Despite denials, Dunleavy has long pushed Pebble prospect

Gov. Mike Dunleavy claims he has no position on the Pebble Mine, but he is really the tallest cheerleader the project has in Alaska.

Tom Collier, the former CEO of Pebble, and Ron Thiessen, CEO of Pebble’s owner, portrayed him on secret recordings as a strong supporter, which is accurate.

The governor’s publicity man protests too much in claiming that it ain’t necessarily so.

“What he’s said and continues to say is he’s not necessarily taking a position on the mine,” Dunleavy PR man Jeff Turner told the Anchorage Daily News about the governor’s alleged neutrality.

“Any claims that Gov. Dunleavy contacted White House administration officials on behalf of that company are false,” the state said. The key words are “on behalf of the company.” Dunleavy will say he has contacted the White House on behalf of Alaskans.

Alaska’s Republican leaders acted as if Collier was lying when he said that GOP officials support the project, but have kept their public comments measured to try to please project opponents.

Collier said Sen. Lisa Murkowski never votes against Pebble, while Sen. Dan Sullivan can be counted on to keep quiet. This didn’t go over well.

It’s as if Collier, who is now unemployed, just revealed the secret Republican handshake or accused the senators of not knowing the Alaska flag song. The company has rolled out the embellishment excuse, saying that no one should believe a thing he said on the recordings.

Murkowski and Sullivan have tried to dispute Collier’s statements by claiming they’ve been consistently anti-Pebble for a month.

Young is pro Pebble. So is Dunleavy.

On Dec. 20, 2019, a CNN investigation showed conclusively that the Pebble mine promoters had developed a symbiotic relationship with the Dunleavy administration, coaching the governor and his staff on how to deal with Trump, regulators, critics and potential investors.

The Dunleavy administration operated almost like a division of the company and the governor like an employee, but this escaped the attention of most Alaskans and received little news coverage because it happened in secret.

Company executives felt comfortable enough to create detailed talking points, statements and letters for the governor and Brett Huber, the Dunleavy aide pushing the project, to use on others.

The emails obtained by CNN and later by Alaska Public Media under a public records request show the secret hand-in-glove relationship between Pebble and Dunleavy. Many of those 2018-2019 emails are quoted in the text that follows.

Pebble coordinated with the Dunleavy campaign in 2018 on how best to advance the project and Dunleavy agreed to reach out to Vice President Mike Pence before the election. The mine promoters instructed Dunleavy on what to say. In addition, Pebble drafted an email for Huber to send by way of introduction.

Pebble Chief of Staff Shalon Harrington wrote on Sept. 26, 2018, “we truly appreciate your guys’ support and your willingness to reach out to Pence’s office.” She asked Huber to let her know when the campaign sent the email to Pence.

She submitted two pages of talking points for candidate Dunleavy, including a line in which she said for him, “I have a different position regarding the mine than does my Democratic opponent and the independent candidate also running.”

The mine also said he should tell Pence that reversing the Obama action on Pebble would really help Dunleavy’s campaign and it would “remove this matter as an election issue.”

Democratic candidate Mark Begich and independent Bill Walker both opposed the mine during the 2018 campaign, while Dunleavy made positive comments about it.

After the election, Dunleavy and his staff made it routine to work with Collier and other executives to boost the mine project behind the scenes with the Trump administration. On Dec. 7, Huber wrote to Harrington to say that an email that dealt with political activity would be wrong. She also sent him a new edition of talking points and said Pence’s office was waiting for his call.

Harrington invited Huber to the Pebble holiday party in 2018.

The Washington office of Pebble wrote Dunleavy talking points and sent them to Huber Feb. 1, 2019 for a conversation he was to have with a regional EPA official about Pebble.

On Feb. 21, 2019 at 11:16 p.m., Collier wrote a draft statement for Dunleavy that would be presented to potential Pebble investors at an event in Vancouver. The statement said Dunleavy would support mining projects of all sorts and Alaska “is open for business.”

“For me, mining is personal,” Pebble wrote for Dunleavy. “I grew up around mining. My daughters work for the Red Dog mine in Northwest Alaska. I have seen firsthand how important this industry is to a healthy and robust economy.”

The governor’s office changed a few words, but kept the thrust of the statement —including the Pebble-crafted lines about mining being personal and Dunleavy’s daughters working at Red Dog.

The state sent a copy of the letter to Collier two days before it went to the potential investors in Vancouver.

