Herron: Arctic policy progress visible

Bethel Democrat closes eight years of public service, leaves legacy for advancing Arctic policy, educating others outside of Alaska

STEVE QUINN

For Petroleum News

House Majority Whip Bob Herron is closing out his fourth and final term as Bethel’s representative. He spent most of his time carving out a niche on Arctic issues, leading up to the country’s current status as chair of Arctic Council. Herron, along with Sen. Lesil McGuire, led the Arctic Policy Commission, which featured members of the Legislature as well as those from the public.

Once the commission closed two years of work in 2015 with a report offering a vision for economic and resource development. Herron still remained busy serving as co-chair for the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region’s Arctic Caucus with Bob McLeod, Premier for Canada’s Northwest Territories and the Yukon’s Minister of Economic Development, Stacey Hassard.

Herron, a Democratic who aligned himself with the Republican-led House majority, shared his views on Arctic issues with Petroleum News.

Petroleum News: It seems you’ve been busy with Arctic issues almost since you were elected, including these last two years with PNWER. Talk about the most recent post with your Canadian colleagues.

Herron: It’s difficult for sub nationals in two different countries to really do a lot of things. The governor of course put Craig Fleener in place as Arctic advisor and he’s doing a good job. But the three of us were starting to build on something, but then, of course, the Canadian government went from conservative to liberal and some of those sub national players in Northwest Territories, they lost their jobs and they lost their elected positions. So now I think at least for the Yukon and Northwest Territories, it’s going to be re-evaluating - figuring out how the three jurisdictions can move forward. They are trying. PNWER is trying very hard because Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories are an important part of PNWER.

PNWER is not just the Arctic, though PNWER is going to be an important gateway for Canada and Alaska, so I’m confident that people who are elected officials in all of those jurisdictions will work together to move forward.

It’s not that the Arctic has changed - it is changing - the political reality at the senior Arctic officials week in Maine, we saw how the state of Maine wants to be proactive in being an Arctic player on that side of the continent. That’s because of the close proximity to Iceland, Greenland and the Nordic countries. It’s very dynamic. People are bullish on it.

I don’t know who is going to want to be very proactive in the Alaska Legislature when it comes to Arctic issues. Obviously Bryce (Edgmon) is still there and he has the Aleutians. It looks like we will have a different Northwest Borough representative and maybe Dean (Westlake) will take it on as it’s an important part of his future portfolio.

Petroleum News: Do you worry that the work you did might not be continued?

Herron: I’m not worried about it because you can’t separate the Arctic from Alaska. The thing you have to do is we created a set of tools with the recommendations, so like anything it has to be exercised. We - all of us - we should exercise the implementation plan, find out what needs to be tuned, what needs to be changed, what new things need to be incorporated into that set of tools.

The issue is too large. There are so many parts of the Arctic and sub Arctic that demand attention and we should do it. Of course, for myself, it’s going to have to be from the private sector.

Petroleum News: You mentioned Maine. What did you learn at that meeting?

Herron: There was a pre-senior Arctic officials meeting and I was invited to speak on where do we go from here - my perspective from Alaska. There were a lot of Alaskans. (UAF’s) Brian Rodgers was there. Craig (Fleener) was there. It’s as I told the people at the University of Southern Maine (Portland) - that they get it. They are a group of professionals and educators who recognize how important Maine is to the Arctic. Now we need to expand that awareness to other states. Washington state gets it; Maine gets it. How many other people in most of the Lower 48 really understand what it means how the Arctic is going to be both a responsibility and a benefit to the United States? That’s where the knife edge is. You have to understand all of the positives, but at the same time you have to understand all the responsibilities of the Arctic, and how Alaska and the U.S. get along with the other Arctic nations, that is the circumpolar north.

Petroleum News: OK, then you went to the Library of Congress whaling forum, right?

Herron: It was a stories of the whale conference and it was held in Nantucket and New Bedford. It was all about the relationship of the whalers in New Bedford and Nantucket with the whalers who came to Alaska following the whales, and the connection it had with Barrow. I learned a lot about the history of whaling and the connection between New England and Alaska.

Petroleum News: Where has Alaska been able to advance its causes and concerns with the Arctic?

