As you may recall, in a devastating legal opinion this past March, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upended decades of successful efforts, including three prior court opinions, protecting the Izembek Wilderness from road construction. Former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell made the right decision back in 2013 to protect Izembek when she rejected the proposed road. During the Trump administration, Interior did an about-face, approving not one, but two, closed-door land exchanges needed for road construction. The federal district court ruled in our favor when we challenged the agreements. The Trump administration appealed those rulings that protected Izembek from the road, and disappointingly, the Biden administration continued that appeal. The recent 2-1 decision in the Ninth Circuit reversed the good district court decisions. Now we’ve requested an en banc, or full-court, hearing in the Ninth Circuit. Our petition for this rehearing is being supported by former President Jimmy Carter, who signed into law the legislation that protects Izembek and other wild public lands throughout Alaska. Former Dept. of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, former Interior Solicitor John Leshy, and a group of law professors have also filed amicus briefs in support of our en banc petition. A road bisecting the internationally-renowned Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness would be catastrophic. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland must reverse the Biden’s administration’s current misguided course, and instead defend and protect Izembek as Congress intended and as Americans deserve. Read more in an op-ed by Fran Mauer, our Alaska representative: Trustees for Alaska represents Wilderness Watch and eight other groups in the lawsuit. |
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