Nageak battles health, Obama administration

Barrow Democrat enjoying sharing gavel as House Resources co-chair, working resource issues, looks forward to LNG special session

Steve Quinn

For Petroleum News

When House Rep. Bennie Nageak returned for his second term in January, he didn’t just want a seat on the House Resources Committee. No, he wanted to share the gavel with David Talerico and serve as co-chair for the next two years. And why not, he says. After all this Barrow Democrat who aligns himself with the majority caucus has the resource fields in his own backyard.

Nageak arrived in Juneau ready to cut his teeth into a new position, but with a hearty resume in leadership. He served as an assemblyman and mayor for the North Slope Borough and vice chair of the Alaska Board of Game. He also founded the Indigenous Peoples Council on Marine Mammals.

Upon his arrival, however, came news that the Obama administration planned to place the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge under wilderness designation and that followed restrictions placed on offshore drilling.

Nageak, who grew up in Kaktovik, quickly became a social media sensation speaking out against the administration’s actions while calling for Alaskans to have a greater voice in how the resources on state and federal land get developed.

While fighting for the state Nageak fought for his own health, having knee surgery, a subsequent infection and then a hospitalization when his heart rate escalated.

Through it all, he kept his sense of humor, reminding folks how many shopping days remained until his birthday.

A healthy Nageak sat down with Petroleum News to discuss his views.

Petroleum News: So you’re in your second term. Why were you interested in becoming co-chair of the Resources Committee?

Nageak: The resources we depended on are from the most part rural Alaska. Most of the oil and gas produced right now is from Prudhoe Bay and other fields, and our part of the world. I’m always interested in being a proponent of oil and gas activity in my part of the world, plus any activity of resource development - renewable or non renewable resources - everywhere.

I know in Bristol Bay, there is a big fight over who should be doing what in what area and in what areas. What really gets me is when I talk to people in that area is it’s OK for you to come up here and make billions in my part of the world, but you can’t allow our companies to go down there and make billions with the resources you have.

We can’t access that. You have potential right there, but you are blocking it, but your neighbor just to the west of you is looking to develop a mine and they are looking to build a gas line to power all of that. So, as a side benefit, this has the potential to go to some of those villages to reduce the costs in that part of the world, that part of Alaska.

It gets to me when people say you can’t do this in my area but we can do it somewhere else and not allow other people to do what’s being done in my part of the world.

Petroleum News: You’ve touted how you strike a balance between subsistence and resource development. How is it that you strike that balance?

Nageak: We’ve done it from the get-go. We have home rule government and it’s the size of Indiana and Minnesota combined. In that area we have all kinds of activity plus fish and game we rely on offshore and on shore. We work real hard to make sure any development done is done according to state and municipal laws. Municipal law can’t exceed state law and state law can’t exceed federal law, and so we need to work together and we have worked together to make sure our resources are developed and it’s done in a safe manner.

I’ve been involved in this for more than 40 years. We are the only municipality - I think in the United States - with a division of wildlife management. We know how important renewable resources are to us. We’ve done fish studies. We’ve done caribou studies. We’ve done migratory birds and wild life management.

If you go to the department of wildlife management, one wall is nothing but studies that have been done over the years. And we have the experts. Those people there have been there for almost over 30 years, a lot of them 20 or more. So we have continuity on that.

Right now we are ready to go whaling, and they are still studying the whales. Every time there is one harvest they take the organs and study them. The bowhead whale is the most studied whale in the world - in the world. We know a lot more about the bowhead whale. The migratory routes, everything about the bowhead whale, is most understood than any other whale in the world.

When we get the whale, we know everything about it because our people have done those studies since back in the 1970s until everything we’ve done today.

You know there are more and more species of fish coming to our part of world, and it’s not interfering with resource development. We depend on white fish and the ciscoes and Dolly Varden are there and they have been there, but now we have more and more salmon swimming to our part of the world.

Five years ago the Department of Fish and Game has done pink salmon studies on the North Slope. We see a lot of it. Me and my best friend, we start out with white fish, then the pinks come. There are a whole lot more coming every year.

That’s my backyard - non-renewable and renewable resources. That’s why I’m on resources.

Petroleum News: So in your first year of resources, what have you learned?

Nageak: I don’t know as much as I should. I thought I knew a lot of stuff.

I’ve worked for federal government, state government boards and commissions; I’ve negotiated treaties; I’ve been to Russia and Canada, worldwide to advocate against animal rights groups. I’ve done a lot, but this is new.

Case in point, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, they start working toward stopping things like the seal pupping in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. It was a way of life. They sold the pelts to the European market and London. The animal rights groups stopped that.

Guess what - they created havoc with fisheries near those provinces in Canada. A bunch of us from Alaska, Greenland and Canada went to England at the time. We did a show with all of the artifacts we have from the Arctic at the museum of natural history.

We found a guy from Canada who was full-blooded Indian who directed an orchestra. We asked the London Philharmonic Orchestra if we could have this Indian, if we could have them direct a show and they said yes. We had the show. It was a tremendous success.

After that the guy from Canada and I were invited to go on BBC for a show that broadcasts at noon all over the world. We had 15 minutes to talk about our way of life and how impactful it is for people outside our area to try and stop what we do for a living.

Petroleum News: So in the context of spending your life educating others about your way of life, what else have you learned about this job?

Nageak: I know a lot of the international stuff and thought I knew a lot when I was on a local commission and vice chair of our board of game. But there is a whole lot more to the committee process. I didn’t know much of that. Now I know a lot more than I did about how we do things through the committees.

Petroleum News: Soon the U.S. will take over as chair for the Arctic Council. What kind of voice would you like to have?

