Former President Jimmy Carter took the unusual step of filing an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court. The case involves an longstanding dispute between local residents and conservationists about building a gravel road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to allow access to an all-weather airport in Cold Bay. The road would allow medical emergencies to be evacuated to hospital facilities. A recent land exchange worries Carter that the construction would open the entire refuge to adverse development.[Shishshaldin Volcano, Izembek NWR]
Carter was responsible for passing in 1980 the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, that preserved 162,500 square miles of Alaska as parks and refuges. It is one of the landmark pieces of US legislation protecting wilderness. Congress created Izembek under the Act last year. Its lagoon contains a rich bed of eelgrass that feeds migrating Brant goose, Stellar's eider ducks, and other species. The land exchange in question was rejected by a federal Disrict Court judge in 2020, but that decision was overruled by a three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Conservationists asked for an en banc hearing on that reversal.
Carter's brief is in support of the request. He argues that the divided panel does not strike the "careful balance between preservation and development embodied in the Act. Once national interest lands are developed, they cannot be returned to Nature. The split decision, say conservationists allow pro-development judges to back door land exchanges in support of projects. The current Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, visited Imebeck and the villge of King Cove last month, but did not take a position on the lawsuit. A former Interior official under Clinton, said the panel's decision did not reflect the intent of the Act, which has two purposes: protection of subsistence living and conservation of wilderness,