'In the dark of night': Trump's Interior chief snuck Murkowski an 11th-hour win
Just days before leaving office, then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt ordered federal officials to use a risky legal strategy to advance a controversial road project through a wildlife refuge in Alaska, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO and Type Investigations — a move that if implemented, could erode public land protections across the state.
The January 15 Bernhardt memo to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move forward with the permitting of a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Alaska stunned critics who have opposed the project for more than two decades.
“To be deciding huge questions like this in the dark of night with the secretary taking the law into his own hands is totally inappropriate,” said Pat Lavin, senior policy adviser with Defenders of Wildlife, which is currently involved in litigation over the road project. “It is a kangaroo court for our public lands.”
A long-standing priority for the Alaska delegation — and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in particular — the 19-mile Izembek road, which was proposed to connect the village of King Cove with an airport in nearby Cold Bay, would cut through federally designated wilderness lands in the refuge.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dark-night-trumps-interior-chief-123417511.html
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