Biden administration blocks Ambler Road, strengthens protections for NPR-A
The U.S. Interior Department on Friday essentially rejected the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s proposal to build the Ambler Road, a 211-mile industrial road that would have cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve to access copper and zinc deposits in Northwest Alaska.
The Interior’s Bureau of Land Management chose a “no action” option in its environmental analysis, effectively ensuring AIDEA would not receive a right-of-way to build the road across federal lands. The Biden administration said the road, also known as the Ambler Access Project, would cause irreparable damage to wildlife including caribou, which many local people rely on for food.
The administration also announced stronger protections for 13 million acres inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a vast swath of oil-rich — but environmentally sensitive — federal land in the Arctic.
Both Alaska senators, Republicans Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski expressed outrage even before the decisions were formally announced. They said the decisions hamper the state’s economy and domestic resource development.
“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska. When you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore,” said Murkowski in a press conference on Thursday. “This is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about.”
Environmentalists and some Indigenous rights groups meanwhile, applauded the decisions.
“The regulations announced today will benefit the Western Arctic’s wildlife and subsistence resources and the Indigenous communities that depend on them, as well as provide greater resilience against climate change,” said Meda DeWitt, the Wilderness Society’s interim state director. “This rule is good news for everyone who cares about America’s public lands.”
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Geologists defend mining within Whitehorse city limits, CBC News
Norway: Norway’s oil minister: “We need new discoveries”, The Independent Barents Observer
Russia: No foreign companions as Gazprom prepares well drilling in Arctic waters, The Independent Barents Observer
United States: US to reject access road to northern Alaska mining district, Politico reports, Reuters
