the Record of Decision issued by for - mer Interior Secretary Haaland that recommended the “no action” al - ternative in the EIS prepared for the project to build the industrial access road. The developer of the road, the state’s Alaska Industrial and De - velopment Authority, preferred the “Alternative A” as the recommend - ed option. This was for the 211-mile route from the Dalton Highway across state and federal BLM lands including a section of road through the Gates of the Arctic National Park. By disregarding Alternative A and choosing the “No Action” alternative in the Ambler road EIS, the Interior Department’s action, under former Sectary Haaland, ignored the pro - vision in the 1980 Alaska Nation - al Interest Lands and Conservation Act that guaranteed a corridor for a road from the Dalton Highway west to state lands in the Ambler Mining District where companies are ex - ploring copper discoveries.
from federal lands. At the time, it applied only to royalties from the Swanson River oil field on the Kenai Peninsula, which is within a feder - al wildlife range (it is now a wildlife refuge). As efforts were made to explore in ANWR, Congress reduced the royal - ty share to Alaska from production from federal land in ANWR, which Alaskans saw as the federal govern - ment reneging on a promise made at statehood in 1959. In the National Petroleum Re - serve-Alaska, the 23-million-acre federal enclave west of the currently producing fields on the North Slope, the president’s bill would rein - state an oil and gas leasing program shelved under former President Joe Biden. Most important, the bill puts the federal Environmental Impact State - ment prepared for NPR-A leasing by the Bureau of Land Management in 2020 and the federal Record of Deci - sion leasing that same year back into effect. On the Ambler Access Project, the pending legislation would reopen
gas, the ANWR provisions will at - tract attention but the sections on the national petroleum reserve may be just as important. As it came out of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Com - mittee, the lands and resources sec - tion of the President’s bill would re - quire no fewer than four lease sales in ANWR’s coastal plain in the next 10 years with no fewer than 400,000 acres offered in each sale. The first sale must be held no lat - er than four years after enactment of the bill with a second sale held no later than seven years after passage of the legislation. Up to 2,000 acres of surface lands will be allowed for production and support facilities. Rights-of-way and easements for access to surface facilities in the coastal plain would be issued. The royalty share to the state of Alaska from any ANWR production is set at 50% from 2025 to 2034 and 90% after 2035. The 90% share is important for the state not only in future revenues but symbolically. At statehood, Alaska was to receive 90% of royalties from production
— Tim Bradner
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