Report: Trump administration to block proposed Alaska mine
The Trump administration plans to block a proposed copper and gold mine near the headwaters of a major U.S. salmon fishery in Alaska, six people described as familiar with its plans told Politico on Saturday.
The administration's rejection of the Pebble Mine project is expected to come after Trump faced pressure to stop it from GOP mega-donor Andy Sabin, Bass Pro Shops CEO Johnny Morris and the his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., Politico reported.
“With any government, whether it be Obama or Trump, nothing is certain until it happens, and that’s just the nature of this beast,” Sabin, who has spoken with the president about the proposed mine, said in an interview with Politico. "But I’m fairly certain that you’re going to get good news.”
Pebble Limited Partnership CEO Tom Collier disputed the Politico report,
“We firmly believe that the implication pushed by Politico that the White House is going to kill the project is clearly in error, likely made by a rush to publish rather than doing the necessary diligence to track down the full story," Collier said in a statement. “We categorically deny any reports that the Trump Administration is going to return to an Obama-like approach that allowed politics to interfere with the normal, traditional permitting process. This president clearly believes in keeping politics out of permitting – something conservatives and the business community fully support."
The head of one of the nation's biggest environmentalist groups said he believes the Trump administration will stop the project.
“Pebble Mine has always been the wrong mine in the wrong place,” Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement, “This decision marks a key step to save Alaska’s Bristol Bay — the world’s most important salmon fishery which...
