Residents of King Cove, Alaska, want to build a road from their vanishingly tiny town to a nearby airport. That's reasonable. And they have good reason to want it:
With a population of about 800, many of them Natives, King Cove lies 600 miles from Anchorage in an area known for its nasty weather. It has a small gravel airstrip, but to get to Anchorage villagers have relied on a larger, all-weather airport at Cold Bay, on the other side of a bay.
A road from King Cove to Cold Bay, which would be about 40 miles long in total, was first discussed in the mid-1970s, since travel by small plane or boat wasn't always possible or fast enough for emergencies. "We were not able to get our loved ones out of there in bad storms, which are pretty frequent," said Henry Mack, the community's longtime mayor, who left office last fall.
A federal appeals court recently upheld a land deal that would permit the project to go forward. But a desire to ensure adequate medical care for less than 1,000 people is apparently not a sufficient justification for building a gravel road through the backwoods—at least not if the backwoods are federally protected:
Conservation groups, who say the project is less about health care and more about transporting salmon and workers for the large cannery in King Cove, fear that more is at risk than just the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, 300,000 acres of unique habitat for migratory waterfowl, bears and other animals. ...
Enter the 39th president of the United States, a Democrat who left office 41 years ago.
In a rare legal filing by a former president, Mr. Carter this month supported an appeal by conservation groups to have a larger panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rehear the case. He wrote that the earlier ruling by a three-judge panel "is not only deeply mistaken, it's dangerous." The panel voted, 2-1, to uphold the land deal, with two Trump-appointed judges in favor.
Carter!!!
Look, Carter, he's okay—a simple kind of peanut farmer from down south somewhere, I can't remember. I'm not trying to dunk on him too hard.
But seriously—what's his deal? Why is he trying to stymie a low-impact public works project in the back o' beyond? Why??
Oh:
[H]e has expertise, and a vested interest, in the matter. As president, he pushed for and signed the law in question, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, known as Anilca, in 1980.
In response to questions from The New York Times, Mr. Carter wrote that the law "may be the most significant domestic achievement of my political life."
"Our great nation has never before or since preserved so much of America's natural and cultural heritage on such a remarkable scale," he added.
Ohhh.
So the old man wants to preserve his presidential legacy! I get that. I get it.
Nah I don't really get it. Move aside, Jimmy Carter, let these people build their road!
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