Northern Dynasty Files Response in Alaska Federal Court
Northern Dynasty announced that it filed a brief in Alaska Federal Court responding to the Department of Justice brief filed on February 17 on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The State of Alaska, Iliamna Natives and Alaska Peninsula also filed response briefs. The arguments presented clearly demonstrate the flaws in the DOJ brief and the compelling reasons why the veto is illegal and should be withdrawn immediately. Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty President and CEO commented: "Our assertion has consistently been that this veto is illegal, and we have a high level of confidence that the court will agree with us. The conclusions upon which the government rested its veto determination are directly contradicted by the Final Environmental Impact Statement ("FEIS") prepared pursuant to National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA") with the assistance of AECOM, an independent and very experienced consulting firm. Moreover, EPA did not even attempt to provide an explanation of why its conclusions contradict those reached in the FEIS. The FEIS is the 'gold standard' for resolving complex scientific and factual issues where various parties hold different views. We are confident the court will conclude that EPA's conclusions, which are contrary to the conclusions reached in the FEIS, are 'arbitrary and capricious' and require that the issuance of the veto be vacated. In addition to making this arbitrary and capricious argument, the brief that we filed today powerfully argues that the economic analysis failed to comply with the law because it did not calculate the positive economic impacts of the project and exaggerated the negative impact costs. The EPA's choice to arbitrarily ignore the potential of the proposed mine to generate billions of dollars of economic activity based on capital investments and tax revenues alone[1], benefiting the region, Alaska and the U.S., is irresponsible. Further, the standard used by EPA to determine that the veto should be issued was much lower than what the statute requires, and EPA only concluded that certain negative impacts "may" occur rather than that they "will" occur as the statute also requires, among many other obvious failures to comply with the statute. In direct contradiction to the progress this administration has made to advance its pro-energy, pro-mining, and pro-development agenda, the DOJ brief supports the establishment of a legal precedent that can and will be used by future Democratic administrations to unwind this progress. This issue is bigger than just Pebble. Projects across the whole of the U.S., not just Alaska - be it those with previously issued permits that have been operational for years or any of the other 60-75,000 Clean Water Act 404 permits applied for and issued each year in the U.S., representing hundreds of billions of dollars of economic activity - are all put at risk with such a precedent."
