A long-awaited land selection agreement for Sealaska Corporation is among a package of public land bills that are now slated to move quickly through Congress. A deal to attach the package to the must-pass defense bill was announced late last night.
The bill would turn over about 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest to Sealaska, the regional Native corporation of Southeast Alaska, for logging and development.
Nationally, the bill moves 110,000 acres out of national control, enables a controversial copper mine in Arizona and expands a Bureau of Land Management program to streamline drilling permits. Outside of Alaska, it also establishes more than 200,000 acres of wilderness and designates new national parks.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski called it a balanced package that will increase economic opportunities in Western states. Leaders of both parties, in the House and Senate, have approved the deal. If it passes, it will be the most extensive public lands legislation to become law in at least five years.
The bill would sell an old DEW Line radar station to Olgoonik Corporation, the village corporation of Wainwright. The parcel is about 1,500 acres inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The bill says the corporation must pay market value for the acreage. It also clears federal interests in three municipal lots in downtown Anchorage and, further north, turns over an Air Force tank farm to the city of Nome. In the defense portion of the bill, lawmakers affirm the process the Air Force used when it selected Eielson Air Force Base to house the first F-35A squadrons.
