Anchorage, AK – Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier said today the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Pebble Project released by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) last month, and the federal Record of Decision (ROD) expected within weeks, will serve as the basis for final federal decision- making at the proposed copper-gold-molybdenum project.
Collier was responding to a statement issued Sunday by Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, in which the former Vice President suggests he would rely on a study completed by the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2014 to deny federal permits to Pebble. Collier stressed the Final EIS released by the USACE on July 24, 2020 will “without any doubt whatsoever” serve as the administrative record for all federal regulatory and permitting decisions at Pebble.
“It’s election season, and people are going to posture and say things, I totally understand that,” Collier said. “But when it comes down to brass tacks, to the law, there can be no federal action at Pebble that is inconsistent with the Final EIS, period.”
Collier pointed out that prior efforts by the Obama administration to impose regulatory decisions at Pebble in the absence of an EIS or other legally defensible administrative record were stopped by the courts. He said any similar action by a future Democratic administration would be promptly overturned – particularly given the favorable findings of the Pebble EIS.
“Look, any suggestion that the Obama-era Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment (BBWA) is a more defensible administrative record for regulatory decision-making at Pebble than the Final EIS is laughable,” he said.
“Not only does the BBWA not even assess our project, it doesn’t consider project-specific mitigation, it’s based almost entirely on secondary research, and it isn’t an impact assessment. As a basis for regulatory decision-making, the BBWA is woefully inadequate and demonstrably inferior to the Final EIS, and I’m 100% certain that our federal courts will take the same view if they are asked.”
Collier stressed the Final EIS demonstrates that Pebble will have no measurable impact on Bristol Bay salmon or other fish populations, nor on the commercial, subsistence and sport fisheries they support.
“The science is in,” he said. “After two-and-a-half years of study by the USACE, the US EPA and nine other federal, state and local regulatory agencies, it has been determined the Pebble Project will fully co-exist with clean water and healthy fish and wildlife populations in Bristol Bay. No amount of Monday morning quarterbacking is going to change those findings.”
The Pebble deposit is on State of Alaska lands acquired as part of a land swap with the federal government in the 1970s, and is specifically designated for mineral exploration and development. With the Final EIS complete and a ROD pending, Collier said the window for federal decision-making at Pebble is closing. It will be up to the State administration and regulatory agencies to make final permitting decisions, he said.
“This project is on state lands acquired specifically for the purpose of mineral development,” Collier said. “For any federal administration to appropriate such lands after the fact is a taking prohibited by the US Constitution, not to mention a gross violation of state rights.”
Collier said any action by a Democratic administration to challenge Pebble’s federal permits once granted would have severe negative implications for the United States’ reputation as a jurisdiction for business investment, even if such an action was subsequently overturned by the courts. Investors willing to commit up to $1 billion or more to develop projects in the US, as Pebble has done, expect federal leaders to abide by the ‘rule of law’.
Rather than suggesting a willingness to overturn duly permitted and authorized projects, Collier said candidate Biden would be well served to tell Americans how the US can develop domestic sources of copper and other strategic minerals necessary to transition to a lower carbon future.
“Are we going to continue to rely on 3rd world countries, where environmental laws are lax and human rights are a pale shadow of the standards we enforce in the United States?” he asked. “Are we going to count on China to meet our material needs to combat climate change and advance America’s green economy of the future?
“Or are we going to finally acknowledge that the US can develop its natural resources more safely, responsibly and sustainably than any other country in the world?”