Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has revoked a Trump-era decision that would have opened millions of acres of federal land in Alaska to energy development and mining.
Haaland signed a record of decision, released Tuesday, formally nixing five public land orders issued in the closing weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency that would have lifted a mining and drilling ban on 28 million acres that was in place more than five decades.
The Interior secretary also signed a public land order that revokes the five “improperly issued” orders signed by then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. Haaland’s public land order takes effect Thursday, when it’s formally published in the Federal Register.
Haaland’s decision resolves one of the most contentious public land management issues facing the Bureau of Land Management during the Biden administration.
The issue is rooted in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which included a mineral withdrawal protecting 28 million acres from new mining claims and oil and gas development. The five Trump-era public land orders removed the decades-old mineral withdrawal, opening up to development a vast area of the state that includes portions of the Bay, Bering Sea-Western Interior, East Alaska, Kobuk-Seward Peninsula, and Ring of Fire planning areas.
Haaland’s decision was sharply criticized by Alaska’s Republican senators.
“With this record of decision, the Biden-Harris administration has indefinitely restricted from selection more than 98 percent of the lands that Alaskans have been promised they would receive for decades — locking up more than 28 million acres,” Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a statement. “This harms our jobs and economy, and our Alaska Native communities, who will be denied access to gravel resources to build out local village infrastructure.”
Joseph Plesha, communications director for Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, blasted Haaland’s decision, attributing it to “election year politics.”
But it drew broad praise from both conservation and Alaska Native tribal groups.
“This is a big deal for the communities and wildlife who call Alaska home,” said Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club’s Conservation Campaign. “These lands and waters are unparalleled not only for their natural beauty, but for the habitat they provide imperiled wildlife, and the recreation opportunities they offer us. These 28 million acres are some of the last truly intact wildlands in the United States.”
BLM recommended Haaland revoke Bernhardt’s decision in June, after more than two years of evaluation into what it called numerous legal and policy “deficiencies” in the Bernhardt public land orders.
Haaland had the option to approve or reject, in full or in part, the five public land orders. She indicated at the time that she would revoke the orders and keep the energy and mining withdrawals in place.
Haaland wrote in the record of decision, signed Aug. 23, that removing the protections “would result in a range of resource and infrastructure development (e.g., mining activities) with associated environmental impacts.”
Thus, she wrote, “I find that there is a public interest in protecting these important resource values, and that retention of the withdrawals is therefore necessary to protect the public interest. I find that the public interest in protecting these resource values outweighs other interests in opening the lands to conveyance and development.”
That outcome had been expected ever since the Interior Department in April 2021 deferred opening the areas covered in the public land orders until at least this month while it evaluated deficiencies in them — including the fact that only one of the orders was published, as required, in the Federal Register.
Interior said Haaland’s decision is a “response to the previous administration’s unlawful decision” to remove the protections “without sufficient analysis of the potential impacts of such a decision on subsistence and other important resources,” including the lack of “appropriate Tribal consultation.”
The Biden BLM reached out to all 227 Alaska Native tribes in the planning area, as well as Alaska Native corporations and the Alaska State Historic Preservation Office.
“Tribal consultation must be treated as a requirement — not an option — when the federal government is making decisions that could irrevocably affect Tribal communities,” Haaland said in a statement Tuesday.
The Trump BLM also did not comply with the Endangered Species Act because it failed to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service over potential impacts to federally protected species; BLM completed informal consultation with FWS in March, the bureau said.
“Continuing these essential protections, which have been in place for decades, will ensure continued access and use of these public lands now and in the future,” Haaland said in her statement.
That conclusion is strongly supported by Alaska Native tribes that have expressed concerns about potential mining and oil and gas development impacting their subsistence way of life.
“Secretary Haaland’s decision today is an important step toward a future full of healthy lands, waters, and people who thrive on wild salmon, waterfowl, other migratory animals, and seasonal plant life,” said Anaan’arar Sophie Swope, executive director of the Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition, which formed primarily to support tribes fighting the proposed Donlin Gold mine in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
BLM said in June that no plans for development had been submitted at that time for any of the lands at issue.