Nageak: I’d like them to advocate more for offshore activity. It’s not going to go away. What’s ironic is the environmentalists and the Interior Department, especially, are trying to stop offshore drilling when about 75 miles away from where Shell is going to be there are Russians working offshore and they don’t have restrictions such as ours. They want to stop oil activity along the coast. The companies have trained our people for oil spills, and if they (Russians) have a spill it’s going to drift over to our part of the world from the Bering Straits and all the way up north.

That’s what upsets me. Here we are again. We are being restricted but all of this stuff that’s going to happen, if it happens, is going to come from the Russians. There is no panic form the world. We don’t hear it from the rest of the world unless we want to do it. Now look at what Greenpeace is doing.

No one hears these things, how we depend on our resources. If they are so concerned about oil and gas activity offshore, then help us out and let us develop our oil and gas resources onshore in ANWR. That’s what we want, but we don’t have that ability. Now the federal government is talking about closing off activity offshore. Here we go again. Big brother is watching.

They need to listen to us. We know. We who live here studied our oceans, our lands.

We’ve studied it. We understand. We know more than the federal government ever will. If we see something wrong, we report it right away. We should do more anywhere. We can train our people and we can be right there if anything happens.

Petroleum News: Would you like to see a stronger indigenous voice on the Arctic issues?

Nageak: Oh yeah. There is none now. Canada had an Inuit (Leona Aglukkaq) serving as chair. Finally, we are going to get the chair post, and we get someone from the East Coast who hasn’t spent much time up here and so there we go again. We are left out of one of the most important organizations ever created to watch our part of the world that combines several countries and here we are: left out again. We aren’t trusted. With all the knowledge we have about our part of the world, we are not even trusted to be their chair. We have a lot of people in Alaska who have chaired state, national and international organizations. We’ve done everything and we aren’t invited to sit on the dang council as a leader of the U.S. Arctic just as Canada did when they had the position. We are always frustrated when our own federal government doesn’t give a dang about us.

Petroleum News: You were certainly outspoken about that in January. The positions you took were a hit on social media. Did you ever think of yourself as using social media to get the word out?

Nageak: I didn’t start it. People just took my words and spread them. That’s how it happened. I’m glad it happened and I’m glad it happened that way. Now I think I’ve got to do more. I got to do more in reaching out to both houses of Congress. I was going to do some this spring during the interim, but my health got in the way. I almost died twice, according to what my wife said.

Everything that could happen to me happened. But I’m feeling better now. Everything happened all at once, first news from Washington. Then my health. I’m on so much medication. They are trying to tweak it. Sometimes it has an impact on me. I finally think I’ve got the dosage right.

But I really want to get back out there and tell people about where we live and why it’s important that the rest of the country knows about it.

I try to get a respite from the seriousness of what’s going on. You have to not be serious all of the time. You have to be humorous. I still want people to laugh.

Petroleum News: So back here in Juneau are you looking forward to having a special session on the natural gas line and LNG export project? That will be some heavy lifting for your committee.

Nageak: Everybody in the whole world is pin pointing that activity because it’s a special session. We couldn’t get our work done during the regular session. Everybody is going to be watching because whatever happens during the special session is going to have an effect to the state, the nation and the world because of the size of the project. Japan is involved. China may be involved. During the committee hearings we heard about what different countries wanting natural gas. They are watching.

When we get to a special session, it’s going to be more intense and I hope it is. People need to understand that we are a resource state - renewable and non renewable - and are getting pushback from every entity national and internationally. We need people to understand we are fighting for our lives in this case. We need more activity.

It’s not going to last long. We are seeing the Middle East and they are fighting amongst each other. National events and statewide events take a backseat when international events happen. But when international events happen, things seem to pick up in Alaska.

Look around. We are having problems in Indonesia. We’ve got problems in Russia. We are having problems in China. They are having second thoughts that Russia is trying to build through China. There is a lot of movement internationally that will have a tremendous impact on the state. We need to be vigilant and see what’s going on, understand what’s going on so we can react to things that may happen that might benefit us.

Petroleum News: So when would you like to have a special session on the gas line? Any particular time or just when they are ready?

Nageak: It’s going to happen when both sides decide it’s going to happen. The governor might do it. We may do it too. We’ll see what happens. He’s alluding to that happening in so many words. Our leadership in the House and Senate is alluding to it.

Petroleum News: Setting aside the differences driven by HB 132. Do you see any progress and do you like the progress being discussed?

Nageak: You call it progress. I call it turmoil right now. I call it who is going to blink first. That’s how I look at it. Who is going to blink first? Both sides are so hardheaded. Neither wants to give up what each side is entitled to through the state process.

Petroleum News: Repsol just made an announcement to advance a project. What are your thoughts on that?

Nageak: I know the people involved. My former chief of staff is working for them now. I’ve known them since the 1970s. I know the players. I’m pretty excited. Look at the small oil companies here and there are more coming. Other people want to come in and looking at places where the big companies aren’t interested in. They are coming in and finding more oil. Of course we knew there is more oil there. They just had to go out and find it. Then they find out there is more than they thought. The east side of Colville, they are finding more oil and the smaller companies are moving toward those resources.

The smaller companies need to go to 1002 in Kaktovik and start working there. Once they start doing it, the big guys will follow. We should encourage those smaller companies to go to areas where the big companies don’t want to go. ASRC has land. The state has land.

Petroleum News: OK, so getting back to that. Is it realistic to think that the 1002 area will ever get developed?

Nageak: I still have that hope that something is going to happen. Some catastrophic event is going to happen that we are going to need those resources. There is so much turmoil in the world; there are countries fighting against each other. Anything that happens in Russia is going to have an impact in how we deal with them. Same with other countries like in South America. But that guy over there (Vladimir Putin) in Russia is just a little bit too unpredictable. One day is doing something and the next day he’s doing something else. Tomorrow will be something else. Just watch.