"A coalition of organizations has again sued the Trump administration for its "giveaway" of federal lands in Alaska for industrial purposes.
At issue are the steps the administration has taken to allow a 211-mile-long road across a pristine stretch of the state, passing through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and crossing the Kobuk Wild River, to access the site of a proposed copper mine.
“Alaska has some of the last truly wild places left in the United States, and they are protected by law,” Dan Ritzman, Sierra Club’s director of conservation, said in a release Tuesday. “Industrial proposals like the Ambler Road and expanded LNG production will cause irreversible damage to these precious landscapes. We’re taking the Trump administration to court to protect these public lands for the next generation.”
The latest lawsuit against the Interior Department comes in the wake of the department's action last month to revoke Public Land Orders 5150 and 5180, which set aside from development a long, narrow corridor in Alaska that frames the Dalton Highway. That protection needed to be lifted for the so-called Ambler Road to be built from the highway west to the community of Ambler. The state of Alaska has long desired to see those orders revoked, saying P.O. 5150 in particular blocked "development on millions of acres of land along this key infrastructure corridor.""
Kurt Repanshek reports for National Parks Traveler March 10, 2026.
