President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday approving construction on an access road to the Ambler Mining District in Alaska, rolling back environmental restrictions imposed by the Biden administration.
Supporters of the project have called it essential in reaching copper, zinc, and cobalt deposits to boost the domestic supply chain of critical minerals.
“This was something that should have been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals and everything else,” Trump said during an event in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon.
Trump referred to the initial federal permits issued for the Ambler Access Project during his first administration in 2020 and criticized former President Joe Biden for suspending it last year.
“They undid it and wasted a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of effort,” Trump said. “And now we’re starting again, and this time, we have plenty of time to get it done, and it’s going to be done properly.”
The Ambler Access Project is a 211-mile-long road in northern central Alaska that is intended to establish the Ambler Mining District.
“President Trump, when he said ‘drill, baby drill,’ he also was saying ‘mine, baby, mine.’ We’ve got to get back in the mining business,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Monday, emphasizing the importance of reducing China’s dominance over critical minerals.
Burgum said easing access to the mineral-rich area will help the United States win the artificial intelligence arms race with China and “to prosper as a country.”
Ownership of the road is expected to be split between Alaska, the federal government, and “native Alaska corporations,” Burgum said.
Construction could start as soon as next spring, with planning taking place throughout the winter. Trump said that the administration will be able to complete the project in “less than a year.”
Burgum said Monday that the road will be built out of gravel, as asphalt and concrete would not sustain cold temperatures and winter weather. He said it will be constructed in three phases, with an initial single lane “pilot” gravel road being built first in order to get mining operations underway.
The Interior Secretary said the access road will not be public, but instead will be a toll road, to control traffic and generate additional revenue for the state.
“There’ll be collaboration with the Native Alaskan corporations in terms of how it’s built and how it’s used, supporting the Alaska Native tribes with subsistence hunting regulations on either side of this,” Burgum added. “This opens up a wealth of resources.”
The administration has estimated that the construction of the road will support 2,730 jobs and provide the state of Alaska with more than $1.1 billion in revenues, driven by mining license taxes, corporate income tases, production royalties, and claim rents.
The Biden Interior Department blocked the project in June of last year, warning that the access road would threaten wildlife and sensitive waters in the region. The Bureau of Land Management assessed at the time that the road would cross over 3,000 streams and harm at-risk wildlife populations, including caribou.
In a fact sheet released by the White House Monday, the administration said that it will take “extensive mitigation measures,” including caribou protection policies and fish passage culverts, to minimize environmental impacts.
Trump’s announcement comes just weeks after Republicans in the House moved to advance the project by passing a resolution repealing a Biden administration plan limiting development on federal lands in Alaska.
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“Alaska is a resource state, and our future will be determined by our ability to continue responsibly developing those resources,” Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK), who sponsored the resolution, said in a statement obtained by the New York Times. “The vast expanses of Alaska must not be subjugated by Washington D.C.’s unelected cubicle army.”
The Senate was poised to pass a similar resolution in the coming weeks.
