Supreme Court Denies Challenge to EPA’s Pebble Mine Veto

The US Supreme Court will not weigh in on Alaska’s challenge to the EPA’s 2023 decision to block the proposed Pebble copper mine above Bristol Bay.

The justices denied the state’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint Monday.

Alaska in July brought its Supreme Court original jurisdiction challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s veto of the Pebble Mine, claiming that the EPA intruded upon the state’s sovereignty.

The veto was an illegal “taking” of state property, Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor and attorneys at Consovoy McCarthy PLLC in Washington, claimed in the filing.

The state claims that the veto violates mineral rights to wetlands-containing land that Alaska was granted by the federal government when it became a state in 1959 and as part of an amendment of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The EPA’s veto “constitutes a breach of contract” because the US promised Alaska that land it received included mining rights, and the EPA violated those rights, the state’s filing says.

Alaska’s rights under the land grants must now be interpreted under the Supreme Court’s May 2023 Sackett v. EPA ruling, which grappled with wetlands and streams that were protected under the Clean Water Act as navigable waters of the US, or WOTUS.

The EPA never attempted to establish that any waters in the Pebble copper deposit are navigable, the state claims.

The case is Alaska v. United States, U.S., No. 22O157, 1/8/24.