma Nicholia, chief of Hughes Village, in a statement alongside the resolution the tribe approved. “Supporting the Ambler Road is our way of steering towards a path of economic strength and job creation.”
And Miles Cleveland, president of the Native village of Ambler, wrote in a March 24 op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News that the region is currently inaccessible and the main employer in the region — the Red Dog zinc mine — will one day close and tribes need income to continue their subsistence way of life.
“The critical minerals in the Ambler region are in high demand in our own country and around the world,” wrote Cleveland. “My question to those opposed to the road is: If not Alaska, where?”
Rick Smith
5264 N. Fort Yuma Trail
Tucson, AZ 85750
Rick Smith
The Hill (Washington, DC)
Tuesday, April 16/2024 6:06 PM ET
Biden set to deny approval for mining company’s road through Alaskan wilderness
BY ZACK BUDRYK
The Biden administration will deny federal approval to a metallurgical mining company’s proposed industrial road through parts of northwestern Alaska, two sources familiar with the process confirmed to The Hill.
One of the sources, who asked to speak on background, confirmed that the official statement of “no action” from the Interior Department could come as soon as Wednesday.
The proposed project, the Ambler Access Project, would span more than 200 miles, including federally-owned land, meaning it requires the Interior Department’s signoff.
The road would be used exclusively by Ambler Metals to access the site of large copper deposits.
The outgoing Trump Interior Department approved the project in late 2020, but shortly after taking office, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland ordered a review of the approval process.
It is backed by the state’s two Republican senators, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as well as its congressional representative, Rep. Mary Peltola (D). However, it is vocally opposed by local tribal leaders, who have said it would pose a threat to local wildlife and fisheries that Native Alaskans rely on.
“The Ambler Road will pierce the heart of the hunting and fishing lands that our people have depended on for thousands of years,” the Tanana Chiefs Conference, which represents 42 tribal groups, said in a fact sheet opposing the project. “The road alone would cause harmful impacts along 125 miles and 200,000 acres of public lands managed by the State in trust for its people.”
A spokesperson for Ambler told The Hill that the company had not yet received direct confirmation of a denial. But the spokesperson was critical of any decision that would deny the construction.
“[I]f true, this decision ignores the support of local communities for this project, while denying jobs for Alaskans and critical revenues for a region where youth are being forced to leave because of a lack of opportunity,” the spokesperson said.
The decision comes as polling indicates many of the younger voters who helped secure President Biden’s victory in 2020 are wavering in 2024. While many younger voters indicate Biden’s handling of the ongoing conflict in Gaza is a major factor, those voters are also far more likely to name climate and the environment as a major priority.
Biden’s earlier approval of the massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska was a bitter disappointment to many environment-focused voters, and Haaland herself, who opposed the project while representing New Mexico in Congress, kept a notably low profile as the approval was announced.