Saving Seafood

Inside Alaska’s battles over land, sea and life

July 26, 2018 –There is a gold rush underway in Alaska.

A rush to tap the black gold of oil beneath the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the north.

A rush to blast free the yellow gold, silver and copper hidden in the hills above Bristol Bay in the south.

But while the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1896 was touched off by a few lucky prospectors and the glint of creek-bed precious metal, this one began on election night, 2016.

Donald Trump set out to deregulate the environment on a scale unseen in generations, much to the delight of oil, gas and mining companies eager to tap Alaska’s natural wealth.

But as he appointed climate change deniers and anti-EPA warriors to his Cabinet, his win also brought dismay to fishermen and wildlife guides, conservationists and native tribes who believe that the true wealth of the Last Frontier is unspoiled wilderness and unrivaled biodiversity.

This tension pits neighbor against neighbor, tribe against tribe, Republican against Republican in a battle over the future. And like any great debate or heavyweight bout, this fight has a clock.

Both sides are counting the days until election night 2020.

Read the full story at KSFO

Oil leasing in Arctic refuge included in tax deal

December 14, 2017 — A provision to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development is included in the tax bill agreed upon by Republicans serving on a joint House-Senate conference committee, according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

The measure would authorize oil leasing within the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, a move Murkowski on Wednesday called “ the single most important step I believe we can (take) to strengthen our long-term energy security and create new wealth.”

The fate of the oil leasing in the refuge is now tied to the overall tax legislation expected to be voted on by the House and Senate in the days ahead.

Read the full story at the Seattle Times

 

Arctic Refuge Drilling Closer as Senate Moves to Open Site

October 23, 2017 — WASHINGTON — Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one step closer to oil and gas drilling.

A budget measure approved by the Republican-controlled Senate late Thursday allows Congress to pursue legislation allowing oil and gas exploration in the remote refuge on a majority vote.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska said Congress can create jobs and enhance energy security by opening a small section of the 19.6 million-acre site to drilling.

“More energy production means more American jobs, more American economic growth, more American national security … and a more sustainable global environment, because no one in the world produces energy more responsibly than Americans, especially Alaskans,” Sullivan said.

But Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state said drilling was not worth the risks to a fragile ecosytem that serves as important habitat for polar bears, caribou and migratory birds.

 Read the full story by the Associated Press on US News

Congressmen hear pitches on how to open up Alaska’s natural resources

August 18, 2017 — Alaska Rep. Don Young has spent the week guiding some of his fellow Republican members of Congress around some of Alaska’s natural resources, and the group said they’re ready to act to make drilling and mining more accessible in Alaska.

Young and four other members of the congressional Western Caucus joined with representatives of oil, gas, timber, fish, Alaska Native corporations and other industries in Anchorage on Thursday to discuss just what Congress could do to encourage more production in Alaska.

The industry representatives and Republican lawmakers agreed on the overall plan: Get the federal government out of the way. For the lawmakers, that meant naming names of troublesome bureaucrats.

The industry groups spoke of reforming regulatory programs and paring back the power of agencies and environmental groups.

Young convened the group at the Dena’ina Center downtown after travels to the North Slope to check out facilities run by ConocoPhillips and BP, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Pump Station No. 1, start of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

The group also visited the Fort Knox Gold Mine outside of Fairbanks. Afterward, some of them headed south for a fishing trip this weekend.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

SHAWN REGAN: Property Rights Help Environmentalists Protect Wildlife

August 7, 2017 — Earlier this year, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would seek to open oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The plan, outlined in Trump’s 2018 budget resolution, has reignited a long-standing debate over the oil-rich Alaskan wildlife refuge.

“Some places are so special that they should simply be off-limits,” Nicole Whittington-Evans of the Wilderness Society said at the time, arguing that the refuge is “too wild to drill” and “has values far beyond whatever oil might lie beneath it.” David Yarnold, president of the Audubon Society, said that drilling in ANWR “would cause irreversible damage to birds and one of the wildest places we have left on Earth.”

Drilling proponents cite the area’s immense energy potential. More than 10 billion barrels of oil could be tapped by developing just a small portion of the 19-million-acre refuge, according to the U.S. Geological Survey – enough to produce 1.45 million barrels per day, more than the United States imports daily from Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration claims that opening ANWR for leasing would reduce the federal deficit by $1.8 billion over the next decade.

How are these conflicting environmental and natural-resource values to be resolved? In the case of ANWR, the answer is politics. The refuge is federal land, so decisions about its management are political by their nature. Debates are often characterized as all-or-nothing decisions – either “save the Arctic” or “drill baby drill” – and when one side “wins,” another side loses.

But what would happen if ANWR were privately owned, perhaps by an environmental group?

Read the full opinion piece at the Foundation for Economic Education

Sen. Cantwell Statement on House Budget Proposal to Open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Oil Drilling

July 19, 2017 — The following was released by the Office of Senator Marie Cantwell (D-WA):

Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) responded to the House Republicans’ inclusion of provisions in their budget proposal for the coming year that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Cantwell released the following statement:

“I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the House Republican budget includes a proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  We have seen this story before — every Republican Administration and every Republican-majority Congress has tried to turn over this iconic national wildlife refuge to the oil and gas industry. Fortunately, all previous proposals to destroy this pristine arctic ecosystem for the benefit of oil and gas companies have failed.  We need to protect the Arctic Refuge, not raid it for oil.

“If House Republicans insist on passing a partisan budget that includes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I will do everything I can to ensure it meets the same fate in the Senate as their failed health care bill.”

Throughout her career in the Senate, Cantwell has been a leader in protecting the refuge from oil exploration and drilling. Since entering the Senate in 2001, she has cosponsored legislation multiple times to permanently protect the Arctic Refuge coastal plain as a wilderness area. In December of 2005, Cantwell led a historic filibuster that reversed a backdoor maneuver in the Senate to allow Wildlife Refuge drilling. In 2013, Cantwell and Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced legislation that would have designated 1.56 million acres of land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness.