H.J. Res. 106
Floor Speech
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to overturn the Biden administration's restrictive Central Yukon land management scheme, which threatens Alaska's self-determination and resource development. I ask my colleagues to support our resolution of disapproval, H.J. Res. 106, to protect Alaska's rights and future.
The implementation of the Biden administration's Record of Decision and Approved Central Yukon Resource Management Plan, RMP, prohibits the development of natural resources and essential infrastructure in a broad and sweeping manner--completely undermining multiple-use management while ignoring the needs and input of local residents. We need to ensure that our conservation policies consider and allow for adequate economic opportunities for the communities and people impacted by those policies.
Alaskans are some of the foremost conservationists in the world, with a long-standing record of balancing conservation with responsible resource and infrastructure development. On top of the jobs provided to Alaskan residents, responsible resource development funds various initiatives across the State, including education, infrastructure, and community services. It feeds our families, sustains our communities, and provides livelihoods for the thousands of Alaskans who work to responsibly develop the vast timber, mineral, material, and oil and gas resources that Alaska is blessed with.
In the heart of my State is the Central Yukon planning area, which comprises 56 million acres in central and northern Alaska, an area roughly equivalent to the entirety of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania combined. The Bureau of Land Management--BLM--manages nearly a quarter--13.3 million acres of that area. The other major landholders within the area include the State of Alaska with 25.4 million acres, approximately 45 percent of the planning area, and Doyon, Limited, one of the 12 land-owning Alaska Native regional corporations established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act--ANCSA--with an ownership interest in 4.65 million acres. Approximately 3,000 miles of Doyon's land borders BLM land. Many of those millions of acres were selected by Doyon for their economic development potential, consistent with the intent of ANCSA. The northernmost part of the planning area covers the traditional lands of the Inupiat people in the Arctic Slope Region.
This vast area includes enormous critical mineral potential of national and strategic importance. As our geostrategic adversaries continue to place tighter controls on minerals essential for defense, advanced technology, and manufacturing, America needs these resources responsibly developed in places like Alaska. Additionally, the area includes incredible oil and gas resources that help to contribute to America's energy dominance. Further, this region contains abundant timberlands and substantial sand and gravel material resources that are essential for roads, airstrips, and other infrastructure. Local access to these materials allows rural villages in this region to avoid costly imports that contribute to the high cost of living in these communities.
Importantly, the area also contains the Dalton Highway and the right- of-way for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, Alaska's most essential piece of infrastructure and a nationally strategic asset for the United States. This system transports crude oil 800 miles from the North Slope oil fields to marine terminals in Valdez and provides the vital access necessary to develop the resources in the National Petroleum Reserve- Alaska, the ANWR Coastal Plain, and construct the Alaska LNG pipeline.
In 1971, the Department of the Interior issued Public Land Order-- PLO--5150 withdrawing from selection a 5.3 million acre stretch of Federal land to reserve it as a utility and transportation corridor to facilitate monetizing the oil reserves on the North Slope. These lands covered the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System right-of-way and the North Slope Haul Road, which was later named the Dalton Highway. The significance of these lands to Alaska cannot be understated; they represent the State of Alaska's highest priority land selections, and the State has top-filed for these lands pursuant to Section 906(e) of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA.
After more than 60 years following the passage of the Alaska Statehood Act by Congress in 1958, Alaska has yet to receive its full land entitlement. To this day, over 60 percent of the land in Alaska is managed by the Federal Government. Key to the State's ability to finalize its land selections is the lifting of PLO 5150, which will enable the State to satisfy a large portion of its outstanding statehood land entitlement and unencumber other lands that have been selected to fulfill the entitlements of Alaska Native Corporations, the University of Alaska, and Alaska Native Vietnam Veteran land allotments.
In 2006, as directed by the Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act, sponsored by my colleague Senator Murkowski, BLM released a report finding that withdrawals on 152.18 million out of 158.96 million acres--95 percent--``have outlived their original purpose'' and ``could be lifted consistent with the protection of the public's interest.'' BLM recommended that PLOs be lifted on 50.1 million acres of land it manages in Alaska. In 2012, then Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar wrote Alaska Governor Sean Parnell that ``BLM is committed to working with the State to consider further modifications of PLO 5150`` and indicated that the BLM Alaska State Office would initiate the planning process for the Central Yukon planning area to evaluate the public lands within the utility corridor located north of the Yukon River and said, ``I consider fulfillment of the State of Alaska's land entitlement a top priority.''
