Ranking Member Huffman Blasts Trump for Handing Over Alaskan Wilderness to Polluters

Ranking Member Huffman Blasts Trump for Handing Over Alaskan Wilderness to Polluters

Washington, D.C. - Today, Natural Resources Ranking Member Jared Huffman issued a statement blasting President Trump's decision to permit the Ambler Road Project:

"We're in the middle of another Republican shutdown where American families, workers, and small business are suffering. Instead of working with Democrats to reopen the government and save health care, Trump is rushing to give big polluters everything they want. Last week it was cancelling billions of dollars in clean energy projects, and now it's a blatant attempt to hand over treasured land to mining interests on the taxpayer's dime.

"As with every other shortsighted, self-serving decision by this administration, this move is silencing the people who will be impacted the most. Trump is sidestepping the views of Native Alaskans and short circuiting the federal government's obligation to hear from them-just like he's ignoring the pleas of the American people to address the cost of health care and other necessities.

"The mining industry hasn't even been able to prove that there are any resources in Brooks Range that would be worth the cost, difficulty, or destruction of mining. Trump's Ambler Road to nowhere is just another one of his world-class grifts: it's not guaranteed to produce any minerals, much less give Americans a return on their investment or aid local Alaskan communities. The only guarantees are despoiled landscapes, decimated wildlife populations, and increased hardships for the Indigenous communities who rely on thriving habitats for their culture and subsistence ways of life."

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