Politics

Alaska's delegation eyes ANWR

It's not just the outer continental shelf that holds untapped oil and gas riches. Immense deposits exist onshore, too, including within the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Thus far, Congress and environmentalists have managed to keep the coastal plain untouched and off limits. But pro-drilling advocates have allies in Alaska's federal lawmakers -- advocates who are mounting an organized effort to find a way in.

It should be no surprise in bureaucracy that even baby steps can be eye-catchingly dramatic, as with the latest move from Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and Rep. Don Young. The trio wants the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency overseeing a "what's next" review for ANWR, to back off of considering additional wilderness designations for the area, and to conduct congressionally-mandated research that could form a preliminary basis for justifying oil and gas exploration in the area, and they've sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar saying as much.

Moving forward with an agency-driven wilderness review is a waste of taxpayer dollars since only Congress can designate new wilderness areas, the delegation wrote in its letter. The wilderness review is proposed as part of a larger project -- the revision of ANWR's Comprehensive Conservation Plan, which hasn't been updated in 22 years. Alaska already has plenty of protected land and rivers, and the efforts of the Fish and Wildlife Service and its refuge personnel are better focused on things like wooing visitors and monitoring changing habitats, according to Murkowski, Begich and Young.

Several public hearings have already been held on the proposed changes to the plan, including one Tuesday in Washington, D.C..

Established in 1960, ANWR spans 19 million acres -- an area about the size of Delaware. The coastal plain, which is thought to contain the nation's largest onshore deposit of hydrocarbons -- up to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of gas -- is a northeast swath of 1.5 million acres bordered by the Beaufort Sea, Canada and the Canning River. Only once, in the mid-1980s, has an exploratory well been drilled there -- which is also the last time frame in which any seismic studies were done. But if the Alaska delegation gets its way, seismic studies will be a part of the Fish and Wildlife Service's newest research mandate.

New technology, like directional drilling, allows for tapping trapped resources with no disruption to the surface, the delegation reasoned. And it urged Salazar to authorize the new seismic studies Congress will need before making future policy decisions on oil and gas exploration in ANWR, and before the Interior Department considers any additional conservation measures in ANWR.

Proponents of drilling in ANWR believe a big economic boon will follow if drilling is given the go-ahead. The pay off according Arctic Power, an advocacy group, is the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs and up to $237 billion in royalties and taxes to state and federal governments.

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The potential for money and jobs is also the reason many Alaska communities and corporations are backing the efforts of oil companies to tap fields offshore in the Arctic. BP plans to drill into an offshore site in the Beaufort Sea later this fall, and Royal Dutch Shell has exploratory drills planned this summer in the Chukchi Sea. Neither has thus been deterred by the gushing offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, nor has support for those activities waned among the three members of Alaska's Congressional delegation.

There is need and opportunity for both offshore and onshore oil and gas development in Alaska, Begich spokeswoman Julie Hasquet wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. Staff in Young's office echoed the same thoughts. (An inquiry to Murkowski was not replied to in time for this story.)

Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Jill Burke

Jill Burke is a former writer and columnist for Alaska Dispatch News.

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