Herron: The timing was right for the Alaska Legislature. Before the Northern Waters Taskforce a lot of legislators and a lot of people in Alaska asked what is our Arctic policy? The taskforce did a lot of listening and asked a lot of questions. Then the commission said we’ve asked a lot of questions, now let’s see if we can figure out what makes sense. That’s when we developed an Arctic policy. That’s when the United States and the president tried to figure out what its Arctic policy was. That began under the Bush administration with Dan Sullivan. So while we were trying to understand what our role was going to be, we were trying to also figure out how we could move forward with a tool box of tasks that the Legislature and the rest of Alaska could work on.

If you don’t understand what the issue is, then how can you make a good judgment on any kind of action the Legislature might take whether it’s budgetary or whether it’s creating laws? So if you have a solid base on what Arctic policy is then that’s what I think was the positive of going through the long discussion and self-realization among the Legislature. We wanted to get the attention of the federal government. We wanted the executive branch to become more involved in how we moved forward. Time and history moves very slowly and very deliberately and sometimes it makes mistakes.

So I don’t know if we are ready to give a grade to ourselves yet. If you take out little bites, maybe, but you can’t give it a widespread grade. There will be some things we’ve done very well and other things that we need to improve upon. What I understand and the way people have been talking to me is that they like how there is a base from which we are working.

The University of Alaska, especially the Fairbanks campus, they are really serious about making sure they are on the leading edge. They have the talent over there to do that, not just the Arctic, but everything Alaska. We are in a different world and we are in a down cycle in a moment. Whatever the issue is, it’s going to be related to the Arctic.

I think that us just being aware and understanding that we can be aware - but we want many, many other people to be aware of what happens up here, and let’s figure out a way to keep going. I’m pretty upbeat about things, and I think things are going to be good. I’m pretty confident. It’s a cliché, but it’s true: Alaska is north to the future.

Petroleum News: What would be on your wish list for Alaska and the Arctic, Bob Herron’s wish list, not necessarily a report’s wish list?

Herron: Well, I’m going to put in maybe a very local concern. A lot of the villages I still represent, they live in the Y-K Delta. It’s changing as we speak. If you fly over and head to any village on the coast, you’ll see shallow lakes that no longer hold water because of the permafrost. Then you get out to a community whether it’s Chefornak or Kipnuk, the biggest thing on their mind is the rising sea level. It’s the loss of permafrost. It’s the erosion. Remarkable, it’s not because of incoming tides; it’s because of outgoing tides.

The water comes in and when it goes out, it’s eroding in a different way. Unless you’re on the ground, you really don’t think of it that way. You think of erosion like with Shishmaref or Kivalina where it’s clear the ocean is undermining them that way. In a lot of coastal villages, it’s both directions that are impacting their lives. They are beyond concerned. They are scared. Whether it’s you, me or someone who lives in a coastal village, generally you just can’t pick up and leave.

You’ve got roots, you’ve got family, you’ve got a home. You’ve got things you can’t discard and start over. That is the difficult thing about what’s coming to Alaska, and I don’t mean just coastal. I mean a lot of places in Alaska. It’s coming quicker than you think. A lot of people realize it.

Humans tend to plan for the immediate, and it’s really hard to plan for even in the near future. In the more distant future, it’s hard to get prepared. We react real well when it comes to disasters and emergencies but we are not as good at preparing for those things. From an Alaska concern, it’s a big place and the question is how can we deal with it?

A lot of people are looking to us for how we deal with it, they are appreciative of the fact that we dedicated six years trying to understand what the Legislature’s responsibilities are with this, how we have a good relationship with the executive branch on this, and a strong relationship with the federal government. The feds aren’t going to fix it alone; we’re not going to fix it alone; the executive branch isn’t going to fix it alone.

Petroleum News: So is the relationship with the federal government better than when you first immersed yourself in Arctic issues?

Herron: Well, I don’t know. It was the old song, “getting to know you.” The people involved in the federal government, in state government and in the Legislature, I would say it’s better. Again, I think to move forward, especially since we will have a new administration, so there will be a time to learn again. When you are talking about the rank-and-file agencies, bureaucrats both in the federal and state government, in a lot of ways, those are not going to change too much. At the same time, any kind of policy we are talking about, it’s got to be exercised, it’s got to be used. When things don’t look or smell right we’ve got to say let’s change this a little bit because it’s the new reality. At the moment there is a good cooperation that I could see with the federal government. But at the same time, if we say things are OK and we don’t have to worry for right now, then you will get this bureaucratic creep and they will forget about all the in-roads, relationships and understandings everybody tried to get to. Basically, whatever it is you’ve got to stay on top of it.