On March 7, 2019, Harrington wrote to Huber about pushing back against attempts to extend a comment period and gave tips on what the governor could say. “We cannot thank you and the governor enough for all your support as we work through this permitting process.”

Four hours later Huber wrote to Harrington to let her know in advance what Dunleavy was going to say to the White House about reversing the Obama actions against Pebble. He signed his emails to her “B.”

On April 24, 2019 Sen. Lisa Murkowski sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers calling for the extension of the comment period by 30 days on the draft environmental impact statement for the Pebble Mine.

She said it was important, “given the length and complexity of the DEIS and the need to ensure that the thousands of Alaskans who have followed this project closely can provide meaningful feedback on it.”

It was an entirely reasonable request, one that any governor of Alaska should have endorsed.

But the Pebble Partnership was unhappy. The mine promoters called upon their friend in the governor’s office to take up the issue and oppose Murkowski’s request to extend the public comment period by 30 days.

Dunleavy did exactly as Pebble asked, putting his name on a 700-word letter written for him by Pebble, changing only a few sentences.

He submitted the ghost-written letter of opposition to Col. Philip Borders of the Army Corps of Engineers two days after Murkowski’s missive.

“When I took office my top priority was to grow Alaska’s economy by letting the world know that Alaska was open for business and to encourage companies across the globe to invest in our state,” Pebble wrote for Dunleavy.

As requested by Pebble, Dunleavy attacked the 30-day extension: “Arbitrarily extending the public comment period sends a direct and negative message to the global investment community that the regulatory process in Alaska is not accountable. I urge you to resist requests that will not add value to the public processes you have undertaken.”

The federal government extended the public comment period by 30 days and none of the horrible things that Pebble/Dunleavy claimed happened.

The real problem here is the contradiction between what Dunleavy says in public about Pebble, claiming to be neutral, while he works in private to boost the project, as I wrote here last December.

Dunleavy met with President Donald Trump on Air Force One for about 20 minutes during a refueling stop in Anchorage on June 26, 2019.

While Dunleavy refused to inform Alaskans about the details of their discussion—other than to say that topics included mining, timber and tariffs—he told promoters of the Pebble Mine that good news was on the way. He said he had received a promise from Trump to get the EPA out of the way.

According to the promoters of the project, Dunleavy received a pledge from Trump that the Environmental Protection Agency would reverse the so-called “preemptive veto” issued by the Obama administration in 2014. Dunleavy had made this request earlier in the year.

While Dunleavy and Trump talked on the tarmac at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, the Pebble Partnership was in a state of panic because of this EPA press release issued earlier that day in Washington, D.C.

A couple of hours before Dunleavy met Trump, Pebble Mine Chief of Staff Harrington emailed these talking points for Dunleavy to use on the president.

The email, with “Talkers” as the subject line, said Pebble was near collapse and needed immediate action by Trump to keep it alive.

The company was furious at EPA’s top lawyer, Matt Leopold, claiming he had advanced an argument that was “total BS” in the memo that was the basis of the June 26 EPA press release.

“This is a young, inexperienced kid at EPA using belts and suspenders, when neither are needed. He could have announced today that the veto was withdrawn—the law does not require the process the EPA general counsel set out in his memo,” the Pebble Mine promoters said Dunleavy should tell Trump.

The EPA press release that day was a stunning blow to Pebble, according to the talking points: “Today’s EPA announcement says—literally—we may withdraw the preemptive veto, we may not. Not only does it not withdraw the proposed veto, it sends the market a screaming message that EPA may still kill the project even if they get a permit from the Corps of Engineers.”

The company had been so sure that the veto would be withdrawn that it had given Dunleavy a draft press release the day before the meeting in Anchorage in which it praised the Trump administration for removing the Obama veto.

The talking points proposed that Dunleavy tell Trump: “Before the proposed veto Pebble stock was at over $20 a share—today it is at 50 cents. They tell me they will die if they can’t do a deal with an investor in the next few weeks. They tell me they need the veto lifted in order to do the deal.”

“Pebble can’t raise the money it needs in this environment. It will likely die in the next few weeks,” the talking points said.

Pebble said Dunleavy should tell Trump, “My message that Alaska is open for business will be ‘Trumped’ by EPA’s contrary message.”

Pebble also asked Dunleavy to suggest Trump to tweet his opposition to the EPA veto, which would overshadow the EPA press release: “This could save Pebble. It is the president publicly sending a signal that the veto will likely be withdrawn,” Pebble asked Dunleavy to say.

