The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has suspended access to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District. As warned of in February, the Biden Administration on March 11 notified the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the project’s developer, that it won’t allow miners to use 25 miles of a right-of-way that has been used for more than 50 years by Alaskans. The short stretch over federal land would allow a 211-mile road to be connected to the state mining area from the rest of the highway system.
The Biden Administration said there were “significant deficiencies” in a Trump Administration environmental review.
The move was not a surprise, since the Biden Administration had previously pulled in the decision to allow the road, saying it wanted to review it.
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy issued a statement:
“In February, the Department of Interior reopened an environmental impact statement for the Ambler Access Project that had undergone seven years of robust federal review and made a request to suspend the Ambler road right-of-way. Today, the Biden Administration suspended that right-of-way, saying subsistence and consultation with Alaska Natives wasn’t considered enough, despite 18 hearings in rural communities and 29,000 written comments received overall, and 50 pages of mitigation measures focused on preventing disruption to subsistence and protection of cultural resources.
“This suspension is another hasty move on the part of the Biden Administration. They sprint toward green energy, while shackling traditional oil and gas development on the way, and don’t consider the need to secure mineral supply chains for all those electric car batteries they want by 2030 and the half a million charging stations. It makes no sense. The Biden Administration blocks the development of a road to a mining district with the cobalt for the lithium batteries and the copper for the wires for charging stations. By suspending the right-of-way for the Ambler Road project, the Biden Administration ignores the gallium and germanium there that will be needed for the solar panels, smartphones, and computer chips of tomorrow.
“Mr. President will you brush this off as you did your curtailment on domestic oil production as you turn to Iran and Venezuela for more oil? Shall we continue to import cobalt from Congo for all your green energy plans? President Biden you would think that you would want to improve access to American sources of copper and other strategic minerals to increase renewables, not stop it.
“Once again, your energy policies don’t make sense.”
Again, now is the time for the Dunleavy administration to work with other Alaska stakeholders, especially sovereign tribal governments, to attack the Biden administration’s lack of evidentiary support for its findings.
The Citizens Advisory Commission on Federal Areas (CACFA) and the Alaska State Lands Advisory Group (ASLAG) recommendations are the prime focus of and foundation for this attack.
These opportunities will pass without leadership. We need leadership to move forward to become the natural resource development community we have always been destined to become.
So sick of these leftists..they don’t make sense and govern by virtue signal while lurching from one panic fuelled disaster to another. Mine Pebble and build Ambler.
This admin is stifling free market competition and is purposefully driving prices up for everything. Corporate greed and monopolistic intention is at the heart of the Biden presidency.
There is nothing free market-ish about the state and the feds spending $ to study and permit and absorb the damages of the Ambler road and the mines. It’s not a lemonade stand.
Nice words Mike, however; they’ll fall on the deaf, dumb and blind that run this Administration. Sleepy Joe won’t be given the sheet of paper your words are printed on. Time to consider some bold action that will open the eyes of this nation to the perils this Regime has brought forth by taking our Energy Independence from us. The American people and we Alaskans have had enough of this crazy BS, so it’s high time we start doing something about it …
Like what Jeff? Guns?
There are some creative folks out there that know what I’m talking about. Not violence advocating mind you but national attention grabbers with different approaches … What’s Alaska all about anyways? We’re about independence and a frontier way of life. The Lower 48 looks at us as a “Gateway to Nature” … so to speak. What if we (All Alaskans) were to impose a “nature tax” on tourists who are visiting? Or at least the idea of doing it. Or impose a “penalty” on the Federal Government for impeding Alaskans’ right to earn a living. That would start the ball rolling for conversations … I’m just trying to get some traction for something would shed light on what this Administration is doing to thwart our right to Energy Independence …
“The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has suspended access to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District. As warned of in February, the Biden Administration on March 11 notified the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the project’s developer, that it won’t allow miners to use 25 miles of a right-of-way that has been used for more than 50 years by Alaskans.”
Seems to me that if they didn’t care to stop it for 25 years, then they shouldn’t care now. How would New Yorkers like it if Biden suddenly decided they couldn’t use one of their roads?
