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Alaska is aggressively seeking control of federal lands beneath rivers and lakebeds in the state, a move that could dismantle environmental protections in national parks and preserves and undermine the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The Trump administration is fast-tracking the state's request for control of this land, according to public inspection notices published in the Federal Register Tuesday.
Alaska is asserting that it received title to all navigable waters when it became a state in 1959, including the land beneath them. State officials argue that federal control of these lands creates jurisdictional ambiguity and that Alaska should have the same sovereignty over its waterways as other states. But former federal officials say that transferring these lands to the state could weaken environmental protections established by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
“This is part of the Dunleavy Administration’s effort to attack federal authority over natural resource management—including subsistence fishing and hunting under ANILCA,” Robert T. Anderson, who served as Interior solicitor in the Biden administration, told Bloomberg Law.
State ownership of these submerged lands would include any minerals found in them, according to legal experts.
BLM nominee has big ties to oil industry
Steve Pearce, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, earned as much as $1 million last year from a business associated with oil and gas development and owned interests in oil leases in New Mexico and Oklahoma, according to a financial disclosure form posted last week by the Office of Government Ethics.
Pearce reported that he earned between $100 thousand and $1 million from “Industrial equipment (Frac tanks lease to purchase)” in the disclosure. Pearce and his wife have divested their oil lease holdings in New Mexico, according to the disclosure. If confirmed, Pearce said in his ethics agreement that he will sell his interest in oil and gas leases in Oklahoma and turn over leadership of his oilfield services company to his wife.
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Congress is aware of the importance of renewable energy as part of the BLM's contribution to energy generation, along with managing for conservation, recreation and wildlife. Hopefully the Department of the Interior can follow along.”