There was no tweet, but the next day the EPA changed its position, though that reversal was not announced publicly until the end of July.

Dunleavy’s back-channel communication to Pebble proved to be correct: “Four EPA sources with knowledge of the decision told CNN that senior agency officials in Washington summoned scientists and other staffers to an internal videoconference on June 27, the day after the Trump-Dunleavy meeting, to inform them of the agency's reversal,” CNN reported Aug, 9.

The proof that Pebble had inside knowledge of the Trump-Dunleavy June 26 discussion is in another email CNN referred to in its investigation, an email sent by Harrington to Dunleavy’s office on July 3.

The EPA reversal June 27 on the veto was not publicly known on July 2, the day when Alaska Public Media posted this story on the formal EPA comments on the draft environmental impact statement for Pebble.

The EPA comments, signed by Chris Hladick, the regional administrator in Seattle, said the Army Corps of Engineers had underestimated the proposed mine’s impact on Bristol Bay water quality and fish habitat.

Hladick alleged in that letter that the EPA had not made a decision on keeping or overturning the 2014 Obama ruling.

Harrington, the Pebble executive, wrote Huber at 3:33 a.m. July 3 about the Alaska Public Media report, saying Trump’s pledge to Dunleavy to intervene had apparently not filtered down to the federal work force, including Leopold, the attorney, and Hladick, the administrator in Seattle.

“Another article to get the blood boiling,” Harrington wrote to the governor’s office about the Alaska Public Media report, “and another reason to get in touch with Leopold or Hladick ASAP on the veto. That letter to the Corps from EPA/Hladick totally contradicts everything the governor was promised last week by the president.”

In July 2019, Pebble was trying to get Wheaton Precious Metals to invest in the project. Collier wrote to Huber asking if the governor could change his travel plans to meet with Wheaton’s board, as “I do not think a phone call or a meeting with senior staff will do the trick.”

Dunleavy did not change his travel schedule, but that Collier felt comfortable enough to make the request shows the kind of relationship they had. The CEO “wants to hear face to face from the Gov that Alaska is open for business,” Collier said.

Huber replied that he wanted Dunleavy to change his schedule, but Pebble would probably have to settle for a telephone call from Dunleavy and a personal appearance by Huber.

On July 22, Harrington gave Huber talking points to help Pebble at the meeting with the Wheaten executives, including this one: “Alaska is open for business. The governor has been a vocal supporter of Pebble for years.”

She said she had seen Huber deliver the Pebble talking points effectively several times. “You’re a rockstar,” she wrote.

Two days later, Harrington wrote Huber to say that “the opposition” had discovered Wheaton executives had come to Anchorage and Pebble wanted the governor to say this was the kind of thing that prevented Alaska from being open for business.

On July 29, Harrington wrote to Huber about this July 24 letter from the NRDC and seven other organizations sent to Wheaton Precious Metals. The NRDC letter outlined what opponents of the project see as the major risks, referring to it as an “international pariah,” and advising the company to beware.

Harrington said Pebble was worried that the NRDC document would scare off Wheaton from investing in Pebble and asked for Dunleavy’s help.

“I will say that the letter definitely has given Wheaton pause on potentially investing in Alaska and the Pebble project,” she said.

A letter from Dunleavy supporting the Pebble Mine would help the situation and reassure the Wheaton executives, she said. Pebble attached this draft letter for Dunleavy to send.

“We truly believe that a letter from the governor will make a huge difference to the Wheaton executive team and their board,” Harrington said.

The governor’s office did as requested the next day, copying the main language in the draft Pebble letter and sending it to Wheaton, without revealing that Pebble had asked Dunleavy to take this step.

Using many of the phrases and sentences supplied by Pebble, Dunleavy said the NRDC had sent a letter “essentially threatening you not to invest in the Pebble project,” but that the state would “stand by those who invest in Alaska” and fight “scurrilous attacks.”

Wheaton did not invest in the mine, CNN reported.

Former Sen. Rick Halford, quoted by Alaska Public Media, summarized the revelations in the CNN report by saying the mine promoters are “using the governor’s office as a pass-through for Pebble propaganda.”

The secretly recorded comments that got Collier fired didn’t convey the full extent of the ways in which Dunleavy has pushed the project and done Pebble’s bidding behind the scenes.

We don’t know what has been happening in secret regarding Pebble over the past year with Dunleavy because there has not been a more recent effort like the one by CNN late last year to request public records and analyze state correspondence.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.

Comments? Write to me at dermotmcole@gmail.com