Nicholas Mezes

Senior citizen

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@Billyjakk65 @SarahPalinUSA Billy you don't even have a clue.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@MarcMilette Thanks @MarcMilette . We've missed your sage contributions!! Looking forward to hearing your views on the court hearing back in June. I'm thinking judge Gleason will have some verdict within the next 6 weeks or so.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@DanSullivan_AK Thank you for supporting the #pebblemine !!!!! Hope that it will be allowed to open soon and benefit local Alaskans, the State as a whole, and indeed the security of the USA!!!

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@TyewayorHighway Pertinent and timely! Thanks for posting.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@TyewayorHighway I'm there as petercanam.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@MarcMilette I very much look forward to these exciting in-depth analyses, Marc! Thank you for spending your time and sharing your findings with us all! You are doing a phenomenal service for this community, and we are truly blessed!

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@epaleezeldin Hi Lee, we hope that you will soon show us how the #pebblemine in Alaska can be mined environmentally safely and fulfill the need to have our critical minerals mined and processed in the US. As you know it has about $1 Trillion in value=jobs=win, win for Alaskans and Americans!!

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@SenDanSullivan What's going on with the #Pebblemine ?

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@epaleezeldin @LeeMZeldin Sir, your message is inconsistent, as the EPA is opposing the #PebbleMine in Alaska. It doesn't make any sense with what the administration is saying about priorities. We have technology where if it's the salmon that's
the problem, the FEIS had proved they would not be affected.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@elonmusk please see post by @MarcMilette (partially shown here, please comment on the excellent thesis from Marc): "As we all know, Northern Dynasty and Pebble" ... are you familiar with this land in Alaska, Sir? If so, you know it is one of the world's largest unmined Cu & Rh.

[Marc Milette @MarcMilette]

🏔️ NAK Nation — The Briefs Are In. Here Is What You Need To Know. 🏔️

As we all know, Northern Dynasty and Pebble Limited Partnership filed their reply brief in case 3:24-cv-59 before Judge Sharon Gleason in the US District Court for the District of Alaska yesterday (April 14).

The State of Alaska and the Iliamna Natives Ltd and Alaska Peninsula Corp also filed their reply briefs. The briefing record is now complete. Judge Gleason can rule at any time.

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

I've been reading the briefing over the past several hours and I wanted to share my thoughts with NAK Nation as soon as possible. With that said here is my honest assessment of what these briefs contain and why they matter.

The Opening Line Says Everything

Northern Dynasty's brief opens with this question directed at the EPA.

"What devastating harm justifies destroying an over one billion dollar investment and depriving the nation of 800 billion dollars worth of its mineral wealth?"

That is not a gentle introduction. That is a direct challenge. And the brief spends 76 pages answering it with documented evidence from the EPA's own administrative record.

The EPA Has Been Retreating From Its Own Arguments

The most important theme running through Northern Dynasty's brief is a pattern that repeats throughout every section. PLP identifies a specific factual claim the EPA made in the veto. Documents that the claim is irrational or directly contradicted by the Final Environmental Impact Statement. Then shows that when challenged in court the EPA retreated from or disavowed that very claim.

When an agency cannot defend in court the findings on which it based its decision that is the textbook definition of arbitrary and capricious agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The FEIS Is The Gold Standard And The EPA Ignored It

The 5000 plus page Final Environmental Impact Statement was prepared by AECOM an independent and highly experienced consulting firm. It is the most comprehensive scientific analysis of the Pebble Mine project ever conducted.

The FEIS found the 2020 Mine Plan will have no measurable impact on Bristol Bay fish populations. The EPA left that conclusion undisturbed in the veto. Yet the EPA simultaneously counted the preservation of the Bristol Bay fishery as a benefit of issuing the veto.

You cannot simultaneously find no measurable impact on Bristol Bay fish populations and count the preservation of Bristol Bay fish populations as a benefit of your decision. That is internally contradictory on its face. Northern Dynasty documented this with specific administrative record citations. The EPA has no response.

The 27 Coho Argument

This is the most memorable argument in the brief and I want to make sure NAK Nation understands it clearly.

Only 27 salmon have been observed spawning in the only reach that would be affected. From only one species. In one reach.

The EPA's position in litigation reduces to this. Any tiny stream with any single salmon must be preserved because that salmon is likely to have some genetic diversity and under EPA's portfolio theory every theoretical iota of genetic diversity must be preserved. No matter the cost.

Northern Dynasty documents that those 27 salmon might disappear naturally in any given year. Commercial fishers take 1000 times as many from the Nushagak District every year. The FEIS concluded the impacts would not be measurable and would fall within the range of natural variability. The EPA agreed with that finding. Then disregarded it anyway.

The EPA is preserving 27 salmon at the cost of 800 billion dollars of national mineral wealth. And when challenged in court the EPA's response was that the number of salmon in a stream does not matter.

