Ambler Road

Thank you.

Working with Dan, I also approved the Ambler Road project, which Democrats canceled-

[cheering]

... paving the way to one of the largest mining deposits in the country, and that means jobs and much lower taxes.

And the idea on the recovery of that cost associated with the road is that it would come through tolls.

And I mentioned earlier when we talk about the Ambler Mining District, we do see it as a district.

We don't see it as the Arctic Mine or the Boronite Mine.

We see an Ambler Mining District extending for a long period of time.

So we don't expect to be the only users of a road.

We expect other parties will be using that road.

And so we'll have to let the process play itself out in Alaska through the court system.

Okay, well, let's talk about something a bit more agreeable.

And of all the issues, all the tumult, the border walls in Big Bend, monument reductions, there is one story that sort of seems to be the most emblematic of the last few years, the most preposterous in its vision and hubris, and also just spells out that sometimes what is required is a handful of individuals doing their best to gather and stand up for a place.

In this case, we're talking about the Ambler Road.

[gentle music]

So the Pattis brothers just recently went on a trip where they got to survey a lot of the land around the Brooks Range, particularly the southern side of the range and the Gates of the Arctic National Park, which you can only access by floatplane.

Here's Will.

Jim and I first heard about, um, a road, you know, the Ambler Road going through.

You know, the idea of a road in general, it's like, "Oh, great.

Now I could actually drive to a place so remote as Gates of the Arctic National Park.

up in northern Alaska, this place that has been kind of untouched.

I mean, there's a road, the Ambler Road that's proposed up there that is 210 miles, and that would go right through gates to the Arctic National Park.

It crosses 11 rivers, 3,000 streams.

It's just this industrial road, right? There's just places where we shouldn't be touching, but that dismantling is happening and being tried in these places like the Boundary Waters or the Arctic National Park.

And, and in America, we can ta- say where we want it to go more, when the AR-15 is appropriate to use and not, and we're paying for the gas, right? And so, like, we're gonna have a government.

Do you want a government that builds the Ambler Road through the Brooks Range for a foreign mining company on my dime? Half of it would be on my dime, giving away BLM lands.

Or do you want a government who does a measured approach and says, like, "What is the resource in there? Shall we repeal the 1872 mining law, the greatest giveaway of American assets in the world's history?" I mean, like, we have got to...

Hunters and anglers have been taken advantage of for all of my adult life for their votes, and, and they have not...

And they tend to flatten the serious debates over natural resource projects, treating the people who live in Alaska as a monolith when it is convenient to their priorities.

Consider the Ambler Road, a two hundred and eleven-mile industrial road to a copper and zinc mining area in the Northwest Arctic Borough.

In nineteen eighty, Alaska agreed to set aside ten federal parks, preserves, and monuments, spanning more than one hundred million acres of Alaska wilderness.

In a great compromise, ANILCA guarantees that the Interior Secretary shall permit such access to the mining district for resource development.

After initial approval by the first Trump administration in twenty twenty and the Biden administration suspending the permits and denying the right of way, the Trump administration last year cleared the project to proceed.

The Wilderness Society called the federal government's decision a, quote, "betrayal of Alaska's overwhelming local opposition to the project." But it is not unanimous in the slightest.

When the Biden administration blocked the Ambler Road, PJ Simon, first chief of the Aleutiat tribal council, said, "We need this road access to feed our families and allow for more affordable goods, as well as the jobs and investment it would provide for our village." Miles Cleveland, president of the Alaska Native Village of Ambler, said that the road is the only way our villages will survive and offers a path forward for my grandchildren and my people.

The Ambler Road is only more urgent as the Northwest Arctic Borough's largest employer, the Red Dog Zinc Mine, stares down a dwindling supply expected to deplete around twenty thirty-one.