Refuge Has Long Been a Major Environmental Battleground

No environmental battle in the last 25 years has aroused more passion than the seesaw struggle over the future of a strip of coastal tundra at the northern tip of Alaska.

The Senate’s vote Wednesday to allow oil and gas drilling there did not seal the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Legislative hurdles remain. But for the first time in more than 20 years of debate, the president and Congress have signaled that they agree the nation’s energy needs justify tapping into the nation’s largest wildlife preserve, a place many Americans believe should be untouchable.

Moreover, both proponents and critics of drilling in the preserve see Wednesday’s vote as the opening wedge in a broader campaign, reflected in pending legislation to open other areas currently off limits to energy exploration, including areas off California’s coast.

Oil industry executives have tied exploring the preserve to a larger agenda of opening areas that are closed to exploration. In a speech in Washington in June, Exxon Chief Executive Lee R. Raymond said: “We will need to muster the political will, based on a realistic energy outlook, to allow further development of the energy resources to be found in the United States. This includes those that may be [in] offshore California and Florida, in the Rocky Mountains and in northern Alaska.”

Language in the pending energy bill would give the Interior secretary the authority to override California’s bipartisan opposition to exploratory drilling off the coast, where, according to some industry estimates, there are at least 1 billion barrels of untapped oil.

“If this refuge is not special enough to be saved, then there is no place in the United States that is safe from oil rigs, including the coastlines that for now are protected from offshore drilling,” said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

The 19-million-acre refuge, which lies between the Beaufort Sea and the 9,000-foot peaks of the Brooks Range, was created in 1960 to protect wildlife. In 1980, Congress and President Carter earmarked the 1.5-million-acre coastal slice of the preserve as a potential site for energy development.

Although drilling in the Alaskan preserve would affect, at most, 8% of the total area, opponents argue that the targeted zone that borders the Beaufort Sea is the biological heart -- a marshy tableland that supports millions of migratory birds, polar bears, marine mammals and musk oxen. It is also the summer range for the 150,000-strong Porcupine caribou herd that travels hundreds of miles each year to bear its offspring on the coastal plain.

Only one exploratory well has been drilled in the refuge, and that was nearly two decades ago. Environmentalists contend that the Arctic contains a six-month supply of oil at most, and will never supply more than 2% of the national demand.

The oil industry, in contrast, has long regarded the preserve as potentially one of the most significant petroleum fields in the nation. When fully developed, it would produce an estimated 1.5 million barrels of oil a day for 20 years, or roughly as much oil as the U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia, according to the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group in Washington.

In economic terms, it would reduce the U.S. trade deficit by $19 billion annually and create several hundred thousand new jobs in Alaska and the rest of the nation, according to Ed Porter, research chief at the American Petroleum Institute.

But drilling in the Arctic refuge, however successful it proves to be, won’t offer a quick fix to the nation’s oil needs. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton has said it will be 10 years before oil from the refuge flows into America’s refineries.

Environmentalists and many scientists have long argued that oil development, with its sprawling industrial infrastructure and risk of spills, would degrade air and water quality, impair wildlife habitat and forever change the wild character of the northern landscape.

Last week Norton led a group of Republican legislators on a tour of Alaskan oil production facilities around Prudhoe Bay, 50 miles west of the Arctic refuge. Industry officials told the delegation that they took pains to protect the environment, even placing pans under engines to catch oil drips.

“It’s cleaner than a Sam’s Club parking lot,” said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who accompanied Norton on the trip.

Conservationists counter that energy production has caused massive environmental damage around Prudhoe Bay. They say the industry is responsible for more than 400 offshore oil spills a year and releases 43,000 tons of nitrogen oxides in the air annually, and that excavation and waste disposal activities have destroyed 17,000 acres of animal habitat.

The preserve’s remoteness, harsh weather and formidable terrain limit the number of visitors.

Still, protecting the refuge has been a cause celebre for a broad range of organizations, including the Episcopal Church, Reform rabbis, Quakers, the National Council of Churches and a group of evangelical Christians. A variety of hunting and fishing groups also opposes drilling.

On the other hand, Alaska’s congressional delegation and its governor, reflecting the majority view of residents, have long advocated drilling. That majority includes many Native groups, some of which stand to profit from increased oil production.

But Natives such as the Gwich’in, who have lived for centuries along the migration route of the Porcupine caribou herd and depended on the animals for food and other necessities, are bitterly opposed.

“No one has the right to deprive a people of their subsistence rights,” said Jonathon Solomon, chairman of the Gwich’in Steering Committee.

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How they voted

The 51-49 roll call by which the Senate voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling showed 41 Democrats, seven Republicans and one independent opposed to opening the refuge, and three Democrats and 48 Republicans in favor. The proposal still must survive a Senate vote on the overall budget resolution to which it is attached, followed by House-Senate negotiations.

Democrats Opposed to Opening Refuge

Baucus, Mont.; Bayh, Ind.; Biden, Del.; Bingaman, N.M.; Boxer, Calif.; Byrd, W.Va.; Cantwell, Wash.; Carper, Del.; Clinton, N.Y.; Conrad, N.D.; Corzine, N.J.; Dayton, Minn.; Dodd, Conn.; Dorgan, N.D.; Durbin, Ill.; Feingold, Wis.; Feinstein, Calif.; Harkin, Iowa; Johnson, S.D.; Kennedy, Mass.; Kerry, Mass.; Kohl, Wis.; Lautenberg, N.J.; Leahy, Vt.; Levin, Mich.; Lieberman, Conn.; Lincoln, Ark.; Mikulski, Md.; Murray, Wash.; Nelson, Fla.; Nelson, Neb.; Obama, Ill.; Pryor, Ark.; Reed, R.I.; Reid, Nev.; Rockefeller, W.Va.; Salazar, Colo.; Sarbanes, Md.; Schumer, N.Y.; Stabenow, Mich.; Wyden, Ore.

Republicans Opposed

Chafee, R.I.; Coleman, Minn.; Collins, Maine; DeWine, Ohio; McCain, Ariz.; Smith, Ore.; Snowe, Maine.

Independent Opposed

Jeffords, Vt.

Democrats in Favor

Akaka, Hawaii; Inouye, Hawaii; Landrieu, La.

Republicans in Favor

Alexander, Tenn.; Allard, Colo.; Allen, Va.; Bennett, Utah; Bond, Mo.; Brownback, Kan.; Bunning, Ky.; Burns, Mont.; Burr, N.C.; Chambliss, Ga.; Coburn, Okla.; Cochran, Miss.; Cornyn, Texas; Craig, Idaho; Crapo, Idaho; DeMint, S.C.; Dole, N.C.; Domenici, N.M.; Ensign, Nev.; Enzi, Wyo.; Frist, Tenn.; Graham, S.C.; Grassley, Iowa; Gregg, N.H.; Hagel, Neb.; Hatch, Utah; Hutchison, Texas; Inhofe, Okla.; Isakson, Ga.; Kyl, Ariz.; Lott, Miss.; Lugar, Ind.; Martinez, Fla.; McConnell, Ky.; Murkowski, Alaska; Roberts, Kan.; Santorum, Pa.; Sessions, Ala.; Shelby, Ala.; Specter, Pa.; Stevens, Alaska; Sununu, N.H.; Talent, Mo.; Thomas, Wyo.; Thune, S.D.; Vitter, La.; Voinovich, Ohio; Warner, Va.

Source: Associated Press

Los Angeles Times