THE LINK: JULY 2024 10 Restrictions put on NPR-A, Ambler, public lands April 19 was not a good day for Alaska. The U.S. Department of the Interior acted to finalize restrictive new rules for the National Petroleum Reserve– Alaska in northern Alaska and ended, for now, a planned 211-mile industrial road to a remote area of Northwest Alaska where promising mineral discoveries are being explored. That same day the department issued new public land orders restricting the use of federal lands. This was too much for Alaska’s U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. The senator said she may now seek cuts to the Department of the Interior’s budget, unless the department starts following federal laws on resource development in Alaska. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland appeared May 8 at a hearing held by the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, where Murkowski is Ranking Member, to testify about the Biden administration’s budget request for the Interior department for federal Fiscal Year 2025. In the hearing Murkowski cited Haaland’s decisions to close off 13 million acres of in the National Petroleum Reserve without consultation with Alaska Natives and tribal entities; to reject the Ambler Access Project, which is guaranteed by federal law; and to issue a major federal land plan that closes millions more federal acres in Alaska while ignoring directives of a law Murkowski wrote to lift federal Public Land Orders. “I see a department ignoring the law with regard to Ambler, our petroleum reserve, our land management plans, our Coastal Plain, and the prioritization of conservation above all else,” Murkowski said. “Had the Interior department consulted with Alaska Natives on the North Slope before finalizing the NPR-A rule, “you would have learned they don’t want Interior to ‘protect’ them from the economic development that has done more to increase their life expectancies than anything else.” “Why are we treated like one big National Park and Wildlife Refuge, instead of a state that has balanced the need for development and the desire for conservation?” Murkowski said. If Interior is going to use its funding to make these types of decisions, “then we need to find ways to cut your budget, until the Department gets the point, and returns to following the law,” the senator said. The NPR-A rule decision was expected. Drafts of the proposed rule had been circulating for months. But the way the decision was made on the proposed Ambler road was a surprise. The Interior department recommended “no action” on the SupFeds hammer down on Alaska’s resources Photo Courtesy Santos Ltd.
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