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Playing to win: Will Clinton sacrifice ANWR to gain environmental vote?
Tracy Barbou Special to PNA
With the 2000 presidential election imminent, proponents of opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge fear monument or some other designation could forever block oil development in the region.
The apprehension is fueled by concern that the Clinton Administration will restrict public uses on 5 million acres of federal land in six states — including Alaska — to secure votes from environmentalists. Under the Antiquities Act, the president has the authority to declare monuments without congressional or public input. He used that authority during the 1996 presidential election to create the 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah to stop mining and other development.
Officially, there’s no word on whether Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt will ask the president to again use that power to tie up the 5 million acres in the western states.
Marilyn Heiman, Special Assistant to Secretary Babbitt for Alaska, said she couldn’t speak for the White House or the President on the issue. However, she pointed out that Babbitt has publicly supported Rep. Bruce Vento on his coastal plain wilderness legislation that would place a separate restriction on the region.
John Katz, special counsel to Gov. Tony Knowles in Washington, D.C., said concerning the issue: “We’re told that zthey’re not doing anything with respect to monument status at this time. Both the Interior Department and the White House has said nothing is happening or has happened.”
Arctic Power, an ardent supporter of oil development in the coastal plain, is uncertain what the current administration is up to regarding national monuments. “They’re telling us one thing which is that they’re not completing any monument changes for the coastal plain, said Arctic Power Executive Director Cam Toohey. “But it’s clear of past actions, in the final years of their administration they use their executive powers to leave legacies behind.”
The issue ANWR totals 19.6 million acres, 8 million of which are designated wilderness, a restriction that blocks development and nearly all human use.
Covering 1.5 million acres, ANWR’s coastal plain was set aside by Congress in 1980 for study of its oil and gas potential. But before any exploration and development could proceed, Congress and the President would have to render approval.
The coastal plain is a major onshore oil prospect, possibly including a find like the Prudhoe Bay field located 65 miles to the west of ANWR, according to geologists. And according to the Department of Interior’s 1987 resource evaluation of the coastal plain, there is a 95 percent chance that a field with 500 million barrels would be discovered. DOI also estimates that there exists a mean of 3.5 billion barrels, and a 5 percent chance that a large Prudhoe Bay type discovery would be made.
ANWR is home to caribou, bears, wolves, moose and other wildlife, as well as millions of birds that use the coastal plain during the brief arctic summer. Opponents of oil development say mining and drilling would spoil the pristine region and threaten wildlife. But Arctic Power and others maintain animals can co-exist with oil development, pointing out: the Central Arctic Herd, which calves in the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk oil fields, has increased from 3,000 animals to more than 23,400 animals over the years.
“The limited oil development that might occur there would do so in an unobtrusive process,” Toohey said.
Alaska leadership holds similar beliefs, according to Katz. “The governor’s view of natural resource development is a government-by-doing-it-right philosophy: sound science, prudent management and an open, fair public process,” Katz said. “We believe by applying those criteria to oil development to the coastal plain, we can do it right.”
Katz said emerging trends indicate that ANWR development will become increasingly important to the nation over time. “We are currently importing more that 50 percent of our domestic oil needs,” he said. “There’s some evidence that OPEC has revived itself. We’re increasingly using more oil in this county and Prudhoe Bay is declining. If you put all that together I think it makes a very good case for responsible oil development of the coastal plain.”
World Heritage sites In addition to national monuments, Arctic Power and other pro-developers fear World Heritage designation threatens future development in ANWR.
Currently, the Department of Interior, in cooperation with the Federal Interagency Panel for World Heritage, has identified at least 90 sites in 30 states and the District of Columbia. Interior Secretary Babbitt will forward the sites to the World Heritage Committee, which already has designated 20 sites on the list as World Heritage Sites. The remaining sites could be nominated for designation within the next 10 years.
Like monuments, World Heritage designations place land off-limits to public use. And public or congressional input is not required for compiling the site list or for designations.
Congressman Don Young and Senator Frank Murkowski are seeking the removal of six Alaska sites, including ANWR, from consideration for inclusion. In a Sept. 23 letter to Babbitt, Young said: “Including ANWR as an UN heritage site is a back-door effort by the Clinton-Gore Administration to rally international support against any oil and gas exploration in the coastal plain.”
Wilderness designation legislation While World Heritage designations loom internationally, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation to declare the coastal plain wilderness and thereby off-limits to oil development.
Formal wilderness designation is not needed in Alaska — and especially in the coastal plain, Toohey said. “We have tremendous amounts of land in Alaska that are either managed or by their remoteness are wilderness,” he said. “They’re protected by themselves.”
Earlier this year, the Alaska Legislature urged Congress to pass legislation to open the coastal plain of ANWR to oil and gas exploration, development and production. The Alaska Joint Resolution 11 drafted in April stated: “the Alaska Legislature is adamantly opposed to further wilderness or other restrictive designation in the coastal plain.”
More recently, retiring North Slope Borough Mayor Benjamin Nageak spoke against the wilderness designation. In a March 23 letter to President Clinton, Nageak said the designation had been proposed without regard for or the input of the people who live in the Arctic.
“We know how to use it without abusing it and would gladly offer to work with federal agencies on how best to protect it and allow the Inupiat people to continue to use it to benefit themselves and their families,” said Nageak, who in the same letter said the oil industry had been a “good friend” to the North Slope environment.
“The wilderness designation will cripple our continued efforts to bring our people the benefits most Americans take for granted,” Nageak said. “It will cripple our ability to wean ourselves away from the federal government’s subsidies and destroy our attempts at self reliance.”
By early October, the wilderness legislation had garnered record support in Congress. HR1239, sponsored by Rep. Vento, D-Minn., had drawn 163 co-sponsors and S867, sponsored by Sen. William Roth, R-Del., had 24 supporters.
Toohey said the pending legislation is not a real threat. “It’s not gonna pass with our delegation and the leadership in the house being opposed to it,” he said.
Katz agrees. “That legislation isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “Basically each side has the capacity to block the other, but not to initiate something and move it all the way through the legislative process.”
Thwarting ANWR lock-up Nevertheless, Toohey is working to undermine the wilderness bills by making co-sponsors aware of the “negative” impact the legislation will have on Alaska. He also is supporting legislative issues that would insert the public in the process of declaring monuments and other signature designations. They include these initiatives:
• Legislation authored by Congressman Young (H.R. 883) that would require public input and Congressional approval of all proposed UN land reserves in the U.S.
• Legislation by Senators Craig and Robert Bennett, R-Utah, to amend the Antiquities Act, the president’s tool for designating monuments.
• The National Monument NEPA Compliance Act (H.R. 1487), which would require public participation, environmental compliance and congressional ratification in decisions to declare national monuments.
• The American Land Sovereignty Protection Act (S. 510 and H.R. 833), that would rescind United Nations designations on all biosphere reserves and world heritage sites unless specifically approved by Congress.
Toohey is asking anyone in favor of future ANWR development to write letters to “put pressure” on the signers of the wilderness legislation. “When people receive letters on an issue, those are responded to… When congressmen don’t hear anything, they assume it’s OK.”
For broader impact, readers need to express that they not only that the oppose the wilderness designation, but they oppose any federal action that would prohibit Alaska the ability to develop the coastal plain for oil and gas potential, Toohey said.
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