Alaska’s Supreme Court is again considering whether the proposed Alaska gasline project violates the Constitutional rights of a group of young Alaskans. The case was dismissed last year by a superior court judge and is now being appealed to the state’s highest court.
The court heard oral arguments from lawyers representing both sides of the case last week in Summer Sagoonick et. al. v. State of Alaska et. al. II, often shortened to just Sagoonick II. The case takes its name from one of the seven plaintiffs, Summer Sagoonick, of Unalakleet.The plaintiffs are being represented by the Oregon-based nonprofit law firm Our Children’s Trust.
Andrew Welley is a senior attorney with the firm and argued the plaintiff’s claims before the Supreme Court. He says the section of state law outlining the mission of the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation necessitates a gasline that would necessarily pollute the environment.
“Your honors, these young people have come to the courts because the statutorily mandated Alaska LNG Project presents an existential threat to their health, their safety and their continuing access and the continuing availability of protected public-trust resources that they rely on for their lives and their cultures,” Welley said.
If it’s built, the Alaska LNG Project will treat natural gas on the North Slope, move it south through a roughly 800-mile pipeline and liquefy it in Nikiski for shipment overseas. The project’s estimated $44 billion price tag has long hindered project progress, but it’s gotten new life in the years following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and interest from President Donald Trump.
Developers tout the pipeline as a project that will unlock natural gas for in-state residents amid a forecast shortage, bolster national security and displace higher-polluting global energy sources. But there’s no shortage of skeptics, who continue to raise questions about the project’s steep costs, environmental impact and market competitiveness.
Attorney Laura Wolff is representing the state of Alaska in the case. She says the court should dismiss the case because it makes substantially the same argument as a previous case challenging the legality of the project on environmental grounds.
“This court refused to establish a constitutional common law controlling state policy about the appropriate balancing of resource development against environmental protection,” Wolff said. “And this Court refused to jettison the constitutional mandate that the legislature manage natural resources in the public interest and for the maximum benefit of Alaskans collectively.”
The case currently before the court is the second attempt by youth plaintiffs to challenge the pipeline. The Supreme Court ruled against youth plaintiffs in 2022, upholding an earlier dismissal of the case on the grounds that natural resource policy is a matter for state lawmakers and agencies.
The state Constitution says Alaska’s replenishable resources – like fish, forests and wildlife – shall be managed on a sustained yield principle. Arguments around that section of the constitution were recently taken up by the state’s highest court.
Supreme Court Justice Jude Pate says that’s relevant in this case.
“We don't second-guess policy calls, but we do – I think we have cases where we've reviewed for compliance with the sustained yield duty,” he said.
But Pate also says the plaintiffs are challenging a version of the project that hasn’t yet come to fruition.
“Because you made a facial challenge to the entire statute, it seems to encompass any permutation of pipeline that can be created,” he said.
As the latest challenge to the pipeline has moved through Alaska courts, the project has continued to pick up momentum. Glenfarne Group LLC, the project’s majority owner, has announced a smattering of nonbinding agreements from companies tentatively interested in helping build the pipeline or in buying its natural gas.
Glenfarne has not yet decided whether it will actually move forward with developing the project, though. The company has said it expects to make that decision in the near future.