Beginning in 2013, BLM began the formal public scoping process for the resource management plan, kicking off a multi-year-long planning process with dozens of public meetings and thousands of hours of hard work by BLM as part of the process of drafting an Environmental Impact Statement--EIS--to satisfy the National Environmental Policy Act. In December 2020, BLM released its Draft Resource Management Plan/EIS and identified Alternative C2 as the preferred alternative, blending resource protection and resource development, closing some 1 million acres to mineral material sales, but leaving 13.1 million acres open to locatable mineral entry. Importantly, Alternative C2 recommended full revocation of PLO 5150, enabling the State of Alaska's top-filed lands to become valid selections. It also recommended revocation of approximately 5.2 million acres of ANCSA 17(d)(1) withdraws opening land for selection by Alaska Native Vietnam-Era Veterans who qualify for a land allotment under the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, P.L. 116-9.
While not perfect, Alternative C2 served as an important discussion point and something the largest land stakeholders in the area--the State of Alaska and Doyon--could work with toward a balanced final Record of Decision. However, following the election of President Biden, he announced plans to review the Central Yukon RMP EIS, one of 70 Executive actions the Biden administration took targeting Alaska. In April 2024, BLM issued its Proposed RMP/Final EIS, identifying a new Alternative E that was not previously made available for public review and comment and contained sweeping restrictions on land use. The Proposed RMP/Final EIS had protests filed from Doyon Limited, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, the Alaska Miners Association, and the State of Alaska--all denied, ignoring Alaska Native voices and the people who live in and responsibly develop Alaska every day. This new Alternative E became the Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan in November 2024, which the passage of this joint resolution of disapproval would invalidate.
While the approved Central Yukon RMP applies only to the BLM-managed areas within the planning area, it affected access for other landholders in the region, principally Doyon and the State of Alaska. The Central Yukon RMP designated 21 Areas of Critical Environmental Concern spanning 3.6 million acres and reclassified Visual Resource Management areas in ways that hinder infrastructure development.
Section 1326 of ANILCA provides clear and unambiguous restrictions on executive branch actions with respect to future withdrawals and further studies or reviews without congressional approval. Under ANILCA's ``no more clause,'' BLM may not withdraw more than 5,000 acres, in the aggregate, without congressional authorization. Designation of ACECs that remove lands from operation of the public land laws is a de facto withdrawal and an insult to Congress's express intent in ANILCA, locking up critical resources that our Nation needs to counter our dependency on hostile foreign powers.
Doyon, the largest Alaska Native Corporation stakeholder in the Central Yukon Planning Area, notes these restrictive land designations complicate access to their lands and prevent it from realizing the economic and other benefits that Congress intended it would enjoy as a result of ANCSA's settlement of Alaska Native land claims. Doyon's letter of support for the disapproval resolution called the Central Yukon RMP ``misguided and harmful'' and cites the profound implications on the ability to place communication, electric transmission, and other infrastructure these land restrictions create, adding further obstacles to the extraordinary challenges faced by rural communities in Alaska, many of which are disconnected from the road system.
Furthermore, the approved Central Yukon RMP did not recommend revoking PLO 5150--which has long outlived its original purpose--or ANCSA 17(d)(1) withdrawals, with limited exceptions, frustrating the State's ability to fulfill its statehood land entitlement and perpetuating unnecessary encumbrances on public lands in contradiction to BLM's own findings in the Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act Report to Congress.
Fortunately, elections have consequences, and on his first day in office of his second term, President Trump signed Executive Order 14153, ``Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential,'' which called for the rescission of the 2024 Record of Decision and a reimplementation of the draft RMP and EIS issued in December 2020. The Executive order further directed the Secretary of the Interior to evaluate the potential rescission of PLO 5150, and Secretary Burgum has admirably taken concrete steps toward delivering on that commitment. This disapproval resolution would effectuate the President's directive in Executive Order 14153, immediately rescinding the Record of Decision and would advance the ongoing work to revoke PLO 5150 and review outdated ANCSA 17(d)(1) withdrawals predicated on the underlying EIS, which would not be invalidated by H.J. Res. 106.
The House has already passed this joint resolution, recognizing the impact that this highly restrictive plan would have on our national security, the massive Federal overreach stifling economic development opportunities, and the disregard for Alaska Native voices. I spoke of Doyon, Limited's letter of support earlier, but this resolution is also supported by the North Slope Regional Trilateral which is made up of the elected leaders of the North Slope Borough, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, which is the regional Tribe, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, the Alaska Native Regional Corporation for the Inupiat people living on the North Slope of Alaska. It is supported by the Alaska Miners Association, Americans for Prosperity, the American Energy Alliance, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the American Exploration and Mining Association, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, the Resource Development Council for Alaska, as well as the Trump administration.
I urge my colleagues to reject unlawful regulatory overreach, reinforce American mineral and energy security, and uphold Federal law and Alaska Native land rights by supporting the Alaska delegation and voting for this joint resolution of disapproval and rescinding this Record of Decision.
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