Alaska Gov. Bill Walker is vowing to work with the President-elect Donald Trump to address what Walker sees as an adverse land management plan for the eastern portion of interior Alaska approved in the waning days of the Obama administration.
The Bureau of Land Management on Thursday announced the plan to manage 6.5 million areas of bureau land in a remote part of Alaska, north and east of Fairbanks.
The bureau says the plan increases recreational access for the public while also allowing for mining and development. But Walker counters in a release that the plan reduces economic opportunities, such as banning mineral exploration and development on more than 75 percent of the available public lands.
Walker says key portions of the plan violate the 1958 statehood act and other laws, and that’s why Alaska formally opposed the plan along with a group representing 19,000 Alaska Natives.