Over 2 million acres of public lands were protected for more than 50 years. Now the Trump administration is handing 1.4 million acres over to the State and opening them to corporate polluters.
Last year, some Republicans in Congress proposed selling off vast areas of America’s public lands. Americans from every corner of the country — across political lines, geographies, and backgrounds — came together to stop them. Their message was unmistakable: our public lands are not for sale. The clean air and water, access to nature, cultural connections, wildlife habitat, and freedom these places provide are worth protecting from privatization and pollution.
Still, the Trump administration and their allies are not giving up on their attempts to reshape some of the nation’s great landscapes into industrial wastelands and private development projects. Nowhere is this happening more quickly than in Alaska. On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order detailing this plan, and Interior Secretary Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Rollins, and Congressional Republicans have raced to implement it. From vast Arctic mountain ranges, river valleys, and coastal plains to the temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska, nature’s majesty has not been enough to shield places across the state from the allure of corporate dollar signs.
A massive land giveaway
One of the administration’s latest actions is also one of its most brazen. Following years of public input and Tribal consultation, in 2024 the Interior Department had both rejected a private mining road through Alaskan wildlands and finalized a new management plan for the Central Yukon region that recommended keeping 50-year old protections in place across the Dalton Corridor. The Bureau of Land Management’s environmental analysis had concluded that advancing the industrial Ambler road or revoking these protections would have significant adverse impacts on natural resources and Alaska Native and other local communities who depend on the lands and waters in the region.
Last October, Congressional Republicans used a little-known law called the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Central Yukon management plan and nullify, among many important aspects of the plan, the recommendation to keep more than 2 million acres of national public lands along the Dalton Corridor protected from drilling, mining, and transfer to the state of Alaska. And now the Trump administration is leapfrogging the public process and attempting to hand over 1.4 million acres of these lands to the state, with possibly more on the way.
The point is not to give everyday Alaskans access to the land, but to remove the laws and protections that come with federal land stewardship so that the administration’s out-of-state corporate backers can try to force through the Ambler mining road, a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline, and other destructive projects.
View of the Dalton Highway Corridor. Photo by Craig McCaa, BLM Alaska.
The Ambler mining road
And Alaska state leaders have been cheering them on. For the Ambler mining road in particular, the gap between state officials and local communities is more like a canyon. The proposed 211-mile industrial road, pushed by Canada’s Trilogy Metals and Australia’s South32 Limited, would cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and other wildlands, divide the migration route of the Western Arctic Caribou herd, and cross thousands of rivers, streams, and wetlands. More than eighty Alaska Native Tribes and First Nations have passed resolutions against the project, and local communities along the proposed route have overwhelmingly opposed its construction. The road would diminish food security, water quality, and access to hunting, fishing, and traditional activities. Transferring national public lands to the state also removes vital protections for subsistence users who depend on the area for their way of life.
"We don't need that Ambler road. The developers would be messing with our caribou herd, our fishing, our berry picking. We depend on the land. Plus if the road comes right through there, people from outside are just going to be coming through and there will be pollution." - Aggie Jones, Ambler tribal member and resident
Photo from Aggie Jones.
The Alaska LNG pipeline
The Alaska LNG Pipeline is another boondoggle that Trump and Governor Dunleavy want to force through no matter what the facts say. Not only will this pipeline be a carbon bomb and subject communities along its 800+ miles to gas leaks, the project is not financially feasible without major government funding, including in the form of tax breaks. The state corporation Alaska Gasline and Development Corporation gave NY-based corporation Glenfarne majority ownership of the pipeline and neither has been forthcoming with details to the Alaskan public, or even the state legislature. Independent analysts estimate this pipeline could cost $60 billion, but we don’t know for sure because Glenfarne says it won’t make its cost estimate public even though 25 percent of the pipeline is supposed to be owned by Alaskans.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle are skeptical about the lack of transparency and concrete cost estimate for such a massive pipeline. Governor Dunleavy and the Trump administration continues to tell us that this pipeline is going to be a huge payday for Alaskans but now Governor Dunleavy is trying to force through a bill to remove local property taxes from the project. This makes clear who he wants this pipeline to be prosperous for, and it's not Alaskan communities.
The future of public lands in Alaska and beyond
Our Alaska Chapter members and our local partners know what happens when land protections are lifted: out-of-state corporations destroy the land and poison communities, leaving Alaskans to clean up the mess.
If this action goes unanswered, there’s no reason that the Trump administration would stop at Alaska. Transferring national public lands to states or other entities to advance private development will have just as much impact on public access and public health as selling them off. We’ve joined litigation to fight the administration’s illegal giveaway. We invite you to add your voice to the growing number of people across the country speaking up for public lands in Alaska and beyond: sc.org/akpubliclands.
Jackie Feinberg is Sierra Club’s National Lands Conservation Campaign Manager. Andrea Feniger is Sierra Club’s Alaska Chapter Director.