WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has voted to overturn the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan, covering millions of acres in central and northern Alaska.
The vote Thursday was 50-46, along party lines. The repeal resolution goes next to the president’s desk for his signature.
The Central Yukon plan was 12 years in the making, and all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation sponsored its repeal, saying it locks up too much.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said it was on track until the Biden administration got into office.
“Restrictions exploded in the final plan," she said on the Senate floor, "while opportunities for economic development were severely curtailed.”
Murkowski said it’s a misconception that repealing the document allows for the Ambler Road in northwest Alaska. It doesn’t, she said.
But when the resolution was debated in the U.S. House last month, Republican proponents of repeal said the plan stood in the way of the proposed 211-mile road and the development of mineral mines at the end of it.
Opinions in the region are mixed. Murkowski referred to comments from Doyon, the Alaska Native regional corporation, saying the plan would make it hard to develop its own lands for the benefit of Doyon shareholders.
Meanwhile, many subsistence users in the area feel the plan reflects their views, the perspectives of their tribes and many years of collective work.
Michael Stickman, a Nulato tribal representative, told KOTZ this summer that the plan protected a lot of acres that were important for subsistence activities and spawning salmon.
“We don't want mineral extraction or oil and gas development," he said this summer. "We want the natural renewable resources that's available to us from the land.”
Murkowski said she hoped the Bureau of Land Management would go back to the draft plan of 2020.
KOTZ reporter Desiree Hagen contributed to this report from Kotzebue.
