Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy said that the decision will “deny Alaskans access to the life-saving services the road would bring.”
On Tuesday night, the Biden administration announced that it will cancel a land exchange deal made by the Trump administration that would have allowed the building of a potentially lifesaving road in an Alaska wilderness region, over the opposition of environmental organizations.
Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt approved the land swap in 2019, but the Obama administration vigorously defended it in court during the Biden administration. The DOI ultimately revoked the land exchange, citing procedural faults and inconsistencies with agency policy as the reasons. As part of President Biden’s conservation strategy, Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said that her department will launch a new environmental examination of the project.
“The argument over permitting the construction of a road to connect the people of King Cove to life-saving resources has created a false choice, sown over many years, between respecting conservation and wildlife or keeping our promises to Indigenous communities,” Haaland said in a statement. That’s a false dichotomy, and I refuse to accept it.
“I am a lifetime conservationist and I believe firmly in the need to conserve our lands and rivers and uphold our duties to Tribal Peoples,” she continued.
The small town of King Cove in southwestern Alaska needs a means of transportation to get to the adjacent all-weather airport in Cold Bay, and the planned short, gravel, one-lane road would do just that by cutting through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. As the refuge was formed in 1960, environmentalists voiced their concerns that a road would pose harm to the refuge’s natural environment and wildlife habitat.
Nevertheless, supporters of the project have stated that it is necessary to guarantee that the largely Indigenous people of the hamlet have easier access to emergency services because there are currently no roadways linking the settlement to Cold Bay. King Cove’s tiny airfield is very weather-dependent, limiting inhabitants’ ability to reach medical help in an emergency.
Republican Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy stated on Tuesday that Secretary of State Victoria Haaland’s statements that she wants to entertain alternate land exchanges will set the process back to square one and put the lives of King Cove people in danger today. Because she decides to delay the land swap, there is a greater chance that a King Cove resident may not be able to go to a hospital in time to get life-saving medical care because of poor weather conditions at the airfield serving the hamlet.
It would save lives if inhabitants of King Cove had access to Cold Bay’s all-weather airport, he said, adding that the distance between the two cities was only 11 miles. There is no rationale for Secretary Haaland to prevent Alaskans from having access to potentially life-saving services that the road would offer.
State legislators and prominent Indigenous organizations, like the National Congress of American Indians and the Alaska Federation of Natives, have also voiced their support for the road project. According to a statement released by Haaland on Tuesday, the DOI will begin a nation-to-nation engagement with tribes to guarantee that the department was “listening — listening” to Tribal communities.
But, for decades, there has been heated controversy about whether or not to build a road through the wildlife sanctuary. After being turned down many times in the 1980s and 1990s, an Alaska Native organization called King Cove Inc. persuaded Congress to establish legislation in 2009 requiring a formal assessment of the route, according to a study from Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Department.
Nevertheless, the Obama administration once again denied the road project in 2013 due to environmental concerns. After waiting five years, the Trump administration changed its mind and signed two deals with King Cove Inc. to exchange some of the property they owned for the refuge acreage where the road would be built.
Although environmental organizations challenged the deal in court in 2020, a federal district judge ruled against them. The Trump administration filed an appeal, and the Department of the Interior released a document defending the secretary’s right to secure access to private or state territory.
The Department of Justice proceeded to defend the land exchange agreements before the appeals panel after the Biden administration took office in 2021. In March 2022, the panel overturned the lower court’s verdict and affirmed the road project. While the Biden administration opposed it, the court granted environmental organizations’ request for a rehearing of the case in November.
“We are delighted the Ninth Circuit has agreed to rehear this case and rethink a severely misguided ruling,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president, and chief executive officer of Defenders of Wildlife, on November 11. Defenders of Wildlife believe the court will rule against the unlawful land swap and preserve the refuge’s pristine wilderness and animal habitat.