www.AKRDC.org 3 DEAR RDC MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS: There is so much to be thankful for this year and for us at RDC, it’s YOU! As we begin a new year of challenges, we never waver from our mission of defending Alaska’s resource industry, it’s worth a moment to look back at 2023’s successes. As you see in the many pages to follow, we recently celebrated RDC’s 44th Annual Alaska’s Resources Conference with a theme of Alaska’s Resources: Leading the Way. This conference was a huge success, with one of our highest attendance rates yet. A very big thank you to all our attendees, sponsors and exhibitors for making this a true success! With nearly 60 speakers spread across two days of content, valuable updates and discussions were had as to where, how and why Alaska’s resources are leading the way to ensure a strong economic future for Alaska, our role in securing domestic energy security and independence, our mineral potential for supplying and supporting new energy technologies, and job creation our industries produce for Alaskans. It was an information-packed two days of industry and policy updates across our tourism, timber and forest products, oil and gas, and mining industries. This year’s conference also included a new event: a networking reception for emerging professionals with established professionals. Thank you to all our sponsors who made our inaugural young professional event a great success. We were pleased to once again support fundraising for two very important nonprofit organizations that make Alaska a better place to live: Alaska Resource Education (ARE) and Challenge Alaska. Congratulations to all of our raffle and centerpiece auction winners! If you missed it, mark your calendar for next year! Beyond what you read here, our website includes presentations from the event.If you have not done so, please take our conference survey to share feedback from your experience. And now, back to business … While the fun of conference continued in November, our federal regulatory and permitting challenges also continued. Thank you to everyone who commented on the ANWR lease cancellations and BLM’s SEIS for the ANWR leasing program last month. The battle continues despite Congress’s clear direction to allow oil and gas leases sales in the 1002 Area of ANWR. BLM issued a proposed rulemaking that threatens to restrict future development in the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPR-A) on Alaska’s North Slope.This rulemaking suggests BLM is merely implementing current land management practices; however, it proposes new provisions for managing special use designated areas in a way that creates a presumption against permitting future development. The public comment period for this action ended Dec. 7, and we’ll await a decision soon. Roadblocks continue also for the Ambler Access Project. BLM released its draft Supplemental EIS for the Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Project, theproposed 211-mile industrial access road to the state of Alaska’s Ambler Mining District. Despite this access being guaranteed in federal law, the permitting process is still underway eight years after the application was first submitted. It’s time to move forward on this project and grant access that was promised by Congress in 1980. Your commitment to supporting these projects through testimony is critical, and the reason we will always alert you to public comment opportunities. Your voices matter. In your hands you’re holding the first issue of the new Alaska Resource Review magazine. We have published a newsletter since 1975, and this is a new bigger, redesigned version, now with national circulation. A digital version will also be available on our website, for you to share via social media and email. We’ve teamed with Fireweed Strategies here in Anchorage, who has great expertise in publishing magazines like ours. We are looking for guest contributors, so if you have a topic of interest you would like to submit, please let me know! There are also advertising opportunities … we hope you’ll support what we’re doing! Our breakfast forum series for 2024 has begun. Please join us all year for these critical updates to what is happening in our state. After many years in our current location, RDC is moving offices! Our new address: 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 406 Anchorage, AK 99503 Our telephone numbers will remain the same. Stop in and say hi if you’re in town! And now, we’re off for another busy, challenging, always interesting year. Thank you for all you do for Alaska! THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING RDC’S MISSION “There is so much to be thankful for this year and for us at RDC. And now, we’re off for another busy, challenging, always interesting year. Thank you for all you do for Alaska!” — Leila Kimbrell, Executive Director, RDC VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 1 | WINTER 2024
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