WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) today responded to the Environmental Protection Agency’s release of the final watershed assessment of state-owned lands in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region:
“EPA’s assessment stops short of prohibiting responsible development in the Bristol Bay watershed, but the agency has strongly implied that this report will be a basis to preemptively veto economic opportunities in the region in the future," Murkowski said. “I remain convinced that a preemptive veto of a mine or any other project, which the agency claims it can do under the Clean Water Act, would set a terrible precedent for development in our state and across the nation."
Murkowski has continually criticized EPA for conducting the assessment based on a hypothetical mine, before any plan or permit application has been filed with the agency.
“If the EPA has concerns about the impact of a project there is an appropriate time to raise them - after a permit application has been made, not before. It is clear that a preemptive veto is still being considered by EPA. Such a veto is quite simply outside the legal authority that Congress intended to provide EPA," Murkowski said.
Murkowski has twice written to EPA (Feb. 16, 2011 and April 18, 2012 ) about her concerns with the agency’s Bristol Bay watershed assessment, including whether a decision by the agency to block a large-scale mining operation could set a legal precedent that would prevent other development proposals. EPA responded on Mar. 21, 2011 , and May 17, 2012.
