WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, reverting to a decision during the prior Trump presidency, is again advancing the Ambler Road project in Northwest Alaska, to spur mining.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday reissued right-of-way permits for the 211-mile road, going to an area believed to be rich in critical minerals.
“Ambler road will help secure domestic supply chains,” Burgum said. “It's going to provide, eventually, thousands of great paying jobs, and it's going to strengthen our energy independence.”
About 20 miles of the road would cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. That’s just one of the reasons it’s controversial. Dozens of tribes and communities in the region oppose the road, saying it will harm subsistence resources. Some opponents worry that linking the area to the Dalton Highway will draw urban hunters to a region not now accessible by road.
The Biden administration rejected the road last year, in large part because of its impact on subsistence users.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the permit reinstatement fulfills the promise of a law Congress passed in 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
“This was the commitment,” she said. “This was the exchange, if you will: for areas that we put in an area of conservation status, in recognition that we would need things like transportation corridors, that we would need areas for exploration and development.”
Conservation groups and tribal leaders are vowing that the fight is not over. They filed a lawsuit after the first Trump administration approved the road, which forced more environmental studies.
April Monroe, Native land manager at Tanana Chiefs Conference, said the studies show the project would devastate fish, caribou and other wildlife. She doesn’t think the Trump administration’s enthusiasm can overcome opposition in the region,
“And the reality is, I am absolutely convinced that these tribes will go up against the Trump administration and win again,” she said.
The federal government is also transferring ownership of nearly 24,000 acres of federal land to the state of Alaska. The land is near the western end of the proposed road and putting it in the state’s hands is intended to make development easier.
Burgum made three major — although entirely expected — Alaska announcements at the Interior Department headquarters in Washington, D.C.
He also said that the government will offer the whole coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil leasing. And he a land swap to allow a road for the Southwest community of King Cove.
KOTZ reporter Desiree Hagen contributed to this story from Kotzebue.