““Once again, your energy policies don’t make sense.””
No, his policies make no sense at all. We have no infrastructure for green energy and he has no plans for it, either. He claims he wants to save us from climate change while stopping us from being able to build what we need for that change.
It truly seems as if he end game is to kill, hurt and destroy Americans and the USA. Surely there is *some* procedure we could use to get this guy gone before he accomplishes this!
Over several years I’ve gleaned hints of the far left agenda. Clean renewable energy, global warming, equity and socialism are buzz words for redistribution of wealth from the right to the left. The left is well organized, the all acting as one, because they realize that they’re outnumbered, and it has to be a group effort for them to win. They’re all aiming to become the top of the food chain.
The right has too many factions working against each other. They’re smug, arrogant, and unwilling to pull together. The right doesn’t see the left turning America into a full blown communist nation. They believe that America is too big to fail.
One of America’s founding fathers told a reporter that we have a Republic … if we can keep it. Trump admires Putin, and Biden is letting Putin have his way in the Ukraine. Our republic is failing fast. Teachers unions have gone communist. Colleges have gone communist. News media has gone communist. Whole states have gone communist. The whole Democrat party has gone communist. The upcoming Mid-term elections may be our last chance, our very last chance.
When California was burning from one end of the State to the other I used to think God was mad at California but now with the Biden crime family in charge in Washington as well as recent inaction by our congressional delegation and the day by day foolishness displayed by our State legislature and the Anchorage Assembly…I have been feeling like God has turned over the management of Alaska to Satan…
Weird to claim there is a Biden crime family after the corrupt years of the obvious and provable crimes of Trump, his family and appointed toadies.
Here’s a thought: How ’bout Biden gives us all the land we should have received at Statehood or shortly thereafter and get his federal butt out of our business?
Awesome! Best thing Biden has done since he shut down the keystone pipeline
Love your sarcasm. Both were poor decisions, counter productive to lowering carbon emissions, pollution footprint and development of green energy.
Oil that the Keystone Pipeline would bring in, is the same oil that was coming in by truck, rail and shipping. It’s the same oil that continues to come in without the pipeline, it’s the same carbon emissions and destructive pollution footprint from trucking, rail and ship that will now continue without the pipeline. Shutting down the Keystone Pipeline accomplished nothing but guarantee continued risky and pollutive transportation logistics. It was a moronic move that only benefits those who continue contracts to transport the oil as they always have.
Biden and his administration are clearly idiots with zero economic knowledge. At their current rate of economic destruction Alaska suburbs will experience food shortages by July and along with that gas rationing, as a whole nationwide we will go into winter with strategic reserves depleted. Reopening of gas/oil he already closed will take at least a year minimum under the most favorable conditions and with current directors in place it will not happen in our lifetimes. Biden and his administration have us headed warp speed into an economic abyss the likes of what the world has never seen before. If you are reading this, seek god and prepare.
We conservatives earn this pushback by being timid! Yes, Dunleavy constantly takes on Biden. Bid deal. That is very safe for him in this state that went for Trump and would be even stronger for Trump if we had another chance. But did Dunleavy lead us into pushing back against Haaland, selected because she is part Native American? No, we were timid – all of us. Dunleavy could have rallied Nana, ASRC, RDC, the State Chamber, AGC and others, but he sat on his thumb so we all did. Do we push back when Biden selects a black fellow to be his head military man? No, we’re afraid of that even though we know the fellow would not have been the choice had he been white: We Know That! So we earned this pushback. We enable the Biden administration. Haaland may not know anything about her department but right below here are environmental extremists who work on the Biden campaign and are now the communication link between Biden and Harris, and the greens. Fight a war half-way and you will always lose. Tie one hand behind your own back so you can be politically correct to the Left and we conservatives will always lose; your constituents. Alaska loses from your weakness. You have to get off the porch yourself and point out Biden’s porch monkeys, or you need to get out of the way. This weakness on our part has consequences. Big money is being invested in Ambler by some of the biggest mineral players in the world. Dunleavy’s fence-straddling could easily cost Alaska for a generation.
