Trump administration to remove land orders in support of Ambler Road, Alaska LNG pipeline

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is set to remove two longstanding public land orders to support the Alaska LNG pipeline and the 211-mile Ambler Road that would access mineral deposits in Northwest Alaska, the agency said.

A new land order will partially revoke two older land orders, opening 2.1 million acres of public land near Coldfoot and north of the Yukon River to potential development, the agency said Friday. The land is part of the corridor that’s home to the trans-Alaska pipeline and the Dalton Highway, the agency said.

Removing the orders “opens these lands to mineral and resource development opportunity,” says the proposed decision, which is soon set to be finalized.

The action is part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to develop U.S. oil and mineral resources, with a strong focus in Alaska that has included advancing the road and the LNG project.

The proposed Ambler Road would extend west through wilderness from the Dalton Highway. It’s designed to open a mining district containing copper, zinc, lead and other minerals considered critical by the federal government for their economic and defense value.

The Alaska LNG megaproject, if it can be built, would deliver North Slope gas to Asian countries and Alaskans in Southcentral.

Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation called the move important for resource development and said it removes longstanding orders that have blocked Alaska from receiving land it has sought, in a statement Friday.

The federal government for decades has left the “obsolete” public land orders in place to keep “tens of millions of additional acres of Alaska locked up as de facto conservation areas,” U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said.

“These designations have held back statehood land selections and resource development, giving the federal government a toehold to delay or reject important projects while depriving our state of crucial opportunities for jobs and revenues,” she said.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the revocations a “major win” in a statement Friday.

“Alaskans know what’s best for Alaska, and revoking these PLOs will empower Alaska to chart our own future on these lands,” Dunleavy said.

The old land orders are part of withdrawals made by the Interior Department in the early 1970s.

The Biden administration in 2024 had kept Alaska land orders in place involving 28 million acres across Alaska, revoking efforts by the first Trump administration to remove them after calling the effort was legally flawed.

Members of the Defend the Brooks Range coalition said in a statement that the actions will remove protections that support wildlife and rural subsistence hunters from communities in the region.

“Our ancestors taught us how to take care of our land and everything it provides for us,” said Chief Julie Roberts-Hyslop of the village of Tanana. “Our future is at stake for our children and their children.”

Dan Ritzman, with the Sierra Club, said the revocations will help corporations at the expense of local tribes and communities.

“Alaska is home to some of the country’s last true wild places, and proposed projects like Alaska LNG and the Ambler road will lead to irreversible damages to these irreplaceable lands,” Ritzman said.

The action comes as two major Alaska Native corporations, Doyon and NANA, have signed a nonbinding, preliminary agreement that seeks to provide benefits and protections to Alaska Native corporations and nearby communities if the road is built, Northern Journal reported.

The agreement included the state and federal government, an Alaska Native village corporation, and Ambler Metals, a mining company seeking to explore in the region.

It seems to mark a shift for the regional corporations, which in recent years had revoked land-access permits along the proposed route, following dissatisfaction with the state agency leading the project.