On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Federalist Western Correspondent Tristan Justice joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his recent reporting trip to Alaska where natural resource conflicts have taken over the state’s politics. Justice visited oil drilling sites and a remote southwest Alaskan village that is effectively banned from harvesting their massive deposits of copper, gold, porphyry, and molydenum.

“There’s a tribal rivalry that gets exploited by the Democrats who, again, want to preserve Alaska as this grand museum where no development ought to take place whatsoever, even though these people may probably never visit, and probably don’t even know what some of these areas look like,” Justice said.

Environmentalists, Justice said, will stifle projects to protect the wildlife but others say development is necessary to forward Alaska’s oil, gas, and mining industries.

“I think there is a little bit of precedent for mines actually opening up and being becoming productive because our environmental standards are so high of actually enhancing environmental prosperity but again the fishermen say the scale of what’s being proposed just hasn’t happened anywhere yet and so there’s a lot of anxiety about, you know, with this being such high stakes, posing a risk to one of the largest industries in the state,” Justice said.

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