Biden doubles down on war against economic development in Alaska

By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden administration announced two steps on Friday to crack down on oil, gas and mining in Alaska.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) announced that it is advancing a plan to keep 28 million acres of Alaska under protections from oil and gas development and also is cementing its decision to block the Ambler Road project in the state. Both decisions continue a trend whereby the Biden administration cracks down on mining, oil and gas in Alaska, a state that has immense deposits of these natural resources.

“The Department of the Interior takes seriously our obligations to manage America’s public lands for the benefit of all people. In Alaska, that includes ensuring that we consider the impacts of proposed actions on Alaska Native and rural subsistence users,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said of her agency’s actions. “Guided by feedback from Tribal Nations, Native Corporations and the best-available science, the steps we are taking today ensure these important areas remain intact for generations to come.”

The Ambler Road project would see a 211-mile long road built in Northern Alaska in service of a massive mining project in a remote region of the state, according to DOI. The road project is considered to be an essential first step for the mine’s eventual operation, according to The New York Times.

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The deposits of copper and other minerals that developers sought to extract with the help of the Ambler Road are thought to possibly be worth billions of dollars, according to the NYT. The move to kill the road may undermine President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda, as copper can be used to build products like wind turbines, transmission lines and photovoltaic cells.

Friday’s actions are the latest by the Biden administration to crack down on productive extraction of natural resources in the state, which has been subject to more than 50 executive actions from the Biden administration, according to the office of Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. It took the Arctic Ocean off the table for new oil and gas leasing and designating more than half of the 23 million acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska as “special areas” where future oil development will be limited or blocked altogether, according to DOI.

DOI did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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