Message from DNR Commissioner Corri A. Feige Turning the tide on public lands
T hose in the minerals indus- try understand how import- ant a healthy mining sector is to our state’s current and future prosperity — something I stress to my colleagues and the general public as often as I can. Alaska became a state in 1959 based on the promise that we could support ourselves by developing our natural resources. Mining has long been a foundation of our economy, both before and after the federal government ceded 103 million acres to us at statehood. Mining provides jobs for residents and revenue to the state, supports infrastructure development, and undergirds a diverse economy. Things have been different on lands left in federal hands. Our first decades of statehood saw extended political and legal battles over balancing conservation with resource development on such land. The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) provided 44 million acres and $1 billion to Alas- ka Natives to settle aboriginal land claims, and the 1980 Alaska Nation- al Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) retained 157 million acres in national parks, preserves, mon- uments and forests. ANILCA was meant to be the final word on federal conservation in Alaska, leaving the remaining federal land available for multiple uses, including the respon- sible mineral development so im- portant to our state and nation. However, a lingering artifact of ANILCA has continued to tie up millions of acres of public land in Alaska. ANILCA authorized the Sec- retary of Interior to issue Public Land Orders (PLOs) temporarily restricting land from being conveyed to the state — or Alaska Native veterans of the Vietnam era — while the Department of the Interior studied these lands in order to resolve land management issues. Many of these PLOs have never been lifted, keeping land, and the State’s ability to take title to it, locked in limbo. Though the State has push for decades, the federal government has lifted these PLOs only at a glacial pace, subject to extensive, repeated,
his continuing effort to push back against federal policies and actions that are incredibly damaging to Alaska’s interests, including sus- pending oil and gas leasing in Outer Continental Shelf waters, interfering with the legitimately sold oil and gas exploration leases in the 1002 Area of the North Slope, delaying on-going oil and gas activity in the Nation- al Petroleum Reserve-Alaska , and reversing the hard-won exemption of the Tongass National Forest from the one-size-fits-all Roadless Rule. In his “Unlocking Alaska” initiative, the governor also recently announced he is asserting the state’s clear legal ownership of submerged lands, and management authority over the as- sociated navigable waters. The governor’s resistance to federal overreach has significant implications for Alaska’s mining industry. While long-established federal law makes clear the right of private citizens to invest time, money, and effort to bring the nation’s resources to market, op- ponents of development are exploiting the shifting winds of political fortune to create endless delay that functional- ly denies this opportunity. You as miners know that many of these 28 million acres will not see any immediate activity, and that the claims of activists that these lands are being “given away” for headlong oil, gas, and mining development have no basis. But you also know that 100,000 acres of claims in the right location could open the door for generations of prosperity to come, and provide the minerals and re- sources that allow modern society to function. I am both hopeful and confi - dent that the Governor’s action and lawsuit resisting the federal delays to finally lifting these PLOs will begin to turn the tide of federal overreach on public lands in Alaska. This will bring more land into state owner- ship, fulfilling the promise given at Statehood. And in areas so endowed, the mineral industry will continue its record of safe, responsible operations and bring the benefits of resource development to the people of Alaska and the nation.
CORRI A. FEIGE
process and review. In recent years it finally reached the end of its self-imposed process, and in January 2021 then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt lifted one batch of PLOs covering 28 million acres of Alaska. Shortly after taking office, howev - er, his successor, Deb Haaland, uni - laterally delayed Bernhardt’s orders for two years, claiming the need for even more analyses of environmental, endangered species, historical pres- ervation, and military land use laws — analyses that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) already said it had completed or were unnecessary. On July 7 — the 63rd anniver- sary of Alaska Statehood — Gover- nor Mike Dunleavy said, “enough is enough,” and sued the U.S. De- partment of the Interior for illegally and unjustifiably further extending decades-long restrictions on these lands. I strongly support this action. Haaland’s action follows the Biden Administration’s already well-estab- lished pattern of assuming excessive administrative authority, rehashing completed actions, and even defy- ing settled law to advance the policy goals of anti-development activists and political donors in the Lower 48, rather than the everyday Alaskans that benefit from multiple use of public lands and fulfillment of Alas - ka’s statehood entitlement. The state’s lawsuit asks the fed- eral district court in Alaska to pre- vent the Interior Department from continuing to delay the January 2021 orders, and to direct it to lift these obsolete PLOs immediately. Gover- nor Dunleavy’s action is another in
32
The Alaska Miner
Summer 2021
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting