Arctic refuge drilling represents betrayal of Alaskans’ economic interest

Regularly touted as an economic silver bullet by Alaska's politicians, plans for oil and gas drilling on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are actually undermining the economic interests of Alaskans. Already, Alaska is giving massive tax breaks to oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Hilcorp, while it slashes services like schools and public safety on which ordinary folks depend. Our state must accept the fact that the oil boom years of the 1970s and '80s are gone and are never coming back. Rather than gambling our way into poverty while we reminisce about those bygone days, Alaska desperately needs to invest in economic alternatives that will sustain us in a world rapidly moving away from oil. Developing in the refuge moves us in exactly the wrong direction. As a lifelong Alaskan, I believe the survival of the Alaska way of life depends on resisting development plans that lock the public out of our lands, suck away our natural wealth and exacerbate our climate crisis.

We would be wise to remember that the recent congressional mandate for oil drilling in ANWR has already come at great cost to the Alaska public. The tax code rewrite into which Sen. Lisa Murkowski injected the drilling provisions has given massive payoffs to corporations and rich Americans while dramatically increasing public debt. It has provided little to no tax relief for ordinary working people. In other words, opening the refuge was only possible because Sen. Murkowski voted to allow the rich and powerful to swindle the public to the tune of billions of dollars. Our congressional delegation conveniently ignores this fact when they gloat about the supposed payoffs the drilling will bring.

At home, our state is selling bonds to pay off $1 billion in tax credits owed to oil companies. Despite these unsustainable financial obligations, our governor was recently on the verge of requesting $10 million in state funds for oil exploration in the refuge — a de facto subsidy to the oil industry. Alaska can no longer afford such betrayals of public interest: Schools are closing due to inadequate funding, budgets for higher education have been slashed, state ferries are being decommissioned and our Permanent Fund dividends have been curtailed. Oil lobbyists perennially persuade our legislators that if they keep writing checks to the industry, eventually there will be a big payoff. In fact, oil companies have shown little real interest in developing ANWR. Drilling proponents have been touting willfully naive estimates of the economic potential of oil development, estimates based on a single oil well drilled nearly 30 years ago.

[Before the Arctic refuge is drilled: Lawsuits, studies and a decade of waiting]

The 1002 area of the refuge's coastal plain is the birthing grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, the key piece of the subsistence economy upon which communities like Arctic Village and Venetie have depended for thousands of years. Each year, residents of Arctic Village harvest hundreds of pounds of caribou per capita. This meat has immense value as a dietary contribution, equating to thousands of dollars' worth of store-bought meat at village store prices. More importantly, the low-quality beef flown into village stores is simply no replacement for wild caribou — the harvest, processing and consumption of which forms an integral part of Gwich'in culture. Just as the caribou are a source of spiritual nourishment to the Gwich'in Nation, the coastal plain is a sacred place, as it is where caribou calves are born every spring. Resource development on Alaska's North Slope has had a disruptive effect on the Teshekpuk, Central Arctic and Western Arctic caribou herds, all of which have declined in recent years. The Porcupine caribou herd has remained healthy, but oil development in the refuge would almost certainly change its fortunes.

With the rest of the world seeking to transition rapidly away from fossil fuel economies, continued reliance on oil puts Alaska in the risky position of investing in a resource that is losing value over the long term. Fortunately, there is a silver lining to all of this. With climate change threatening many of Alaska's communities, costing billions of dollars in damage and having dramatic impacts on our way of life, a global retreat from oil dependence is clearly in our long-term interest.

Alaska has many opportunities to develop economic wealth that do not follow the destructive path of fossil fuel extraction. Renewable energy has become important in local economies throughout Alaska, with wind and solar installations popping up all over the state. Communities, corporations and individuals are exploring a diverse assortment of agricultural projects, both on the road system and in more remote rural communities like Kotzebue, Igiugig and Galena. Local businesses are taking innovative approaches toward producing sustainable, value-added products from resources such as fish and timber. These new economies offer a vision of a just transition to a future in which all Alaskans can produce and share in the wealth our land has to offer, something that was never truly achieved during Alaska's oil era. We must show the U.S. Interior Department that Alaska cannot become the federal government's pawn in its geopolitical fantasies of energy dominance. Drilling plans in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge threaten to hold Alaska back from building a diversified, just, regenerative economy.

Odin Miller, a long-term Fairbanks resident who is originally from Juneau, is co-facilitator of the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition's Keep it in the Ground working group.