Alaska needs to keep fighting for access to lands

I became a senator one month after President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980, and over the next three decades I was involved in the law’s implementation, both as a senator and later as Alaska’s governor. As I write this now, nearly 45 years after ANILCA became law, I am discouraged that we are still fighting battles that should have been resolved as soon as the ink dried on this law.

A case in point is the Ambler Road, which is unambiguously authorized by the law: “Congress finds that there is a need for surface access across the Western...