BURSTPresident Trump is directing his administration to approve a controversial road that could enable copper and cobalt mining in Alaska, the White House announced Monday.
In a fact sheet, the White House said Trump would direct his administration to “promptly issue authorizations necessary” for the Ambler Road Project.
The road would provide mining access to an area with deposits of minerals including copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.
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The decision would reverse a Biden-era move to block the road in order to protect wildlife including the Western Arctic caribou herd.
The Trump administration said it was determining that the 211-mile industrial road was “in the public interest” because of the need for “domestic critical minerals.”
It said it is directing the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue the permits needed to construct the road.
The move is not a surprise. On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order that called for a review of the Biden administration’s decision to block the road.
The road had been approved during the first Trump administration before the Biden administration reversed course.
The administration has also been broadly supportive of mining and securing minerals, particularly those that can be used in semiconductors and military applications.
Environmental activists recoiled at Trump’s move.
“The Ambler Road will lead to significant harm to fragile Alaskan landscapes and the local communities and wildlife that rely on them,” Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said in a written statement. “This is no ordinary road – it’s an industrial corridor through intact forests and Alaskan landscapes long enough to connect Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia.”