@epaleezeldin Why is EPA burning taxpayer money defending the Pebble Mine veto in court when the attorney who drafted the original 404(c) petition told them, in writing, that the Recommended Determination would "trigger otherwise avoidable legal claims"? Their reply: "Thanks for the feedback." @SarahPalinUSA @TyewayorHighway @taketheseodds thoughts?

Stopping #PebbleMine $NAK has never been about science. It’s politics. Special interests would rather we be forever reliant on China and other dangerous foreign regimes that develop & refine natural resources, while Alaska’s rich domestic deposits sit untapped. It’s been tragic. But it’s fixable! Trump can rescind Biden’s illogical & illegal veto of #Pebble and put America back to work:

The letter I was talking about during the space:

$NAK Nation! Hope to see you all this Monday as Kris and I break down the latest (final) briefs filed in Pebble v. EPA. Specifically, we'll be examining what we expected, were surprised by, and some of the misses.

Here’s an important story in the Washington Post, with a link below, about how the United States forgot how to mine anything and what it is costing our nation today. If America wants to reduce its dependence on imports from the rest of the world to rebuild its industrial base, speeding up permitting and investing in the sector is not enough. We need to move fast to rebuild a greatly diminished pool of trained American mining engineers and we need to do it fast and at the scale of the American economy. U.S. mining schools collectively graduated about 300 mining engineers last year, according to the Foreign Policy article by @Christinalu on the @washingtonpost Post’s Ripple platform. (300!) China, by contrast, is home to about 45 mining engineering programs and churns out about 3,000 graduates every year, according to 2024 estimates. @MBazilian leads the @payneinstitute at @coschoolofmines where my son @govind_ivanhoe studied Geology & Geological Engineering and my brother Eric Friedland studied Geophysics. I’m regular speaker at the Payne Institute and urge everyone to direct their attention to this thought leading institution. washingtonpost.com/ripple/20…

Another gaping hole I realized in EPA's argument--Kings(chinook) and Coho ain't Sockeye. EPA defends its action by valuing the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery, "$2.0 billion" and "15,000 jobs." FD at EPA_AR_0082945. That value is overwhelmingly sockeye-driven. Bristol Bay produces "about half of the world's Sockeye salmon." per EPA_AR_0082943. But the streams EPA is protecting at the mine site don't contain sockeye. PLP's sampling of the 8.5 miles proposed for fill found Coho and Chinook, roughly 370 juvenile Coho and 50 juvenile Chinook in NFK 1.190, and 344 juvenile Coho and 12 juvenile Chinook in NFK 1.200. FEIS at EPA_AR_0095026, EPA_AR_0092560. Zero sockeye. EPA's own brief concedes sockeye are found "immediately adjacent" and "immediately downstream" of the mine site, not in the streams being destroyed. Doc. 215 p 46. EPA bridges this gap through indirect mechanisms: headwater streams supply nutrients, gravel, and flow to downstream sockeye habitat. FD at EPA_AR_0083078-79. Scientifically plausible, but the Army Corps evaluated the same mechanisms and concluded the mine "is not expected to affect overall productivity in the greater Koktuli River basin." FEIS, Ch. 4 at EPA_AR_0095966. The cost-benefit problem is straightforward. EPA credits the full $2.0 billion fishery value as a benefit of its action without ever disaggregating how much of that value is attributable to the Coho and Chinook actually found at the mine site versus the sockeye connected only through indirect downstream effects the FEIS found insufficient. EPA has species-specific harvest data in the record (EPA_AR_0083049) but never uses it to apportion the benefit. Under Michigan v. EPA, 576 U.S. 743, 752 (2015), cost-benefit analysis requires "consideration of all the relevant factors", including which species are actually affected and what those species are actually worth. The brief's strongest species-specific link is Chinook: the Nushagak district accounts for 75% of Bristol Bay's commercial Chinook catch, and the Koktuli River is often the largest Chinook producer in the Nushagak watershed. EPA_AR_0083017, 0083030. But EPA never quantifies the Chinook-specific commercial value or separates it from the sockeye-dominated total, despite having species-specific commercial harvest data available in the record. EPA_AR_0083049. Funnily enough, coming out of an old case from the NRDC v. EPA, an agency is "free to emphasize or deemphasize particular factors" but must provide a reasoned basis for doing. NRDC v. EPA, 25 F.3d 1063, 1071 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Aggregating all species into a single undifferentiated value and attributing it to an action whose primary ecological evidence involves different species than those driving the value is not reasoned emphasis, it is (intentional?) obfuscation. tldr; EPA put $2.0 billion on the benefits side of the ledger. The ecological evidence at the mine site supports a fraction of that figure. How large a fraction is unknowable because EPA never did the math. There is no scientific disagreement, it's a simple analytical failure that makes the cost-benefit weighing un-reviewable. Kill shot. 🎯

