The Trump administration is throwing a lifeline to the massive Pebble mine planned near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, as regulators move toward undoing Obama-era environmental restrictions that have thwarted the project.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will resume considering on Wednesday whether to withdraw the proposed water pollution restrictions that have effectively stalled the project since they were outlined in 2014, said a senior EPA official who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter before it is public. Reconsidering the issue – after a year-and-a-half hiatus – is a necessary prelude to the EPA officially lifting the restrictions later.