OPINION: Alaskans shouldn’t buy the oil hype

As war rages in Ukraine, U.S. gasoline prices and oil company profits are soaring, and the industry’s allies are calling for increased domestic production. They would like us to believe it’s to save us money at the pump.

Against this backdrop, Sen. Lisa Murkowski will return to Alaska this week with her friend Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.). As chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Manchin blocked the passage of President Biden’s agenda in the Build Back Better Act, which contained a provision to repeal a 2017 congressional vote to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Manchin has called for increased domestic oil production, and Murkowski undoubtedly will work to convince him that Alaskans support Arctic Refuge drilling. She does not, however, speak for all Alaskans.

Informed Alaskans understand that increased drilling in the Arctic — where temperatures are rising two to four times as fast as the rest of the world — would further damage our state’s infrastructure by accelerating the thawing of permafrost. We know that it would threaten the food security and cultures of Indigenous communities, some of which are already in danger of falling into the ocean because sea ice is disappearing and leaving coastal villages vulnerable to erosion.

To the Indigenous Gwich’in, the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is sacred land. It is the calving ground of the Porcupine caribou herd on which they depend to feed their families and sustain their cultural identity. To harm that land would violate their human rights.

The truth is, just as last year’s first oil lease sale for the coastal plain generated only a tiny percentage of the revenue that Murkowski promised when promoting the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, drilling in the refuge would not benefit consumers. Gas prices are determined by global market forces and corporate profiteering, not the White House or domestic policies.

We should all remember that Murkowski said two lease sales for tracts in the Arctic Refuge would raise more than a billion dollars to offset tax cuts for the rich — but last year’s lease sale raised a mere $14.4 million, mostly from the state of Alaska, which bought seven of the nine tracts sold, largely to avoid the embarrassment of the sale being an even bigger failure.

Over the past decade, U.S. oil and gas production has grown exponentially, and yet, here we are. Average families are suffering while gas prices set records and the industry’s profits keep rising.

We need Congress to reject the propaganda coming from the oil industry and its allies. Congress, the Biden administration and the Dunleavy administration should be working together to accelerate Alaska’s just transition to a renewable energy economy. Our future hangs in the balance.

Many Alaskans recognize the urgent need to end this nation’s addiction to fossil fuels. We advance the rights of Indigenous communities, and their generations of cultural and ecological wisdom must guide how we live in relationship with the lands, waters, and each other. The integrity of the Arctic is far more precious than any oil that lies beneath. The coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is a sacred place whose global importance is threatened by extraction. These lands have and will continue to thrive under Indigenous stewardship for thousands of years.

America’s six largest banks also see that ignoring climate change and human rights is bad for business and have vowed to stop financing development there. Numerous insurance companies have announced policies against underwriting such projects, and the momentum is growing.

The time to act is now. Let’s all urge Congress to address the climate crisis by ending Arctic oil extraction — to ensure the human rights of Indigenous Alaskans and to leave a legacy that we can all be proud of, for the generations yet to come.

Erin Jackson-Hill serves as executive director of Stand Up Alaska. Erin has lived in Alaska for more than 40 years. Her mother and father, Robert and Karrold Jackson, first moved to Anchorage with the U.S. Air Force. Her focus is on political science with an emphasis in social justice.

Ruth Miller is a Dena’ina Athabascan woman. She has a bachelor’s degree in critical Development Studies with a focus on Indigenous resistance and liberation from Brown University, and has mobilized youth climate action for many years. She works toward Indigenous rights advocacy and climate justice in Alaska.

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