October 30, 2020 — Two new secretly recorded videos of Northern Dynasty Minerals CEO Ronald Thiessen discussing the financial aspects of the Pebble Mine project have been revealed by the Environmental Investigation Agency, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group.
In September, the EIA posted a series of videos it surreptitiously recorded of conversations with Thiessen and Pebble Limited Partnership CEO Tom Collier, which led to Collier’s resignation on 23 September.
October 29, 2020 — Oil drilling in the Arctic and the Pebble gold mine in Alaska aren’t actually on the ballot — but they might as well be.
The controversial projects are hanging in the balance of the presidential election, with Joe Biden’s vow to scuttle them. And dozens of other oil, gas and mining ventures planned across the U.S. face heightened risk of rejection or longer permitting times as the Democratic nominee focuses on promoting cleaner alternatives.
The threat extends even to some projects that already have federal permits. Lawsuits challenging government approvals create an opening for settlement agreements that result in more analysis and possibly canceled authorizations, said Height Securities LLC analyst Josh Price.
Conversely, Trump’s re-election would pose uncertainty affecting some renewable energy developers that would fare better under Biden, including companies seeking to build multibillion-dollar wind farms off the U.S. coasts.
There’s a “sliding scale of risk,” said Christi Tezak, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners. “Where you arrive on that scale is going to be increasingly influenced by the carbon intensity of the activities you’re engaged in.
October 23, 2020 — Health care was the issue that pushed Dr. Al Gross to challenge Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is running for a second term. But fisheries has been the hot-button issue as this senate race draws to a close.
Gross, from Juneau, has fished his whole life. His mother was the first executive director of the United Fishermen of Alaska.
Sullivan has the backing of the United Fishermen of Alaska in this race, though that declaration came in June, before much of the political fallout that has put Gross within striking distance of the seat. Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers endorsed Sullivan on Oct. 7. Gross is endorsed by the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, which has been an outspoken and vehement critic of the proposed Pebble Mine.
An Oct. 10 debate between the candidates hosted by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce and ComFish via Zoom saw Pebble Mine rear its head in the first 10 minutes.
October 19, 2020 — Sen. Lisa Murkowski issued her strongest objection to date against the Pebble Mine project, a proposed mining site of copper, gold and molybdenum near the ecologically sensitive Bristol Bay, pledging to use the federal appropriations process to protect the region.
Speaking virtually at a convention of the Alaska Federation of Natives on Thursday, Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, said she would use spending legislation to protect Bristol Bay, home to the world’s biggest salmon run and one of its largest commercial fisheries. She is also chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“I simply think that this is the wrong mine in the wrong place,” Murkowski said. “We need longer-term protections for the region that can also provide enduring value for Alaskans.”
Murkowski submitted language in the fiscal 2020 Interior-Environment spending bill that directed the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a more rigorous environmental assessment of the project’s risks. “I plan to build on my appropriations language from last year to make sure that the Bristol bay region remains protected,” she said Thursday.
October 16, 2020 — Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Thursday denounced the Pebble mine project and said that she will take further congressional action to protect the Bristol Bay region in Southwest Alaska.
“I recognize the need for new economic development in Southwest Alaska, I think we all do,” she said in a speech before the Alaska Federation of Natives.
“But I simply think this is the wrong mine in the wrong place,” the senator said, echoing the words of the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
Murkowski, speaking by video during AFN’s annual convention, said she would introduce report language into the Senate Appropriations Committee next year to help protect the region where the mine is proposed for construction.
October 14, 2020 — The Kodiak Chamber of Commerce’s U.S. Senate debate is the only Alaska political forum of its kind devoted exclusively to fisheries. Saturday night’s showdown between Sen. Dan Sullivan and his challenger, Al Gross, had some heated exchanges.
“If this was a Nascar race, you would have corporate sponsor patches all over your jacket,” said Gross, who accused his Republican opponent of being beholden to special interests and rattled off a long list.
“The plastics industry. Big pharma. Big oil on your hat, and I’d save this spot right here in the middle for Pebble mine,” Gross said.
“The Pebble Mine is dead, and I’m going to keep it that way,” Sullivan fired back.
Gross referred to a secretly recorded video, in which the head of Pebble Mine claims Sullivan silently supports the mine.
October 12, 2020 — After weeks of attack ads and snipes at each other in the media, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and challenger Al Gross laid into each other in real time during the 90-minute premiere debate in their race for a U.S. Senate seat.
The debate, hosted by ComFish Alaska and the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce, took place over Zoom and was centered around fisheries policy. The candidates early and often folded in central issues of the race, including campaign financing, the federal COVID-19 relief package and Pebble Mine.
Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, repeatedly characterized Gross as a threat to giving Democrats control of the Senate.
“He will … empower the radical left in the Senate, in the Congress,” Sullivan said in his closing remarks. “That has an anti-Alaska agenda. An agenda focused on shutting down fishing opportunities, more monuments, more Endangered Species Act designations. This is a huge threat to our state.”
Gross, standing outside and wearing a camo jacket, talked of his childhood in Southeast Alaska and growing up as a fisherman. He aggressively went at Sullivan for not denouncing the development of the Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska earlier in the process.
October 9, 2020 — On the Pebble Mine, Congressman Don Young is holding his ground. The state’s sole U.S. House member said Monday that the federal government has no business telling the Pebble Limited Partnership whether it should be allowed to build the proposed copper and gold mine near the headwaters of Bristol Bay.
Rather, Young said he thinks the state should be the one deciding whether or not the mine goes forward. And he says if the Environmental Protection Agency or Army Corps won’t give the mine a federal wetlands permit, the feds should compensate the state for the lost potential.
“I do not like outside influence. This is state land. People forget that — they never mention that, ol’ Tucker [Carlson] on Fox News never said it’s state land. It’s land that was granted to myself and to you and you and you and you and you. And when outside influence takes that land — or the value from the state — they should pay us for it,” Young said at a campaign stop at Ketchikan’s Chamber of Commerce.
His remarks echo what he said in August, when the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would require Pebble to submit plans for extensive environmental mitigation before it would issue a permit.
October 9, 2020 — Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration continues to assist the company behind the Pebble mining project as it drafts plans to satisfy federal permitting requirements, and the governor this week rejected calls to condemn Pebble and stop his administration’s work on it.
Since the release of the secretly recorded “Pebble tapes” last month, Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators have distanced themselves from the project, which opponents describe as deeply politically unpopular. But Dunleavy, who’s also a Republican, says he has a responsibility to pursue projects like Pebble — if they can be safely built — to help improve the lives of rural Alaska residents.
Pebble’s proposal, he said in an interview, could unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth for the people of Bristol Bay, the region where the mine would be built.
October 7, 2020 — The Pebble Limited Partnership is trying to patch its battered image after secretly recorded videos last month caught its two top executives boasting about their influence over Alaska politicians and regulators.
The controversial Pebble mine proposal faces new challenges after Alaska’s U.S. senators, the governor and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denounced the statements as false.
But despite the blowback from the videos’ Sept. 21 release, the developer of the copper and gold prospect in Southwest Alaska continues its effort to win a key construction permit from the Corps.
“The idea that Pebble is dead, no matter whose opinion it is, is just not accurate,” said Mark Hamilton, vice president of public affairs at Pebble Limited Partnership. “(Pebble) can go forward and it is going forward as we speak.”