The Interior Department’s transfer of over 2 million acres of federal land to Alaska’s control will survive after a federal judge on Friday rejected environmentalists’ request to block the change in ownership.
The land transfer initiated earlier this year includes much of the Trans-Alaska pipeline corridor and will allow the state to more quickly approve permits for the proposed Ambler Road, which would connect the Dalton Highway to mining locations.
When Congress passed legislation to make Alaska a state in 1958, it included a promise to transfer 103 million acres of “vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved” land to the state, a process that continues decades later.
The transfer came about after a February order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum revoked withdrawal orders issued in the early 1970s for lands that are now corridors for the Trans-Alaska pipeline and Dalton Highway.
