In court filing, Trump administration hints at a lifeline for embattled Alaska metals project

After a landmark veto, Trump administration officials say they’re “open to reconsideration” and are negotiating a potential settlement of a lawsuit filed by Pebble’s developer.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a rare step under former President Joe Biden to block development of the Pebble mine — Alaska’s largest known copper and gold deposit, which for years has fueled controversy over its potential impacts on one of the world’s largest salmon runs.

Now, under President Donald Trump, the agency is giving its past Pebble decisions another look and negotiating a deal that could end a lawsuit filed by Pebble’s developer — an announcement that’s boosted the company’s stock price this week.

Administration officials “have been actively considering the agency decisions” and are “open to reconsideration,” according to a recent court filing submitted by U.S. Department of Justice lawyers. The three-page document does not elaborate, though it references the past decision by the EPA and a separate decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny Pebble a key permit.

The Trump administration is now negotiating a potential settlement to a lawsuit that challenged the decision — a case filed last year by Pebble Limited Partnership, the project’s developer — the document added.

Pebble’s chief executive, John Shively, said that a settlement could result in the withdrawal of the EPA’s preemptive veto of mining activity in the project area. The proposed mine would be built in the Bristol Bay region, in the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

Major Obstacles

A reversal of the veto would amount to a stunning shift in momentum for the Pebble project, which seemed all but dead after the EPA decision two years ago. The project would still face major obstacles to its construction, including the 2020 denial of the key wetlands permit by the Army Corps.

Pebble appealed the wetlands permit decision, but the Army Corps last year rejected the appeal, citing the EPA’s 2023 veto.

Pebble sued both the EPA and the Army Corps.

A reversal of the EPA decision would give the developers “an opportunity to go back to the Corps,” said Shively. He declined to share additional details about a possible settlement.

The stock price of Northern Dynasty Minerals, Pebble’s publicly traded, Vancouver-based parent company, rose by more than 50% in the past week — a likely sign of investors’ enthusiasm about a possible settlement.

Potential Benefits

Pebble would be one of the world’s largest copper, gold and molybdenum mines. Boosters, including Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and two local Indigenous-owned corporations, say it could create much-needed jobs and generate billions of dollars in revenue for the state and rural Alaskans.

But the Bristol Bay region is also home to a prolific sockeye salmon run, which sustains rural subsistence fishermen and an annual commercial harvest worth more than $100 million. The proposed mine faces broad local, statewide and national opposition from fishermen, tribal governments, Bristol Bay’s regional Alaska Native-owned corporation and environmental groups.

“The legal, administrative, and public record, really, over and over and over again proves that this type of mining and mine does not belong in Bristol Bay,” said Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, a regional tribal consortium that fiercely opposes Pebble.

“This is something we’ve been fighting for decades, and it’s just going to be devastating yet again to be put through the rigamarole of a potential settlement,” said Hurley, reached by phone this week from her fish camp on the shores of Nushagak Bay, downstream of the Pebble deposit.

Given its size and proximity to the Bristol Bay fishery, Pebble critics include figures typically supportive of resource development, like Alaska’s two Republican U.S. senators. Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and even Donald Trump Jr., who is known to fish recreationally in the region, have also expressed concerns.

Trump’s first administration initially appeared more supportive of the project, undoing efforts by the Obama administration to block mine development. But in 2020, after an outpouring of public opposition — including from Republicans like Trump Jr. — the Army Corps denied Pebble’s application for a Clean Water Act permit.

In a court filing late last year, Pebble’s lawyers argued that the Army Corps’ decision “was likely due to political interference” by Trump Jr. and “his friends, and substantial political contributors to President Trump’s reelection.”

Soon after the start of Trump’s second term, justice department lawyers and Pebble agreed to pause the litigation while government officials caught up on the case. Some close observers of the project noted that Trump’s new chief of staff, Susie Wiles, once worked as a lobbyist for Pebble.

The EPA declined to answer questions from Northern Journal this week.

“At this time, our understanding is that there may be an updated submission made to EPA for consideration, but there is nothing currently before the agency to that effect,” Molly Vaseliou, the EPA’s associate administrator for public affairs, said in an emailed statement.

Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at [email protected]. He’s interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry.

This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.