Another contradiction in the response brief. Gosh is the DOJ purposefully throwing the case for us? @taketheseodds @TyewayorHighway @kbeckermd The brief contains three positions on the Expanded Mine Scenario that cannot all be true simultaneously. Position 1: The expanded mine scenario is too speculative to include in the cost analysis. EPA excluded it because it "has not otherwise been proposed, and would require additional and separate permitting." Doc. 215 at page 91-92. The State of Alaska itself argued that "consideration of the Expanded Mine Scenario is inappropriate." RTC at EPA_AR_0083945. Okay, make sense, if it's speculative, don't count its costs. Position 2: The restriction covers future mine plans for the entire deposit. The restriction explicitly applies to "future proposals to construct and operate a mine to develop the Pebble deposit" that would cause comparable impacts. FD at EPA_AR_0083172. An expanded mine is exactly the kind of future proposal the restriction targets. So EPA simultaneously says an expanded mine is too speculative to count as a cost but concrete enough to restrict. Position 3: The restriction's costs are "similar" to the prohibition's costs. EPA argues a mine anywhere in the restriction area would have roughly the same economic value as the 2020 Mine Plan. RTC at EPA_AR_0084254. But if the expanded mine scenario is excluded as speculative, and the restriction covers future expanded plans, then EPA has no basis for claiming it assessed the restriction's actual costs, because the actual costs depend on the scale of future mining that the restriction prevents, which EPA refused to analyze. Remember, the 2020 mine plan/preliminary economic impact statement was already significantly knee-capped to try and appease the EPA, only 20 years, limited mining, then forever monitoring, etc. BARELY tickling the value of mining the full deposit (1 Trillion USD ), generations of good jobs for the workers, stable infrastructure for one of poorest counties in America, etc. You can hold any two of these positions. You cannot hold all three. If the expanded scenario is speculative, you can't restrict it and claim you've assessed the restriction's costs. If the restriction covers expanded mining, you need to assess the costs of preventing expanded mining. If the costs are "similar" regardless of scale, then the expanded scenario isn't speculative, it's a foreseeable economic loss you're choosing to ignore.

Who Coined #DrillBabyDrill 🤔 Mr. President: Great. But the administration is aggressively incentivizing FOREIGN resource development. First and foremost our focus must be on AMERICAN sources of energy, including our most critical and in-demand minerals and rare earths. The only reason our safe, responsible, imperative projects like #PebbleMine $NAK are vetoed and/or shut down are CRONY CAPITALISM and special interests at play. Until our own mines, refineries and reserves are allowed to flourish, “America First” is mere rhetoric. (And if I hear my ol’ “Drill Baby Drill” and “Mine Baby Mine” thieved by those who forget I coined those in reference to America First… )

Copper demand is set to explode. - By 2040, demand is expected to grow ~50% - Growth is dominated by renewables and EVs But a new source of demand has emerged that no one had on their bingo card: AI and defense. By 2040, AI and defense combined are expected to add ~4 Mt of annual demand. To put that in perspective, that’s the equivalent of adding ~3 of the world’s top-producing copper mines... in just 15 years. And that’s only AI and defense. Total demand additions reach ~12 Mt by 2040. Meanwhile: - We’re barely searching for new copper projects - And when we do, it takes ~20 years from exploration to first production In other words, we’re expected to add the equivalent of ~10 of the world’s biggest mines in less time than it takes to find and build one. The math just isn’t mathing. Copper remains one of my favorite long-term plays.

NAK Nation - HUGE SENATE ALERT! 🚨 January 28, 2026: Senate EPW Committee (chaired by pro-mining Sen. Capito) holds "Federal Environmental Review and Permitting Processes, Part II" hearing at 10 AM. This is the exact stage for advancing H.R. 3898 (PERMIT Act) in the Senate!

100% agree. The world’s LARGEST COPPER MINE $NAK #PebbleMine; the richest deposits of most crucial minerals & rare earths… sitting untapped in the remoteness of Alaska! Safe, plentiful, domestic energy sources that we presently beg foreign countries to produce FOR US. We go to WAR to take other countries’ minerals that we have here, underfoot! #MineBabyMine Make it make sense, Trump administration:

🎯

Happy New Year NAKers! Excellent summary that captures the essence of Pebble! miningnewsnorth.com/story/20…

Vacate the illegal Biden-era preemptive veto against the $NAK Pebble Mine!!!

Why IS it so hard for politicians to take a stand, one way or the other? Our solvency, sovereignty & security cannot wait for the wishy-washy milquetoast vanilla-types to finally take action on the most important energy-producing opportunity of our time. #MineBabyMine #PebbleMine $NAK I honestly don’t know how they sleep at night. Power at their fingertips to make America free of foreign countries’ control, but not valorous enough to even tell us, definitively, if they even WANT these domestic minerals and rare earths mined:

For too long, America’s broken permitting system has driven up costs and delayed projects that should take months, not years. The process has become a self-imposed handicap and driven up costs. Thankfully, the SPEED Act is a critical step toward restoring balance to the permitting process and allowing America to build again. Thank you to Chairman @RepWesterman and @NatResources for leading this strong bipartisan effort to advance permitting reform.

Weekly $NAK SEDI Check: BULLISH! Takeaway: All insiders chose to convert expiring warrants into common shares and put fresh cash at risk, no exits. Total warrants exercised: 1.09M Exercise price: $0.45 Total insider cash invested: ~$490,500 Insiders involved: 5 Directors, senior officers, and a 10% holder Largest single exercise: 375,000 shares (~$169k) Timing: Days before Dec 14 warrant expiry Insider sales: 0 Net effect: Warrants → common shares (real equity)

🚀 Good stuff

Alaska’s story is one of vast potential and opportunity. Equally as important, America is stronger when Alaska is empowered to lead in energy and resource development. With the leadership of @POTUS and @HouseGOP, we are advancing legislation at an historic pace to unlock opportunity, strengthen our economy, and ensure we have the energy needed to power America and her allies well into the future. We’ve known the road to American prosperity begins in Alaska; the rest of America now knows that as well.

⚡️Attention NAK Nation!⚡️ H.R. 3898 is set for House action tomorrow...December 10th. Get ready — the fight is moving to the floor. Let’s go! 🇺🇸🔥