Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, speaks during a U.S. House debate on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in Kodiak. At center is Alaskan Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe. At left is Republican candidate Nick Begich. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
In Alaska’s U.S. House election, few things come up more frequently than the status of the state’s largest mining and drilling projects.
In ads and at campaign events, Republican candidate Nick Begich criticizes presidential actions that restrict mining and drilling. Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola trumpets her lobbying in favor of Willow, a large oil development in the National Petroleum Reserve.
But where Begich offers almost unconditional support for big projects, including the controversial Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska, Peltola has a more nuanced position.
She’s spoken in favor of oil drilling on the North Slope, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a position opposed by Democratic candidates in other states. She supports the proposed Donlin gold mine in Southwest Alaska but opposes Pebble and the proposed Ambler Road, which would supply mines in Northwest Alaska.
Peltola formerly opposed Donlin but changed her position earlier this year, causing Begich to insinuate that she is a flip-flopper on development.
Earlier this month, Peltola said there’s a simple reason for her positions: local support.
“I really think it’s important, when we’re looking at projects around the state, to listen carefully to the regional corporations that are involved in those projects and can benefit from them,” she said at a Fairbanks event.
Oil drilling in ANWR and the National Petroleum Reserve is strongly backed by Arctic Slope Regional Corp.
When it comes to Ambler, NANA Regional Corp. suspended its work with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority — which has been developing the Ambler Road — in May. NANA is the corporation for Northwest Alaska.
Doyon, the regional Native corporation for Interior Alaska, hasn’t worked with AIDEA on the road since 2023.
While corporations representing two villages have sued in support of the Pebble mine, it’s opposed by most village corporations and Bristol Bay Native Corp., a regional corporation in Southwest Alaska.
By text, a Begich campaign spokesperson said that the Republican candidate doesn’t support the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to preemptively veto the project as incompatible with the environment.
“Nick does not support preemptive vetos for projects on Alaskan lands. Doing so sets a dangerous precedent for Alaska at a time when the federal government has been locking up millions of acres in our state,” the spokesperson said. “Every resource development project in America must go through a stringent regulatory process and withstand legal scrutiny. We must ensure in Alaska that we do not risk a perpetual resource for a temporary one, and it’s by that standard that all projects should be measured.”
Peltola, conversely, introduced legislation that would permanently cancel the Pebble mine.
On Donlin, Peltola worked for the corporation developing the mine, but she left that role after the 2014 Mount Polley Mine spill in British Columbia and began opposing Donlin.
This spring, she switched positions and renewed her support for Donlin. Calista Corp., the regional corporation, holds land that includes the mine site, and it has endorsed Peltola.
“I defer a lot to Alaska Native corporations and regional corporations. I think that the federal government made a promise and an agreement with our Native corporations that they would be able to be economically viable and profitable,” Peltola said in Fairbanks. “And I feel that now, somewhere in the last 50 years, there’s been a shift and a desire to use different elements within the process to thwart development.”
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, signed into law in 1971, assigned millions of acres of federal land to Native corporations whose shareholders are the Indigenous people living in 12 different Alaska regions.
Peltola views the law as an extension of the federal government’s various treaties with sovereign American Indian nations.
“Fifty years ago, we said that you could use this land, and the Donlin region was chosen by Calista for its mineral potential. That was the reason that that land was selected. But then to go back and then tell them, ‘Just kidding, you can’t develop that,’ I think that that is like a broken treaty,” Peltola said. “I think it’s the next iteration of broken treaties we have to honor. This is a federal law that ANCSA corporations can develop their land and the natural resources on those lands. I don’t think it’s right that we would tell them 50 years later, ‘just kidding.’”
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