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“We're fighting an uphill battle with the federal government, with some overzealous environmental groups,” he said to more than 50 people at the Westmark Hotel. “We're fighting with everything we've got.”
Parnell expressed disdain for regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Department of the Interior during a 20-minute speech at the Alaska Miners Association's biennial conference.
“The media's been so focused on health care and what Congress has been doing there, the agencies have been very busy exerting their regulatory authority to extend reviews, to change regulatory structures,” Parnell said after the speech.
Consternation with federal regulation has been a large part of Parnell's public messages, including his state-of-the-state address and a February request to speed up the federal permit-renewal process for the Red Dog zinc-lead mine, which was delayed by an appeal by environmental groups.
Parnell did not state whether he was for or against the controversial Pebble Mine project near Lake Iliamna but said the state's permitting process was sufficient to determine whether the project should move forward.
“We're never going to allow a mine that trades the future one resource for another,” Parnell said. “However, neither will we be bullied into denying a project before the permitting process has run its course.”
An audience member asked Parnell about the effectiveness of a recent settlement between Pebble Mine adversary Bob Gillam and the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
Gillam was accused of illegally funneling money into ad campaigns. He settled with APOC for $100,000 and no admission of guilt by any party.
“I think it would deter those who think $100,000 is a lot of money to,” Parnell said, “and to those who it's not, it probably won't.”
The first-year governor described how his office is trying to have a say in national policies that affect federal land, which makes up about 60 percent of Alaska.
The Alaska attorney general's office has filed for a motion to intervene in a Nevada lawsuit on mining regulations.
Several conservation groups and a Shoshone tribal organization filed suit against the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture in October. The suit is fighting regulations passed several years ago that loosened limits on waste dumping and use of public land.
“That could have a severe impact on thousands of mining claims,” Parnell said.
The governor also spoke against proposed changes to the 1872 Mining Act that are making the rounds in Congress.
The classification of endangered species is another recurring topic Parnell broached Wednesday.
In the speech, Parnell said the state is “constantly barraged” by proposals to list new species under the Endangered Species Act, most of which he called unwarranted or not based on science.
“I basically told my attorney general, ‘We're gong to fight every Endangered Species Act listing where we have a reason to do so — where our jobs are at stake, where our economy's at stake,” he said afterward.
In November, Parnell increased the state's resources to fight “misuses” of the act. During the speech, he suggested that political motives beyond animal protection were in play.
“It used to be that the Endangered Species Act was for a species' recovery, not for a land-use planning tool or to block jobs for our economy,” he said.
He spoke optimistically of the mining industry's future, citing Usibelli Coal Mine's applications for a project at Jumbo Dome near Healy and exploration for a gold mine in Livengood.
Estimates from the Web site of International Tower Hill, the Livengood mine's sole owner, say 7 million ounces of gold might lie in the claim.
The symposium will continue until Friday at the Westmark and features vending booths and informational sessions.
Contact staff writer Joshua Armstrong at 459-7523.
To contact the Newsroom, call 907-274-1111.
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