The U.S. House voted 215-210 Wednesday to repeal a land-use plan covering 13 million acres in Alaska, mostly in the Interior and the Dalton Highway corridor.
Republican proponents say nullifying the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan will help advance two major Alaska developments: mining in the Ambler area and the Alaska LNG project.
"We're taking strong, decisive action to remove barriers that prevent us from accessing our own energy and minerals,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.
Westerman, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the repeal is “the first step in allowing Alaska to acquire these lands outright” to create long-term certainty for project development.
Alaska Congressman Nick Begich, who sponsored the repeal resolution, argued on the House floor that the Biden administration didn’t listen to Alaskans when it crafted the Central Yukon plan
“And the people that I’ve spoken with, the land owners, the Alaskan Natives, who were not consulted by the previous administration in the development and approval of this resource management plan, they have asked, they have stepped forward and said, ‘we need to remove this plan.,’” he asserted.
Begich said the plan locks up Alaska resources. He didn’t specify which Alaska Natives or organizations he spoke to, but Westerman read a letter from Doyon, the regional Alaska Native corporation for the Interior, calling on Congress to abolish the plan.
In Nulato, along the Yukon River, tribal representative Michael Stickman said he doesn’t understand why Begich claims Alaskans weren’t consulted. Stickman said he worked on the plan, as did a large number of tribes. As he sees it, the plan protects subsistence resources but also allows mineral and petroleum extraction.
“Sure, we locked up a lot of areas for potential production of these things,” Stickman said. “But those areas that we closed over, those are primary subsistence activities areas… or spawning grounds for salmon.”
Subsistence users in the region are wary about about conveying land to the state of Alaska. On federal land, rural residents have a priority for subsistence hunting and fishing. On state land they don’t. And, they say, the Ambler road would bring urban hunters to the region, putting more pressure on caribou herds and other wildlife important to subsistence.
The resolution still has to pass the Senate and be signed by the president to take effect. Senate passage is likely, since both of Alaska’s U.S. senators are sponsors.