Should come as no surprise that an America-hater does his/its best to strengthen China’s near-monoply on the things that keep our microchip economy from crashing.
When we got our statehood there was an agreement about letting Alaska use the mineral and oil in our state.
Time to pass a State law pertaining to unconstitutional overreach from the feds. Open the road and arrest any Feds that try to close it. I am severely disappointed in our milktost Governor and the LAME legislatures in our state. The next thing you know they will say we don’t have the right to navigate streams…….
Looks like if the road took a southern route it could bypass Fed land, sure it would add some miles and some cost but imagine not having to bear the burden of Federal permitting. Just build the Fed bypass road and if the Feds say we can’t they can file a lawsuit in State Court. Let’s make it happen.
Your assessment is simplistic.
Thanks, the acronym KISS is lost upon many…usually those who fit in the contingent that the last S in the acronym represents. Those who would try and make this a complex issue are unnecessarily doing so. I know it’s simplistic, but usually those who try and make simple problems complex are pushing an agenda or have something to gain from introducing unneeded complexity.
Perhaps Putin will find a way to exploit our great mineral resources when he takes back Alaska, which we can be sure is on his list. We are the only other place in the world that has so many mineral resources, including rare earth minerals that keep us captive to China in manufacturing. And I believe that there is a law that established historical trails can be improved without permission from the feds. Grow some, gov. You don’t have to take a beating lying down. This administration is on its way out.
Biden’s minions, the ones that really control him, want us hampered, especially access to our own state resources.
Biden, Lisa Murkowski, Don Young all despise us and work very hard to ensure our demise.
Since we have been using this right of way for 50 years, is it really a “right of way”? Isn’t it now, by Alaska standards of use, State property and no longer under federal control? Eminent domain? Uncle Sam lost this property to the state of alaska….
Big Mike, makes perfect sense if you are a toady to China which currently has the rare earth market cornered.
Oh, did you forget that the Chi-Coms gave Hunter a Billion to play with? I think this is what being bought looks like…
The State of Alaska should just build a railroad to Ambler, on to Red Dog and ultimately to Kotzebue, Nome, and Bethel. it would open up the whole state for living, tourism, mining, and development. Without a railroad, we will always be a colony.
The rail makes the most sense. Less initial cost, far less maintenance and much more tonnage moved for the dollar. Consumer goods go out for a very reasonable cost and harvested resources come back. Locals will have no road traffic to compete for their game. Build it and beg forgiveness (or, not) but build it. God hates a coward.
Good job Lisa ruin Alaskans livelihoods.
Overstatement makes you sound like an angry 7 year old.
‘Bout time to send out the Green Mountain Boys to open the road, and keep it open. Cheer, cheer, the green mountaineers.
Build it anyway. Make Biden send the military to stop us.
Exactly. Pointless asking permission, unless you want federal dollars to pay for it.
Alaskans will defend Biden’s rule. No Ambler road!
Alaska, a resource development State, this is but another devastating setback (one of many from this administration) that will accomplish nothing but continued unemployment and economic degradation. Viewed from a MACRO level, it is becoming ever clearer, exactly whom “The Enemy Within” is and, those within my circles are in complete agreement that it’s clearly the Democratic Party!
Green new deal is an emerald city, and both dreams are green. Those supporting a green new deal are believing a lie that’ll ruin america. The rest of the world has increased its coal, oil, gas, and precious minerals production. So it appears the only residents of the emerald city would be americans. The only good that can come of americas green new deal seems to appear the richest 10 percent would benefit from their scheme.
Everybody gets a Prius ad a trailer house in Utopia. The Great Reset/Build Back Better.
Dunleavy needs to talk to the corrupt, career politician that is Joe Biden in the language he understands – cash! Grease a few palms and make sure at least 10% goes to “the big guy”. It worked wonders in the Ukraine for Burisma.
Simply solution, ignore the Biden Communist Government and build the flipping road. Force the Biden Crime Family to send in the BLM (to be clear, Bureau of Land Management) armed forces and stop the construction. It’s far past time for all States to tell the “Left Wing, Woke, Environmentists, and Globalists, to kiss the dark side of the pipelines.
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