Wall Street Journal: The Contradictions of Biden Climate Policy in Profile

Regulators blocked a job-rich Alaska project that could have powered the green-energy dream.

My piece was published by the Wall Street Journal on July 12, 2024, 4:55 pm ET. Please visit the original link here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-contradictions-of-biden-climate-policy-in-profile-alaska-mining-3857168e?st=x8ii8ulfpjgu952&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

A miner takes in the view from a drilling site in Ambler Mining District, Alaska, Sept. 6, 2022. Photo: Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Bureau of Land Management on June 28 quietly shut down the last hope of the proposed Ambler Road project in northwest Alaska. Simultaneously, the bureau also recommended that no mining, oil or gas development be allowed across 28 million acres of Alaska’s federal land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The decisions limit economic opportunities for Alaskans, but East Coast denizens should care too. Denying the construction of the Ambler Road blocks access to a wealth of minerals needed for the Biden administration’s clean-energy agenda. The government’s right hand would be wise to consult what its left is doing.

The Ambler Road was a proposed 211-mile private-access road in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic Borough. The Ambler Mining District holds significant quantities of zinc, lead, silver, cobalt and copper—the last two of which are critical to electric vehicles, solar panels and battery storage.

The company developing the most promising potential mine expected it to produce 149 million pounds of copper, 173 million pounds of zinc and 26 million pounds of lead annually. Road construction would have added 360 jobs a year—and developing only four mines would have led to almost 5,000 direct and indirect jobs. The state of Alaska was projected to receive $1.1 billion in revenue, and local governments $193 million.

Projections differ, but a green-energy transition would need vastly more minerals than the country currently produces. Even business-as-usual demands will require 115% more copper through 2050 than has been mined in human history. Electrifying the global vehicle fleet and improving the grid to accommodate charging stations will require even more new mines. The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2040 cobalt demand will increase 21 times above 2020 levels.

But building mines takes time, thanks to lengthy and uncertain permitting at the federal level. Earnest planning for the Ambler Road began in 2015 after some false starts. In July 2020, the Trump administration approved the road with a 50-year right-of-way. The Biden administration suspended those permits in 2022, voluntarily redoing its environmental impact statement.

Despite the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s proposed route crossing only 24 miles of Bureau of Land Management land, the bureau denied its application for a right of way. The Interior Department carefully reasoned that the request should be denied because “there are no active mines in the area and no mine plan proposals pending before the federal government.” Yet that’s no surprise—it’s hard to explore, plan or operate a mine without an access road.

Last month’s denial also flouts a provision in the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that promises the road to Alaskans. The law clearly states that “the [Interior] Secretary shall permit such access.”

Yet nearly 4½ decades after that promise was made, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland claimed that since the 1980 law mentions only land under National Park Service jurisdiction, the Bureau of Land Management doesn’t have to permit its portion. Alaska has threatened to sue the federal government, demanding clarity from the judicial branch, but it could also submit a new proposal that would avoid crossing federal land.

Honest people can disagree on the merits of any specific project, and the Ambler Road has had its fair share of debate. Many tribal leaders recognized the economic benefits of the road. “The Ambler Access Project is an opportunity to create high-paying jobs within the region so that our tribal members and their families can remain in their communities,” said Wilmer Beetus, chief and mayor of Hughes, Alaska, in 2023.

Uncertainty has consequences, and the Ambler Road may never come to fruition. The NANA Regional Corp., which leased surface access to the state for the project, has pulled its support. In its final environmental impact statement, the Bureau of Land Management floated that “after the useful commercial life of Ambler Road,” it might become public, contrary to most stakeholders’ wishes for “controlled access.” NANA says the bureau’s analysis “goes beyond the law.”

Whether to mine on Alaska’s pristine land is a debate worth having. But if the minerals aren’t mined in the U.S., they’ll be sourced from overseas, where in many cases China dominates both mining and processing. If the Biden administration continues to stymie domestic mining projects, it can say hello to international dependence and kiss its net-zero agenda goodbye.

Ms. Montalbano is a Young Voices StateBeat fellow.

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Appeared in the July 13, 2024, print edition as 'The Contradictions of Biden Climate Policy in Profile'.

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