Norton touts Alaska energy, Murkowski

Steve Sutherlin, PNA managing editor

Alaska has the majority of the nation’s undiscovered hydrocarbon potential, U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said in Anchorage Oct. 31 on a campaign stop for Alaska gubernatorial candidate Frank Murkowski.

“Americans need to realistically understand Alaska is not a huge park,” Norton told the Southcentral Professional Women. While it is important to protect Alaska’s beauty and its wildlife, the state’s residents need to support families, she said. Alaska’s most unique feature is not the fragility of its land, but the fragility of its economy, Norton said, adding that the state’s population of young adults aged 21 to 35 is declining due to lack of good paying jobs, and the state’s gross product declined 2.9 percent in 2001.

“People in the east have a vision of the west as a huge park,” she said, “Alaska is a whole step beyond.”

It is possible to develop oil and minerals in the state, including the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, in an environmentally responsible way, said Norton. The best environmental technology is expensive, so the best way to insure environmental responsibility is by maintaining local prosperity.

The distorted ANWR ad campaign by environmental groups hasn’t helped Washington D.C. decision makers to clearly see the issues facing Alaska and the nation, she said.

Murkowski has been a voice of reason in Congress, particularly in his tireless fight for ANWR development, she said.

“We would already have won if we’d had a fair fight,” she said, adding that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle stacked the deck by yanking the energy bill from the Senate energy committee because he was afraid ANWR would be included. Daschle has promoted blatant distortions of the facts surrounding ANWR, she said.

Norton is campaigning for Murkowski and other western governors because the Bush administration values states’ input when making national policy, she said.

“We would like to promote a close working relationship between Alaska and the federal government through the governor’s office.”