Biden administration backs contested Alaska wildlife refuge road

The Biden administration has thrown its support behind a controversial land swap that would allow a road to be built through a national wildlife refuge in Alaska.

In a draft environmental review document released this week, the administration stated that it supported pursuing the road’s construction.

The road would connect the small King Cove community to an airport that supporters say is important for emergency medical evacuation. Opponents, however, have said the road puts the refuge’s lands, waters and animals at risk — including some wildlife that is important to tribes.

Estelle Thomson, president of the Native Village of Paimiut, told The Hill last week that the area in question is important for species of birds like the emperor goose that are important to her village.

“My people depend on them … for food. If we have declines in those numbers, it could be devastating to us.”

Previously, the road had been rejected by the Obama administration but later approved by the Trump administration. Around the same time it was facing blowback from progressives over the approval of a massive oil project in Alaska, the Biden administration announced that it would withdraw the road’s Trump-era approval due to “several procedural flaws.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement issued late Wednesday that it had fixed Trump-era errors, though it’s ultimately facing the same conclusion.

“Unlike the last administration's exchange, the new [draft environmental review] makes it clear that promoting economic development does not provide legal support for the exchange – any land exchange must advance the conservation purposes of the wildlife refuge system in Alaska, while protecting subsistence uses and habitat,” the release states.

“The draft demonstrates how conservation and subsistence are enhanced through this exchange: the refuge system will increase by 30,000 acres and over 1,700 of those acres will come into Wilderness status,” the agency wrote.

Even if the Biden administration had wanted to block the road, it’s likely that the incoming Trump administration still would have ultimately approved it.