Biden set to block Ambler mining road in Alaska wilderness

The Biden administration is preparing to reject a controversial road-building project needed to mine major copper and zinc deposits in the remote Alaska wilderness, a move sought by native tribes, but one that would keep critical minerals essential for the U.S. clean energy transition out of reach.

In a final environmental analysis due out later this week, the Interior Department is expected to issue a recommendation that would effectively kill the Ambler Road project in its current form, according to two people with knowledge on the decision who were granted anonymity because it was not yet public. A document explaining the administration’s stance is due 90 days after publication of the environmental impact statement.

If the Biden administration ultimately rejects the access road, its decision will likely be challenged by the state agency overseeing the project. And a rejection is sure to infuriate Alaska lawmakers who lobbied the administration to allow the road to be built.

The Ambler Road decision represents the latest challenge to Biden’s efforts to balance his climate goals, which require building out a domestic supply chain for the minerals needed to transition away from fossil fuels, while ensuring that the clean energy push he is spearheading will not harm tribal communities. An earlier draft of the project’s environmental impact statement found that more than 30 tribal communities would face restrictions on subsistence hunting and fishing if the road were built — a key factor in the administration’s reasoning.

The 211-mile-long Ambler Road was initially approved under the previous administration, which issued a 50-year right-of-way permit to build the road just days before President Donald Trump left office.

But the project has faced strong opposition from tribes in interior Alaska as well as hunting and angling groups who argue it will hurt subsistence resources, including caribou migration patterns and some of Alaska’s most important salmon and sheefish spawning streams. The industrial access road would cross hundreds of rivers and streams, 26 miles of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, and the tribal lands of several Alaska Native communities -- allowing for approximately 168 truck trips a day.

The area south of the Brooks Range—a patchwork of wetlands and densely forested wilderness—is one of the largest roadless areas in North America.  

The Tanana Chiefs Conference, which represents 42 villages in interior Alaska, many of which are near the road, sued the Interior Department in 2020 over its handling of the environmental analysis, arguing that it did not adequately address impacts to their way of life. Since the lawsuit was filed, though, three of the villages have switched sides and now say they support the road because of its purported economic benefits.

A 2021 POLITICO Magazine investigation found that BLM Alaska State Director Chad Padgett, who served under President Trump, had downplayed potential impacts to subsistence hunting and fishing and pressured career employees to modify their findings and even remove entire paragraphs addressing the subject.

In a 2022 court filing the Justice Department agreed with the tribes, stating that the environmental impact statement was deeply flawed, and requested that portions of it be redone. During that review period, the right-of-way permit for the road was suspended.

In a December 2023 letter, the Alaska congressional delegation blasted the administration for delaying the Ambler Road environmental analysis and urged it to advance the project.

“While the U.S. has no apparent strategy to ensure a stable domestic supply of these commodities, the Ambler District conveniently contains deposits with all four of them,” they wrote. “The Department should thus regard the [Ambler Access Project] as strategic infrastructure that can be safely built while simultaneously boosting Alaska’s economy, strengthening our national security, and preventing the energy transition from being abruptly derailed.”

If the Interior Department chooses a “no action” alternative, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority would not be granted a right of way permit to continue with the project. Without the road, the copper and zinc assets in the Ambler Mining district in the northwestern part of the state will remain effectively stranded.

Ambler Metals, a joint venture between developers Trilogy Metals and South32, has been engaged in exploratory work in the region for several years and has aggressively lobbied Interior to approve the road, spending $370,000 in the last two years.

In a statement, Ambler Metals said it was "stunned" by the news, which it said would violate guarantees to the project made under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. It urged the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider "what would clearly be an unlawful and politically motivated decision that goes well beyond the narrow set of issues the courts agreed to allow the agency to address.”

But green groups that have opposed the mining developments said it was vital to protect the sensitive region.

“The wild and fully intact ecosystem of the proposed Ambler Road corridor is of both local and hemispheric importance,” said David Krause, interim executive director of Audubon Alaska.

The Alaska Native corporation in the region, known as NANA Corp, also owns some of the subsurface rights in the mining district and has a longstanding partnership with Ambler Metals to develop the deposit. But another Native corporation, Doyon, recently terminated its access agreement with AIDEA, raising questions about the agency’s ability to work with regional stakeholders.

AIDEA, which has sued the administration over its suspension of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, has already spent tens of millions of dollars on the Ambler Road project. Now it may be forced to file a legal challenge if the administration decides to reject the project or go back to the drawing board.