The EPA Did Not Even Count Gold

Northern Dynasty documents that the EPA's economic analysis did not count gold production at all. The Pebble deposit contains tens of millions of ounces of gold. Omitting gold from an economic analysis of the Pebble Mine is not a minor technical error. It is a fundamental failure that renders the cost benefit analysis irrational on its face.

The EPA Applied The Wrong Legal Standard

Section 404c of the Clean Water Act authorizes a veto only if a discharge will have an unacceptable adverse effect. Not might. Not may. Will.

Northern Dynasty documents that the EPA used the word could throughout the veto rather than will. Could is the language of hypothesis and possibility not certainty. Under the Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision from 2024 Judge Gleason must independently determine what the statute requires. The EPA cannot claim deference for its interpretation. And the best interpretation of will is not reasonably likely. It is reasonable certainty.

The EPA Understated Pebble's Copper Contribution

The EPA admitted it understated what Pebble would contribute to US copper supply. The correct figure is double or triple what the veto said. The EPA called this error insignificant.

Northern Dynasty's response is precise and powerful. The EPA regards the putative loss of 0.01 percent of the Bristol Bay Coho population as catastrophic. But a contribution to US copper supply two orders of magnitude larger than that as no big deal. That is not a reasonable balancing of costs and benefits. That is an agency that had already decided the answer and worked backwards.

The State of Alaska Brief

The State of Alaska filed its own separate brief making six independent legal arguments. The strongest is this. The EPA drew its defined area around land not water. Section 404c only authorizes EPA to act within waters of the United States. The EPA never established which specific water features within its 309 square mile defined area were actually jurisdictional waters. It simply assumed they were.

The EPA admitted this in its own brief. The State of Alaska used that admission directly against it.

The State also argued that the Alaska Statehood Act uses the word shall in conveying mineral rights to the state. Shall is mandatory under settled Supreme Court precedent. The federal government made a binding promise to Alaska at statehood. The EPA cannot override that promise without clear congressional authorization it does not have.

The Native Corporations Brief

Iliamna Natives Ltd and Alaska Peninsula Corp represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation argued that Section 404c is unconstitutional under the nondelegation doctrine. The federal defendants admitted in their own brief that the EPA Administrator has unfettered discretion to decide whether to issue a veto or do nothing. No intelligible principle guides that choice. Under the Supreme Court's own precedent from Panama Refining Co v Ryan that is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.

What Happens Next

Judge Gleason now has everything she needs to rule. She can rule at any time. There is no required waiting period. Her ruling could come in days weeks or months. That uncertainty is real and your investment thesis should account for it.

What I can tell you is this. The complete plaintiff coalition has presented Judge Gleason with a comprehensive and multi-layered legal challenge that gives her multiple independent paths to vacate the veto without ever reaching disputed scientific questions. She can decide this case on statutory text and documented administrative record failures alone.

The briefing record is STRONG. The EPA's documented retreats from its own stated rationales in litigation are particularly damaging to the government's position.

The destination remains the same. The world's largest undeveloped copper deposit. 57 billion pounds of copper. 71 million ounces of gold. On Alaska state land. Blocked by a veto that multiple plaintiffs have documented as unlawful on multiple independent grounds.

Please share this post.

"Information is Power"

Stay locked in NAK Nation. 🇺🇸🚀💎
#NAKNation #PebbleMine #NorthernDynasty #CriticalMinerals #AlaskaComeback #CopperDemand

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@taketheseodds @temu143 🤣

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@SarahPalinUSA @POTUS you had said in 2020 that politics would not interfere with the approval of the #Pebblemine. What happened??? We're still waiting!! Please make it right. We need copper and rhenium especially. The gold doesn't hurt either. Take a 10% stake. @SecretaryBurgum @SusieWiles

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@TKSconservative @taketheseodds Thanks, I'll check them out.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@TKSconservative @taketheseodds I don't believe so. See the composition of stocks in the portfolio.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@JoshTradeOption $NAK

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@DanSullivan_AK @MarkwayneMullin Also please show some meaningful support for $NAK #pebblemine. So many jobs and benefits for the locals, Alaskans, and the country as a whole. Supply chain on US territory. #MAGA.

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@SecretaryBurgum Dear Mr Secretary, when are you going to look into the #pebblemine situation and give us your perspective? Is politics preventing a rapid approval? As investors in $NAK we have been patient for over 10 years. All what this administration stands for goes against not commenting!!!

[Nicholas Mezes @MezesNicholas]

@usmjon13 @SecretaryBurgum @VinsonVosb50527 @POTUS Take a look at the location of the proposed #pebblemine . Maybe you can answer your own question. The US's technology and environmentally friendly logistics could make a win win win situation all around. The science is there, and the USACE had already issued a positive FEIS.