JUNEAU (AP) — Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, plans to visit Alaska this month, with a planned visit to the community at the center of a long-running dispute over a proposed land exchange aimed at building a road through a national wildlife refuge.
Haaland had planned to visit King Cove last year, but the trip never happened.
The Interior Department on April 4 said Haaland planned to visit several communities and sites in Alaska the week of April 17, including Anchorage, Fairbanks and King Cove.
Residents of King Cove have long sought a land connection through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge to Cold Bay, which is about 18 miles away and has an all-weather airport. They call it a safety issue, particularly for medivac flights.
The refuge, near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, more than 600 air miles southwest of Anchorage, contains internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl.
In 2013, Interior Department officials declined a land exchange, and efforts to move forward with one under the Trump administration faced legal challenges. A U.S. Justice Department attorney, in arguing a position taken under the Trump administration, last year told a federal appeals court panel that Haaland planned to review the record and visit King Cove before taking a position on the issue.
A federal appeals court panel last month reversed a decision that rejected a land swap to enable the road and sent the decision back to a federal judge in Alaska for further consideration. Conservation groups had sued over the proposed swap.
The Interior Department plays a big role in Alaska, overseeing more than half the land and employing more than 2,500 people in the state, through offices such as the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
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