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Arctic Power private donations slipping Pro-ANWR drilling lobby group turns to bingo, pull-tabs to raise money Larry Persily Petroleum News Government Affairs Editor
Arctic Power, the mostly state-funded nonprofit that has spent the past decade lobbying Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, has seen its private contributions fall back in recent years.
To help with its finances, the group signed up for a state charitable gaming permit last fall and contracted with an Anchorage business to sell pull-tabs and bingo games for Arctic Power. The lobbying group raised $40,000 from gaming in the last four months of 2003, according to its bookkeeper.
The group collected more than $300,000 from corporate and individual dues and donations in Fiscal Year 2002, dropping to $229,000 in Fiscal 2003. None of the bingo or pull-tab money is included in Fiscal 2003, which ended before the gaming started.
More than half of the drop from 2002 to 2003 came when BP Exploration (Alaska) decided in November 2002 to stop paying $50,000 annual dues to the organization. ExxonMobil paid $25,000 in 2003, and ConocoPhillips declined to disclose how much it pays. Donations down the past three years Dues and private contributions overall have fallen the past three years, said Roger Herrera, Arctic Power’s contract lobbyist in Washington, D.C. It’s discouraging, he said. “One of the questions that inevitably is asked in D.C.,” particularly by new congressional staffers, he said, “is how do you get your funding and how much do you get from private citizens and how much do you get from the state of Alaska.”
The ratio last year was almost 4-1, in favor of state money.
In addition to the $229,000 from private sources, Arctic Power received $845,000 in state grant funds in Fiscal 2003. The Legislature appropriated $800,000 for Fiscal 2004, in addition to giving the organization more than $200,000 in money left over from last year’s appropriation.
Arctic Power has about $350,000 to last through the end of the fiscal year June 30, said former Kotzebue State Sen. Al Adams, chairman of the board of directors. If Congress fails to pass legislation this spring to open ANWR to oil and gas exploration, the group will need to return to the Legislature for more funding to continue the fight into 2005, Adams said. Good news helps donations The drop in private contributions is frustrating, said Bob Stinson, an Arctic Power board member. The flow of money seems to at least partially depend on the news, he said. “When there is optimism … and maybe an inkling that it might go, you get more private donations.”
Stinson, president of CONAM Construction Co., of Anchorage, said Arctic Power split off from the Alaska Support Industry Alliance about 10 years ago so that it could receive state funding for its lobbying effort. Since 1991, the state has spent almost $12.5 million on its efforts to open ANWR, with almost $9.4 million going to Arctic Power since 1993 for lobbying and advertising.
Gov. Frank Murkowski’s proposed Fiscal 2005 budget, under review by lawmakers in Juneau, includes $500,000 for the governor’s office to pay for ANWR lobbying work but does not designate Arctic Power to receive the funding.
Spending state money in hopes of someday winning congressional approval for drilling in ANWR is a smart investment, said Mary Shields, an Arctic Power board member and general manager of Northwest Technical Services of Anchorage. “The state of Alaska is the one that should be doing this. … The state is the one that is going to receive the royalty dollars.”
And while Stinson said positive news about maybe winning the congressional vote can help fund-raising, Adams and Herrera said negative news can hurt. “We need to keep a positive spin on this all the time,” Adams said. Anchorage Daily News defends its work Although all of Alaska’s major newspapers support opening ANWR in their editorials, the news coverage has been a problem at times, Herrera said. “The (Anchorage) Daily News has been very prone to overemphasizing the green arguments in regard to ANWR.” The newspaper’s coverage “has done nothing to ring the bell for ANWR.”
But that’s not the newspaper’s role, said Pat Dougherty, Daily News senior vice president and editor. “If the allegation is that accurate reporting has made it hard to raise funds, I’m willing to accept that analysis. … Is it our (job) to only go out and find people who are optimistic?”
ANWR drilling supporters won in Congress once about 10 years ago, only to lose when President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill. Since then, Arctic Power has come up short in finding enough votes to stop opponents from filibustering legislation to open even a small part of ANWR’s coastal plain to drilling.
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