SJRES-63-119
Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 181.
Sponsored by Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
What it does
This joint resolution would use the Congressional Review Act to cancel the Bureau of Land Management's "Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan," issued November 12, 2024. If enacted, the plan would have no legal force, and under the Congressional Review Act the BLM would be barred from issuing a substantially similar plan unless a later law specifically authorizes it.
Who benefits
Mining, oil and gas, and other resource-extraction companies operating in the roughly 13-million-acre Central Yukon planning area in Alaska, along with local Alaska communities and state officials who sought fewer land-use restrictions. Off-road vehicle users and other groups whose access the plan limited would also benefit.
Who is hurt
Conservation and wildlife advocacy groups, subsistence hunters and fishers who supported habitat protections in the plan, and Alaska Native communities relying on undisturbed land for traditional uses. Recreational users who favored the plan's conservation-oriented management, and BLM staff who would need to revert to prior, likely outdated, management guidance, could also be affected.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue the BLM plan locked up too much federal land in central Alaska from mining, energy development, and traditional access, harming the state's resource-based economy and imposing federal priorities over local and state input. They contend Congress, through the Congressional Review Act, is exercising its proper oversight role to reverse a late-term executive action finalized just before a change in administration.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue the Central Yukon plan resulted from years of public process and balances conservation, subsistence use, and development, and that overturning it removes protections for wildlife habitat and subsistence resources relied on by Alaska Native and rural communities. They contend the Congressional Review Act's "substantially similar" bar would prevent BLM from ever adopting comparable protections for this land, permanently limiting future management options.