The Canning River, seen here in 2018, flows from the Brooks Range into the Beaufort Sea along the western edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Gov. Mike Dunleavy is urging President-elect Donald Trump to use his executive powers to lift environmental restrictions on oil development in the refuge coastal plain. (Photo by Lisa Hupp/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking President-elect Donald Trump to immediately reverse the Biden administration’s Alaska environmental and tribal lands policies, claiming those policies hurt the state’s economy.
“Your election will hail in a new era of optimism and opportunity, and Alaska stands ready to and is eager to work with you to repair this damage wrought by the previous administration, and to set both Alaska and America on a course to prosperity,” Dunleavy said in a cover letter sent on Nov. 15, along with a 27-page document detailing his desired Alaska policy changes, which was publicly released on Monday.
Dunleavy’s policy document said that Trump, as soon as he returns to the White House, should issue an Alaska-focused executive order that removes restrictions on oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve. In addition, the document urged Trump to reinstate federal support for a controversial road stretching more than 200 miles through the Brook Range foothills to the isolated Ambler mining district and reverse the ban on new roads in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, among other policy changes.
“It is essential that the Alaska-specific Executive Order be issued as soon as President Trump takes office. The Biden Administration’s assault on Alaska was carried out through a multitude of official agency actions; reversal of these actions must comply with time-consuming administrative procedures,” said Dunleavy’s policy document, titled “Alaska priorities for federal transition.”
Additionally, Dunleavy wants Trump to create a cabinet-level task force and six new oversight positions to make sure that various federal agencies adhere to the pro-resource-extraction policy mandates. The newly hired officials would oversee the Department of the Interior, Department of the Army, Department of Commerce, Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and Budget.
In his cover letter, Dunleavy accuses the Biden administration of “destroying economic opportunity” in Alaska.
However, Alaska’s economy grew during Biden’s term and shrank during the first Trump term, as measured by gross domestic product. It grew at an annual rate of 3.3%, adjusted for the federal inflation rate, in the first three and a half years of Biden’s presidency. It shrank by an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 1.8% in the four years of Trump’s first term, according to statistics from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s communications director, said Biden’s presidency harmed Alaska, nonetheless. “The dozens of sanctions it has placed on Alaska are strangling future economic growth and denying the state the ability to support itself with revenue and jobs created by developing our natural resources,” Turner said by email.
Dunleavy’s transition plan was sent to the Trump team a month ago, along with the cover letter, Turner said.
A representative of one environmental group vowed to fight against Dunleavy’s priorities for the new Trump administration.
“We’re definitely going to be providing pushback to the wish list,” said Matt Jackson, Alaska state senior manager for The Wilderness Society.
The actions that Dunleavy wants Trump to take may not be legal, Jackson said.
“Legality is not necessarily a top priority for either of these leaders. We may be seeing more and more illegal rollbacks, law be damned,” Jackson said. “We’re prepared.”
In at least two cases, the Biden administration has taken action on items that Dunleavy lists as Alaska priorities.
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.
Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.
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Publish date : 2024-12-18 12:47:00
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