BLM cuts more than 5 million acres from Alaska's extra statehood land claims

The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday cut more than 5 million acres from the land Alaska has claimed beyond what it's still owed under statehood.

The move immediately opens more than 4 million acres to the federal subsistence priority for rural residents and 4 million acres to potential federal mining claims, BLM said. While land is selected by the state, the rural subsistence preference doesn't apply to it, according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

Statehood gave Alaska the right to select federal land, and federal law lets it claim up to 125% of what it's still owed. Before Tuesday, the state had more than 13 million acres of selections and nearly 5 million acres of top filings, claims on land that wasn't available when the state made its picks. BLM said that was over the limit.

The state had already listed 5.7 million acres it could give back in September, then cut the list to about 5.2 million acres in October. The state's maps show 18 locations, including the Kotzebue Peninsula, the Noatak River and the West Ambler access corridor. BLM said the acres it cut came from that state process, but its announcement doesn't say which lands were included.

How much land Alaska is still owed depends on who's counting. The state put it at roughly 3.2 million acres in August. BLM says it has conveyed more than 96% of the 105 million acres authorized, leaving about 3.8 million, and said in July that those last acres are the hardest because many sit on land that isn't currently available.

BLM tied Tuesday's action to President Donald Trump's executive order "Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential." BLM said the state committed to a "good faith plan" to give up its excess selections in February, when Interior lifted a federal withdrawal along the Dalton Highway corridor and about 2.1 million acres of the state's top filings became selections.