Lawsuit targets Trump administration action opening 2.1 million acres in Alaska to development

Environmental plaintiffs say the administration’s decision to revoke decades-old protections for land around the trans-Alaska pipeline violates several laws

Sukakpuk Mountain and the trans-Alaska pipeline and Dalton Highway are seen on Aug. 6, 2008. The mountain is located along the northern end of the corridor that had been protected by public land orders dating to back to the 1970s. The orders were revoked by the Trump administration, clearing the way for the state to select lands and authorize development within the corridor. (Craig McCaa / U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

By Yereth Rosen

Alaska Beacon

Ten conservation groups have sued the Trump administration over its decision to remove decades-old protections from 2.1 million acres of federal land in Interior Alaska.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, targets the Department of the Interior’s action to overturn public land orders dating back to the early 1970s that protect a portion of the corridor around the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

The department’s decision, finalized on Feb. 25, allows the state government to take over the land and open it to development. Potential uses for the land include construction of the controversial Ambler Access Project, a proposed 211-mile road through the Brooks Range foothills to an isolated mining district in northwest Alaska, and a long-proposed pipeline megaproject that would ship natural gas from the North Slope.

The lawsuit alleges that the Department of the Interior violated several laws with its action by failing to hold any public hearings in affected communities, failing to provide justification for removing long-established protections from “iconic areas of northern Alaska” and other lapses.

The laws cited in the suit are the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.

The 2.1-million-acre corridor and the areas around it are “profoundly important to Alaska’s wildlife and people,” the lawsuit says. It supports 25 different species of fish, including salmon, and holds habitat for migratory birds, moose, caribou and a variety of other species, making it important to subsistence food harvesters and recreational visitors, the lawsuit says.

In a statement, the plaintiffs cited mining development as a particular threat to natural resources and the people who depend on them.

“The Trump administration conjured up flimsy and vacuous reasons about ‘putting America first’ to try to justify transferring public lands out of federal management to benefit billionaires,” said Bridget Psarianos, senior staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska, the nonprofit environmental law firm representing the plaintiffs.

“The Trump administration’s destructive obsession with giving away our public lands for the benefit of mining companies has forced us to go to court,” Matt Jackson, Alaska senior manager for The Wilderness Society, said in the statement.

The administration’s action poses special threats because the corridor now stripped of protection lies between Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the plaintiffs said.

Revoking protections that had been in place for half a century is “a blatant effort to avoid national environmental laws to allow construction of a road that will enrich foreign mining companies and harm wild lands, Alaska Native communities, and America’s conservation legacy,” Jim Adams, senior Alaska director of National Parks Conservation Association, said in the statement. “Ending these public land orders also exposes the entire eastern side of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve to state management practices along its border that devalue park wildlife and the needs of rural residents.”

The Department of the Interior declined to comment on the lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Promoting ‘Energy Dominance’ agenda

When he announced the action on Feb. 20, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said it will help achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of “unlocking opportunity for American Energy Dominance.”

“By opening these lands, we are empowering Alaska to chart its own course and develop energy, minerals and infrastructure that strengthen America’s security and prosperity,” Burgum said in a statement then.

At the time, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation hailed the decision as important to the state’s resource-extraction-based economy.

“Alaska has a right to produce, and Alaska has a right to benefit from our God-given resources,” U.S. Rep. Nick Begich. R-Alaska, said in a joint statement issued by the delegation.

But the Tanana Chief Conference, an organization of Interior Alaska tribes that is not part of the latest lawsuit, condemned the administration’s action.

The decision was made without necessary tribal consultation, and it could strip federal subsistence-harvesting protections from important food-gathering sites, TCC said in a statement.

“This decision opens the door to development that puts our lands, animals, waters, and subsistence resources at real risk,” TCC Chief and Chairman Brian Ridley said in the statement. “For our communities, these are not remote acres on a map. These are the places where our families hunt, fish, and gather to feed our people. Protecting these resources is critical to our food security, our culture, and our future.”

• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.