Biden Admistration Bans Drilling, Mining on 28 Million Acres in Alaska after Feedback from Tribal Communities

The Biden-Harris administration banned mining and drilling on more than 28 million acres in Alaska on Tuesday, reversing a Trump-era decision that would’ve allowed resource development on the public land.

President Donald Trump issued a land-use proposal in the final days of his presidency that would have opened up the area to oil and gas development. Biden’s Department of the Interior stayed that order, instead promising a comprehensive environmental study that, factoring in local and tribal concerns, would determine if mining should be banned in the region.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced this week after “robust public process gathered input from Alaska Native Tribes and Native Corporations, rural and urban communities, and the public, including 19 community meetings,” the agency determined land protections “vital to protecting important natural, cultural and subsistence resources.”

“Tribal consultation must be treated as a requirement – not an option – when the federal government is making decisions that could irrevocably affect Tribal communities. I am grateful to the team at the Bureau of Land Management for taking the time to ensure that we approached this decision with the benefit of feedback from Alaska Native communities, and to the Tribal leaders who shared with us the impact that a potential revocation of the withdrawals would have on their people,” Haaland said. “Continuing these essential protections, which have been in place for decades, will ensure continued access and use of these public lands now and in the future.”

Already, Biden’s land decree has halted mining projects in the area. Alaska-based mining company Ambler Metals proposed a 211-mile industrial road, the Ambler Access Project, to reach a significant copper mine estimated to be worth roughly $7.5 billion. Trump originally permitted the project, which was supported by Alaska’s entire congressional delegation, in 2020, but Biden re-opened the case to further analyze the “environmental impact” the road may have. Finally, in June, Biden touted his administration’s effort to “maintain protections on 28 million acres in Alaska from mining and drilling” and announced that DOI would formally block the project.

Also this year, the Biden administration cut off oil and gas development on 40 percent of Alaska’s National Petroleum Preserve, for wildlife conservation efforts.

“I am proud that my Administration is taking action to conserve more than 13 million acres in the Western Arctic and to honor the culture, history, and enduring wisdom of Alaska Natives who have lived on and stewarded these lands since time immemorial,” Biden said at the time.

Land cut-offs in Alaska are part of the Biden administration’s long-term goal to preserve — and thereby block from development — 30 percent of the nation’s land and water resources. Although already-permitted mining operations are usually allowed to continue under Biden’s sprawling designations, his land orders block companies from exploring and permitting new sites.

Biden’s environmental goals don’t align with his prioritization of green energy, Alaskan senators have said. Sustainability goals require rare earths and metals, such as lithium, copper, and nickel, vast deposits of which are now locked up in federally-protected land across the country.

“When you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it — this is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about,” Senator Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) said. “We’re still going to need the germanium, the gallium, the copper. We’re still going to need the oil. But we’re just not going to get it from Alaska.”