Portions of a 211-mile-long mine road would cut across Gates of Arctic National Park and Preserve under a House proposal/NPS file
Editor’s note: This updates with reaction from U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.
More than $100 million would be stripped from the National Park Service under a budget proposal passed by Republicans in the House Natural Resources Committee, which also wants to green-light a 211-mile road through Gates of Arctic National Park and Preserve to reach a mine site.
The proposal adopted late Thursday also would authorize $150 million for events and celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday next year and $40 million for a statuary garden President Donald Trump wants to build to honor American heroes.
“For months, Congress has stood on the sidelines while the administration works to dismantle the National Park Service and relentlessly attack the dedicated staff who work tirelessly every day to take care of America’s most cherished places. Now, when given an opportunity to stand up for our most beloved public servants, they do the exact opposite, robbing the Park Service of critical staffing money and instead prioritizing parties and a statue garden,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association.
“Park staff are living in fear, constantly questioning whether they will be able to keep their jobs and pay their bills. Rather than supporting our park staff during this challenging time, Congress is doubling down, further straining an overwhelmed Park Service. This bill should be a nonstarter for anyone who cares about our national parks.”
According to NPCA, about $114 million would be pulled from the Park Service, much of which is earmarked for staff.
The so-called Ambler Road through a section of Gates of the Arctic was approved by the first Trump administration, then blocked by President Joe Biden. Following Donald Trump’s second election victory, Alaska’s governor, congressional allies and mining interests continued pushing for the road, with their optimism enhanced by a shift in the political landscape.
Trilogy Metals, co-owner of Ambler Metals, the Canada-based joint venture for the copper mine at the end of the proposed road, saw its stock price soar in the weeks after the election, Alaska media reported.
“Things are definitely looking a lot better for us than they were about a week or two ago,” reports quoted Ambler Metals’ managing director, Kaleb Froehlich, as saying in November at an Anchorage conference. “We do have sort of an opportunity window in Washington, D.C. starting in January.”
After the November election, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy asked Trump for a Day 1 executive order to get the project back on approval track.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the committee, sharply criticized the Republican proposal.
“If Big Oil, Wall Street, and MAGA cultists locked themselves in a room to write a wish list, this bill would be it. The Republican budget is the most destructive environmental bill in American history,” said Huffman. “It torches clean air and water protections, hands over our public lands to polluters at fire-sale prices, and rigs the rules so oil executives can rubber-stamp their own permits in secret.
“The Trump Tax Scam forces oil and gas lease sales—no matter the cost—even on lands tribes, ranchers, and local communities have fought to protect. With wildfires, droughts, and deadly storms becoming more extreme, this budget makes it worse: fueling the climate crisis while clawing back the very funding Americans will need to prepare for it,” the congressman continued. “It slashes royalties so Big Oil can wring every last dollar from the lands and waters that belong to the American people. And if you dare speak up, they’ll charge you hundreds of dollars for filing forms to be allowed to protest.”
The House committee’s legislation also was condemned by Defenders of Wildlife, where Robert Dewey said the measure “would be devastating for American wildlife and the habitats they depend on.”
Dewey, the organization’s vice president of government relations, added that the bill “puts a bullseye on already imperiled polar bears, whales and hundreds of other species that depend on the integrity of federal lands and waters for their survival. Congress shouldn’t be handing over these vital and cherished wildlife habitats on public lands to oil and other extractive companies for bigger profits.”
Lydia Weiss, senior director of government relations at The Wilderness Society, said the committee’s bill “is a staggering attack on our most iconic, beloved public lands across America. It includes language to recklessly drill and mine in places like the Boundary Waters watershed and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and log in protected roadless forests. It mandates oil and gas leases every three months all over the nation; forces roads through our wildest places where communities have already rejected them; guts the National Environmental Policy Act; and limits judicial review throughout. Even worse, it will fund tax cuts for the rich while doing nothing to help the average American taxpayer. We implore members of the committee to reject this bill.”
Amber Road reporting by Rita Beamish.
