A federal judge has dismissed part of a lawsuit that seeks to block the transfer of over two million acres of public land to the state of Alaska.
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced in February that it would revoke decades-old protections for an area called the Dalton Utility Corridor, which runs alongside the Dalton Highway and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The next month, ten environmental groups filed a lawsuit to stop the transfer, which they say would erode federal subsistence rights and speed up resource development projects, like the proposed Ambler Road.
In their complaint, the group said the transfer violates other federal laws, like the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which protect those lands from development.
On July 24, U.S. District Judge Aaron Peterson dismissed part of the legal challenge involving a 1.4 million acre subset of the Dalton Corridor that Alaska had selected for transfer under the Statehood Act. In his decision, he said Alaska has sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, so the state’s interest in those lands is not subject to legal challenges.
President Trump nominated Peterson to serve as a federal judge for Alaska’s U.S. District Court in 2025. He was confirmed by the Senate earlier this year. The administration’s interest in opening the Dalton Corridor to resource development is outlined in executive orders that call for expanding energy and mineral development across Alaska.
A separate legal challenge to the transfer of the remaining roughly 700,000 acres of the Dalton Corridor is ongoing.