Politics

Murkowski and other Alaskans lament 'broken' promises of 1980 land law

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lisa Murkowski led an energy committee hearing Thursday made up of mostly like-minded Alaskans echoing a theme of broken promises and overreach by the federal government when it comes to the state's lands and natural resources.

Gov. Bill Walker flew down for the hearing, along with six others representing state Republicans and the oil, gas, hunting and mining industries, as well as one witness from the environmental group Trustees for Alaska. Sen. Dan Sullivan spoke at the start of the hearing, as did the panel's ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. After they left, it was just Murkowski and the folks from Alaska, with the panel to themselves.

Even so, time to register complaints and suggestions seemed to run short after a few hours, when Murkowski had to head off to the Senate floor to attend to other matters.

"We have just scratched the surface, and know that there will be more to come on this," she said at the close of the hearing.

At issue is the ongoing implementation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, a bill signed into law by President Jimmy Carter 35 years ago Wednesday.

When he signed the law, Carter said Alaska would retain control of all its offshore areas and nearly all the areas with potential for drilling and development, Murkowski said Thursday. "What a promise that was," she said.

"I don't think what was intended is what we've got at this point, 35 years later," Walker said of the law.

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Murkowski and her allies argue the federal government is encroaching on state and local rights to the land and resources in Alaska, following a slow creep of federal regulatory control that has left the legacy of ANILCA all but forgotten.

Sullivan said the law has led to "broken promises after broken promises."

"There's a better way. The federal government and the executive branch should keep its word," Sullivan said.

In particular, Murkowski and Sullivan said the federal government is ignoring the "no more" clause that would prevent the federal government from adding any more federally protected land.

Not everyone is on board with that assessment.

"I disagree that the protections have eroded," Valerie Brown, legal director of Trustees for Alaska, told Murkowski.

Section 1326 of the law, often called the "no more" clause, "says that there can't be any more studies for the single purpose of creating a new Conservation System Unit in Alaska," Brown said after the hearing. "So that means we can't go to unrestricted federal lands and say, 'Hey, we'd like a new national park here,'" she said. But that doesn't stop federal agencies from making other land management decisions, she said.

But Murkowski, Sullivan and Walker operate under the same belief: that the federal government has been carving away at Alaskans' ability to rely on the land -- including the trees and animals above and the oil underneath -- for years, and they want to do something about it.

Murkowski said the Obama administration undercut the spirit of ANILCA by blocking off more than 40 million acres of state land for environmental protection over the last seven years by reinterpreting the law.

Murkowski said she can't manage to get a road through a wilderness area near King Cove, and small mining operations "literally are choked off from any access to the resources."

Recent federal government decisions tied to the 1980 law have split Alaskans, such as new rules regarding what communities are "rural" for purposes of federal subsistence laws, banning controversial hunting practices in national preserves that allow sport hunting and blocking certain areas of national forests from new roads. Recent court cases regarding the stretch of the federal government's authority in national parks and preserves haven't been in the state's favor.

"My hope is that this hearing will serve as a starting point to make ANILCA work better for Alaskans, even as we protect our natural treasures and the subsistence rights of Alaska Natives," Murkowski said Thursday.

State Sen. John Coghill, R-North Pole, suggested reinstating the state's Land Use Council. "We had a hard time getting that discussion (with federal agencies) even with the land council," he said. Since it has expired, it's hard to remind federal agencies of the requirements of ANILCA, Coghill said.

"What the federal agencies are refusing to recognize … whether it's on state lands or federal lands," is that land management is "all supposed to be managed for the benefit of Alaska's users" -- residents and those who travel there to hunt, said Anna Seidman, director of litigation for Safari Club International. Seidman questioned the National Park Service's decisions related to appropriate hunting.

Walker suggested the state needs better relationships with those running federal agencies, who might get a better understanding of the state by taking a winter trip to the state, when they could "see the side of Alaska that we deal with that isn't during the particular height of the tourist season."

Murkowski said she hopes to draw a few colleagues for a February field hearing in Bethel.

"If we don't do something to make that partnership (with the federal government) better, I think we have failed Alaska's interest," Coghill said. Rod Arno, executive director of the Alaska Outdoor Council, suggested doing something to better define "who has the authority and where."

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And Joshua Kindred, counsel for the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, suggested more legal accountability for the federal agencies. "Oftentimes when we are dealt a decision that is oftentimes patently unfair and patently illegal, we have to engage in years of litigation … There's no skin in the game for these federal agencies. Even if six years later the 9th Circuit rules in our favor, they just go back and they do something slightly different and we begin again," Kindred said.

Access to lands and resources is "critical for our economic future," Murkowski said. "I think it is critical for our identity as Alaskans. We as a state came into this union with a promise that it would be our lands that would sustain us," that there would never be enough people in the state to count on a tax base more than oil and gas, she said.

Erica Martinson

Erica Martinson is Alaska Dispatch News' Washington, DC reporter, and she covers the legislation, regulation and litigation that impact the Last Frontier.  Erica came to ADN after years as a reporter covering energy at POLITICO. Before that, she covered environmental policy at a DC trade publication and worked at several New York dailies.

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