The State of Alaska is suing the Biden administration, alleging the federal government failed to clean up millions of acres of land transferred to Alaskan Natives.
The suit names Interior Secretary Debra Haaland, the Interior Department and the sub-departmental Bureau of Land Management, claiming they’ve failed to act on contractual obligations to clean up knowingly polluted sites affecting Alaskan Native populations.
Most Alaskan Natives do not live on federal reservations but instead on land they own through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of the 1970s.
According to Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, more than 650 parcels were contaminated by arsenic, asbestos, lead, mercury, and other substances before their property rights were transferred from the federal government.
Dunleavy said Haaland and the Interior Department are contractually obligated to clean up these lands, adding that the Biden administration only highlights Native populations when it helps their politics.
“They knowingly transferred lands that were polluted to the Natives. They knew the wells were there, and they knew there was pollution,” Dunleavy told Fox News Digital while discussing the July complaint in a recent interview.
The Republican governor added that the polluted lands suit is not in the form of one single court claim, but that the plaintiffs made a filing for each identified site, calling it another example of a flaw in the Biden administration’s environmentalism and green agenda.
“Many moves that they do in Alaska totally fly in the face of their concept of saving the environment,” he said. “When you push [resource production] overseas, whether it’s timber, whether it’s oil, whether it’s gas or whether it’s mining, you’re accepting the fact that mining and those other activities will take place under much lower standards than Alaska and the United States have.”
“The part I think they and the extreme environmentalists never get called out on is it’s not about the environment. For some reason, I think the purpose is just to weaken the state and weaken the country, to be honest with you,” he continued.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Interior Department for comment but did not return the request.
