Last June, the Biden administration rejected the Ambler Road Project, a proposed 211-mile road that would branch west from the Dalton Highway to a mining district. But the Pentagon did not give the Army Corps of Engineers a directive to revoke the road’s permitting until five days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Now it appears that the permits – and the project – may not be dead, but in limbo.
Major development projects need dozens of environmental permits from multiple agencies to move forward. It's federal law. And for nearly a decade, permitting for the Ambler Road project has been a back-and-forth between presidential administrations.
Several tribes and conservation organizations say the road would cause irreparable harm to the land and subsistence resources. Mining companies and development supporters, including Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska’s congressional delegation, say the road is necessary to access a region that mining companies say could contain valuable deposits of copper, zinc, lead, silver and gold.
Delayed Action?
The first Trump administration greenlit the project. Then multiple lawsuits challenged it. After a lengthy review process, the Biden administration rejected part of the project in June 2024, which canceled the entire thing.
But it wasn’t until Jan. 15 that then-President Joe Biden’s Pentagon ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to kill one set of permits that are critical to the road megaproject — the 404 permits. 404 permitting is part of the Clean Water Act. When developers need to dredge or fill wetlands, they require 404 permits from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Ambler Road project has these permits to cover the entire length of the road corridor — which includes around 1,431 acres of wetlands, including a half-acre of open water. Corps spokesperson John Budnik confirmed in an email the timeline and the directive to revoke the 404 permits. And he confirmed that the permits instead remain suspended — not quite dead.
Rob Rosenfeld, a consultant for several tribes that oppose the project, believes the Corps dragged its feet and should have killed the 404 permitting after the Biden administration rejected the project in June. Rosenfeld said the Corps' inaction went against the wishes of 88 tribal governments that oppose the project.
“The intent for the tribes was to have that revoked,” he said. “Finally, in the 11th hour, on Jan. 15, the assistant secretary of the Army issued the order to revoke.”
Rosenfeld said it is uncommon for a commander or his staff to ignore orders issued by a superior officer.
“It was either done intentionally or accidentally,” said Rosenfeld. “The chain of command in the Department of Defense is something that is typically unbreakable. I don't know if I've ever heard of it.”
An uncertain future
On his first day in office, Trump ordered that the Biden administration’s decision on the road be thrown out and replaced with Trump's own pro-development decision. The 404 permitting remains in limbo.
Budnik shared an official statement from the Corps:
“With the change of administrations and the new Executive Order regarding this project, we are currently pending updated guidance and will have more information as soon as it is available,” it read.
Representatives of multiple pro-road interests, including the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state-backed economic development corporation, and three mining companies with stakes in the region, could not be reached for comment.
But the project still faces major obstacles. Alaska Native Corporations Doyon, Limited and Nana Regional Corporation, both landowners along the road’s route, have withdrawn their support of the project. According to Rosenfeld, permitting that was revoked under the Biden administration, like the National Historic Preservation Act Programmatic Agreement, would have to be rewritten, which could take at least a year.
“Nothing will happen quickly," said Rosenfeld. “I can say the collective we — the environmental organizations, the tribes and those Alaskans that don't want that road — are going to fight it in the courts.”
Bridget Psarianos is the senior staff attorney for Trustees of Alaska, an environmental law firm based in Anchorage. She said the Army Corps could still revoke the 404 permits, reinstate them or modify them.
In the meantime, though, Psarianos said the permitting is “sort of paused.”