Senate Narrowly Votes To Overturn Protections In Central Yukon Resource Management Plan (Updated)

In a Congressional vote that mostly went by party lines, the Senate joined the House in voting to overturn the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan, which was finalized by past President Joe Biden’s-led Bureau of Land Management in 2024 and was designed to limit mining and drilling in a region full of natural resources used for subsistence purposes. Now, as President Donald Trump’s administration plans to open up more Alaska land for drilling, including plans approved this week to create a new road project to link up the Ambler Mining District with the Dalton Highway, Congress has paved the way for more such projects to become more likely.

Here’s more from the Associated Press:

That timing made the plans vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to terminate rules that are finalized near the end of a president’s term. The resolutions require a simple majority in each chamber and take effect upon the president’s signature.

The House approved the repeals last month in votes largely along party lines. Trump is expected to sign the measures, which will boost a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

Trump ordered approval of the Ambler Road project earlier this week, saying it will unlock access to copper, cobalt and other critical minerals that the United States needs to compete with China on artificial intelligence and other resource development. Copper is used in the production of cars, electronics and even renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.

The Anchorage Daily News also weighed in with an editorial yesterday, proclaiming that Native Alaska subsistence resources could be jeopardized:

The Central Yukon Resource Management Plan, finalized by the Bureau of Land Management in 2024, is the product of 12 years of effort and consultation. Tribes, local businesses and residents participated in the process, ultimately landing on a plan that balances hunting, fishing, subsistence, resource development, wildlife protections and recreation. The plan guides the management of 13.3 million acres of public lands in Alaska’s Interior — lands that are also our ancestral homelands. These lands have sustained our people for countless generations with salmon, caribou, moose, berries and medicines. They continue to define who we are today.

That is why the Bering Sea-Interior Tribal Commission, which represents 40 federally recognized tribes, worked tirelessly to ensure the plan reflects our voices and our values. Many of our tribes served as cooperating agencies in the planning process, dedicating years of time and resources to make sure the RMP would protect the fish and wildlife that sustain us. Overturning it through S.J. Res. 63 — a Congressional Review Act resolution — would erase this work and silence the voices of the very people who depend most on these lands.

Among the reactions to this latest development is from the Center for Biological Diversity:

“The Senate just plunged northern Alaska into chaos, ripping up a balanced land management plan that Alaskans spent years collaborating on,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The existing plan was vital for both the people in the region and the salmon, caribou and Dall sheep that will suffer if migration routes are cut off and habitat isn’t protected. Our Alaska delegation should stop selling out our communities and public lands to out-of-state corporations that just want to plunder our state for profit.”

UPDATE: The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership released the following statement:

TRCP urges Congress to restore certainty for public land users and ensure the BLM can continue managing their lands responsibly and effectively into the future

Congress has voted to nullify three Bureau of Land Management resource management plans—the Central Yukon (Alaska), Miles City (Mont.), and North Dakota plans—through the Congressional Review Act. Once these Congressional resolutions of disapproval are signed by the President, the land management plans will be treated as if they were never issued, reverting management to outdated plans (some decades old) that don’t reflect today’s realities.

This is the first time the Congressional Review Act has been used on land management plans, setting a troubling precedent. Unlike typical agency regulations, these plans guide all activities in a BLM field office and are developed over many years with public input. Their nullification raises serious questions about the agency’s ability to update and modernize management in these planning areas in the future.

The Congressional Review Act prohibits the BLM from issuing new plans that are in “substantially the same form” as those that have been disapproved. This sets a vague standard that could make it difficult, or even impossible, for the agency to update these three management plans in the future without specific authorization from Congress. For the North Dakota RMP and Central Yukon RMP in particular, the previous plans that the BLM will revert to are almost 40 years old. This Congressional action will make it more difficult for the BLM to adapt these plans to changing conditions and local needs in the future.

The uncertainty these votes create extends beyond the three specific planning areas. Roughly 166 million acres of BLM lands are managed by plans that were approved since the Congressional Review Act was passed in 1996, which potentially jeopardizes the validity of those plans and the activities they authorize. This lack of clarity affects all authorized uses in a BLM field office, including oil and natural gas leases and permits to drill, mining operations, grazing permits, transmission line development, off-road vehicle use, hunting, fishing, and outfitter operations, and special recreation permits.  

TRCP urges Congress to resolve this uncertainty in a bipartisan manner that provides clarity for public land users and makes it easier, not harder, for the BLM to steward our public lands into the future. 

Learn more about TRCP’s commitment to public lands HERE.