Petroleum News: You had mentioned UAF earlier, it seems if there is one area where Alaska has advanced its interests with D.C., it’s the work that’s being done at UAF.

Herron: Oh, yes. No question. The university is working very hard at maintaining that relationship. Mike (Strafga, UAF vice chancellor) and Brian (Rodgers, UAF Chancellor) and Lawson Brigham (former Coast Guard commander, who once piloted ice breakers, now distinguished professor) that’s what they do.

The university, especially the Fairbanks campus, they see the reality, they see the potential and they see that this isn’t for somebody to do for us. I appreciate what the university is doing. We are the Arctic. They have a really good reputation and we can only build on it.

Petroleum News: One of the things we’ve discussed in the past is how many believe the people who actually live in the Arctic don’t have a meaningful voice at least with issues being discussed outside the state. How do you see it?

Herron: I think they are getting a voice, and that’s because of a lot of people from places like the North Slope Borough and ASRC like Rex Rock and Tara Sweeny, plus Northwest Arctic Borough like Reggie Joule have worked very hard at building up the relationship with the federal government. I think they are being heard, and respected. The one thing that I learned, especially back in New England, is how people have come to realize that western science has been around for a long time. But local knowledge has been around much, much longer. Here’s an example.

There is one guy on the North Slope Borough - moved there 40 years ago. He tells me, “I was a CWB, Clueless White Boy.” He went up there and he quickly learned local knowledge can be just as good as western science. Sometimes they work well together. So this one guy, he went up there as a young man and brought all of his recording equipment so he could listen to the whales, who communicate by sound sometimes more than 100 miles away.

He did all his recordings and took them to the whaling captains. He said what do you think and they said, we know that. What we do is take a wooden oar and put it on the ice and the other end by our ear. We listen to the whales. The Inupiat were listening to the whales for a long time.

When I was back in Maine, I shared that with them and said, don’t you have local knowledge like this? Isn’t local knowledge in Maine the same as it is on the North Slope and isn’t it as important as Western science? It doesn’t matter where you’re at, there is always going to be local knowledge.

Petroleum News: Speaking of activity on the North Slope, the federal government is reviewing a five-year plan for the OCS. What would you like to see happen with that plan?

Herron: We have to learn. We have to know what’s up there. We have to understand it. It’s important that we know what’s up there. It has to be done correctly and it has to be done carefully. But that part of the ocean belongs to the United States. Someday we’ll be able to make a legitimate claim for it. It will be there but we still have to understand what assets the country may or may not have. But at the same time, we can’t damage marine life and we can’t lose what I would call food security.

Petroleum News: Do you think Shell’s efforts helped or hampered future development in the Arctic?

Herron: I would say it didn’t hurt it. It’s a bit too early to tell. I guess it was a successful attempt, really. (The Kulluk’s) grounding hurt. Marine events happen all the time and they will continue to happen. I think it was a decision made by people who didn’t understand the environment. The decision to move it was made elsewhere. It was bean counters and people who truly didn’t understand the environment. That’s really what happened.

Petroleum News: Looking ahead, on the resource development front what would you like to see for the Arctic and the people living up there?

Herron: That’s one of the four visions for the Arctic policy report. It has to be sustainable. It has to benefit Alaska. It has to benefit the people closest to the resource. Again, it cannot harm food security or cultural security. At the same time, the benefits have to go back to all Alaskans, but especially the ones who have to face it right in their own backyard.

Petroleum News: So what’s next for Bob Herron? What’s been most rewarding? Obviously the Arctic is a passion for you.

Herron: I was in Yellowknife and there was a guy who came down from the north and said you’re not the Arctic. Bethel really is considered of the Arctic. The Kuskokwim and the Yukon flow into the Bering Sea. People who live on the coast in the Y-K Delta are dependent on the Bering Sea. We all are. It’s all about how are we going to protect the Bering Sea, the Chukchi, the Beaufort, the coastline. How are we going to protect and manage this fragile environment?

Having a healthy lifestyle in Alaska is based upon a good, responsible resource development that does benefit first the people who live closest to the resource, and then Alaska, so we can have a good place to live, and not just for a few corporate bankrolls - but for all of us.

It’s a huge future.

As for my future, my eight years in the Legislature, of all the jobs I’ve had in my life, it would be No. 2 on my list as being the most satisfying. No. 1 was being city manager for Bethel for seven years. But today and next year, it’s a matter of how can we understand and remember history. When things are booming can we remember when times were tough? That is going to be the challenge, not just for people in the Legislature or local governments.