After the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency delivered its landmark veto of the controversial Pebble Mine project last year, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Attorney General Treg Taylor took the unusual step of appealing the decision directly to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Dunleavy, who has the distinction of being one of the few Alaska officials to support the project, argued that the veto was such a grave violation of the state’s rights to develop its resources that it needed to skip the line to the court.
On Monday, in a single line contained in the weekly release of orders, the court denied the effort. As is the case with such orders, the justices offered no additional rationale behind their decision.
The decision doesn’t snuff out the Dunleavy administration’s hopes of reviving the Pebble Mine project, but it means they will have to work through the traditional gauntlet of appeals through the federal court system. That’s a far more costly and time-consuming effort than the direct appeal, likely extending beyond the three years remaining in Dunleavy’s term.
Observers did not expect the direct appeal to be productive, noting that such direct appeals are incredibly rare for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up. The federal government’s briefing to the Supreme Court argues that the use of Alaska’s appeal should be limited to particularly serious cases where there are no other adequate courts available.
“Alaska’s complaint does not meet that high threshold. First, other forums are available for all of Alaska’s claims, consistent with congressional design: a district court for the State’s (Administrative Procedure Act) claim and the Court of Federal Claims for the State’s claims seeking monetary compensation,” argued the fed’s briefing. “Second, and relatedly, Alaska’s suit involves challenges to federal agency action of the sort that are the routine business of the lower courts — not the kind of ‘delicate and grave’ dispute warranting this Court’s adjudication in the first instance.”
The Department of Law has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Dunleavy has long been a supporter of the Pebble Mine project, directly lobbying former President Donald Trump with materials that were ghostwritten by Pebble executives. That puts him at odds with a majority of other elected officials in Alaska, who have opposed the project while supporting mining generally. Alaska Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan echoed the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens in 2022 when they released a statement headlined “Pebble is the Wrong Mine in the Wrong Place.”
At the release of his proposed budget last month, Dunleavy was effusive about the possibility that mining projects and other resource extraction projects could be the silver bullet for the state’s ongoing financial woes. He even went as far as suggesting that the upcoming presidential election — likely between President Joe Biden and Trump — will determine the future of the state.
“If we can’t do it, then we have to talk about reducing the size of government,” he said of resource extraction, adding that it will force people to leave and the remaining Alaskans to ask questions like, “Why are we building more playgrounds? Where is the cheer and chatter and laughter of kids?”
What he didn’t mention, however, is that for all his lobbying of the former president, it was the Trump administration that delivered a key blow to the project in 2020 following an outcry of Republican sportsmen who regularly visit the Bristol Bay fishery for guided trips.
The U.S. Supreme Court has its own conservative sportsman who made trips to Alaska as well. A 2023 report by ProPublica uncovered a previously undisclosed fishing trip that Justice Samuel Alito took to Alaska in early 2008, which included a visit to the Nushagak River in Bristol Bay.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
