Dunleavy wants quick action by Trump to revoke Biden’s Alaska environmental policies • Alaska Beacon

Teshekpuk Caribou Herd animals graze in June of 2014 in the northeastern part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is urging President-elect Donald Trump to reverse Biden administration policies aimed at protecting caribou habitat and other resources in the reserve. (Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management)

Dunleavy asked the Trump team to schedule a second Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lease sale, to follow the 2021 sale that failed to result in any exploration. The Biden administration has scheduled that lease sale for Jan. 9, though with restrictions that Dunleavy and other Alaska politicians oppose.

 Dunleavy also asked the incoming administration to resurrect a controversial land trade proposal that would allow a road to be built in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge; the Biden administration has already done that, recommending a trade in a supplemental environmental impact statement released a month ago. Public comments are now being solicited on that land trade plan.

Land into trust

Beyond removing limits on resource extraction in federal lands, Dunleavy wants the new Trump administration to abandon the current Interior policy in favor of putting some lands into trust for the benefit of Native tribes.  

The issue has been a subject of dispute for several years. Advocates for putting land into trust say it is important to tribal sovereignty, but the idea has drawn opposition from the state. Tribes argue that they are entitled to control of some land, while the state has argued that the 1971 Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act put an end to such land transfers by giving lands and subsurface mineral rights to for-profit Native corporations rather than to tribes.

The Biden administration and the Obama administration before it supported the tribes’ trust lands aspiration, while the Republican administration, both under Trump’s previous term and under that of George W. Bush, opposed them.

The latest dispute over land-in-trust concerns a parcel in downtown Juneau that the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes is seeking to be put into trust status. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in June that Interior does have the right to grant trust status for land parcels, though she said the process used by Tlingit and Haida had flaws and that the application should be resubmitted. The state appealed that ruling.

The Biden administration’s position favoring land-in-trust designations is dangerous to the state’s interest, Dunleavy said in his transition report. Because of that, “there is a risk that for the first time Alaska will have casino gambling thrust upon it by the federal government,” it said.

An attorney representing the tribes criticized Dunleavy’s proposal for an end to federal support for Alaska lands-in-trust transactions.

“We were disappointed to see Governor Dunleavy’s requests to the incoming Administration.  Alaska Tribes should be treated the same as all other federally recognized Tribes, full stop,” attorney Erin Dougherty Lynch, managing attorney at the Native American Rights Fund’s Alaska office, said by email.

“This issue has been the subject of decades of litigation, including pending litigation that the Governor initiated.  Alaskans would be better served if the Governor chose to work cooperatively with Tribal governments to protect our collective health, safety, and welfare. Other states have successfully navigated these issues and have built strong relationships with Tribal governments.  Alaska should do the same,” Dougherty Lynch said.

Dunleavy, though an ardent Trump supporter, has not been selected for any position in the new administration. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was Trump’s pick to head the Department of the Interior.