Alaska-Refuge Drilling Approved by U.S. House

Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News

April 21, 2005

Late last night the U.S. House of Representatives voted to allow oil
drilling in an Alaska refuge as part an energy bill that will likely be
approved today. To become law, the bill would then need to be passed by
the Senate and signed by President Bush, who supports the drilling plan.

Long a focus of debate, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) may have billions of barrels of recoverable crude beneath its tundra. Drilling proponents say that ANWR's oil is needed to reduce energy prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Critics counter that the ANWR oil would not be available for at least a decade and would do little to ease energy woes. Conservationists argue that drilling would damage a wild landscape and its inhabitants, and that more efficient fuel use standards would do more to reduce foreign-oil dependency.

Over the next few weeks, as the Senate and House try to merge their budget bills into one, the emotionally charged issue will surface again.

"This battle has just begun," said Lydia Weiss of Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group. "Senators will have to cast at least one more vote on this before it passes, and those Senators who voted the wrong way on the amendment in March will certainly feel the heat from their constituents not to make the same mistake twice."

The Refuge

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge comprises some 19 million acres (8 million hectares)—the size of South Carolina—and lies in the remote northeastern corner of Alaska.

To get there, you must fly, boat, or walk.

The refuge is an unbroken expanse of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems, which for centuries have been largely untouched by humans.

An abundance of wildlife, able to withstand extreme environmental conditions, lives in the refuge. Polar bears, wolverines, musk oxen, and caribou roam the frozen grounds. Some 180 migratory and resident bird species have been observed in the refuge, and more than 30 species of fish live in the lakes and rivers.

Inupiat Eskimos have also survived in this harsh environment for generations. Their village is the only settlement in the wildlife refuge.

In 1980 U.S. President Jimmy Carter set aside 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) of the refuge's Arctic Coastal Plain for oil and gas exploration in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Under the act, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior was required to conduct an initial assessment of oil and gas resources of the Arctic coastal plain. However, leasing and production were prohibited until further authorized by Congress.

During the last decade policymakers have repeatedly tried to open the wildlife refuge to drilling, coming close only once.

In 1995 both chambers passed a budget bill that allowed drilling, only to have President Bill Clinton veto it.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the total amount of technically recoverable oil in the coastal plain (excluding state and native areas) is between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels.

How much of that oil will be taken out of the ground, though, depends on its economic value—the amount profitable enough to warrant extraction. If the oil market soars, like it has recently, energy companies spend more to extract as much as possible.

Professional drillers believe opening up the refuge to energy development will reduce the United States' reliance on foreign oil and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Federal revenue would also be enhanced, they say, by billions of dollars from lease rentals, royalties, and taxes.

Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is in favor of domestic oil production on the coastal plain. He believes a balance between environmental concerns and energy needs can be accomplished.

"The United States has the most stringent environmental safeguards to protect tundra, the ecosystem and wildlife," Stevens wrote in a February letter to Republican Representative Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

"New technologies ensure that resource development will occur in an environmentally sensitive manner," Stevens continued. "And remember, if we do it, it will be cleaner than if we leave it to the Russians, the Saudis or anyone else for that matter."

BP—a major oil and gas producer in Alaska since 1969—is one of the companies that stand to profit from congressional support for drilling.

The U.K.-based company has leased 92,000 acres (37,000 hectares) in the coastal plain from Eskimos.

"We're not speculating on what action we'll take," said Daren Beaudo, a spokesman for BP. "If the coastal plain is open, then we'll look at the acreage on offer and we'll decide on the basis of many factors whether or not the coastal plain is a place that BP should explore."

A decision to drill would be based on environmental requirements, Beaudo said, and on how the area stacks up against other opportunities in the company's global exploration portfolio.

In 2002 BP withdrew its support from Arctic Power, a lobbying organization focused on securing legislation to open the coastal plain for energy development.

Animals at Risk?

Opponents contend that oil-extraction activities will disturb the refuge's most critical and sensitive areas, such as calving grounds for the Porcupine caribou herd and denning areas for one of the United States' two polar bear populations.

Of the three caribou herds that use the refuge, the Porcupine herd is the largest with 123,000 animals. The herd winters in Canada, then migrates 500 to 700 miles (800 to 1,100 kilometers) in spring to ancient calving grounds inside the refuge on the coastal plain—a treeless expanse about 100 miles (160 kilometers) long and 30 miles (48 kilometers) deep.

If oil development is allowed, it will most likely displace the caribou cows from the calving area, said Tara Wertz, a biologist who specializes in caribou for the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

Wertz said any disturbance to the vegetation in the calving area or any development that prevents caribou from using the land will impact the herd's reproduction and survival. "When the cows get to the calving area after the long migration, they're not in great shape to begin with," Wertz said. "So that first nutritious plant that comes up after the snow melts is very, very important, and [the caribou] go to specific areas for their calving grounds to find that nutritious forage."

For the first three weeks young calves rely solely on their mother's milk. If the cows don't have sufficient food to produce enough milk, the calves grow weak and become more susceptible to predation and disease.

Insect relief is another concern. In the summer, when caribou (also called reindeer) are gathering strength to make the long trek back to Canada, swarms of insects emerge. The only defense the large animals have against the mosquitoes is to find a cool or windy location, Wertz said, and oil development could block the herd from getting to those relief areas.

If that happens, she said the herd would be forced to keep moving to find refuge from the insects. In the process, the herd would expend precious energy and fat reserves needed for the long migration.

Adrien Herrera, a spokesman for Arctic Power, doesn't believe energy development on the coastal plain will affect the Porcupine herd.

As proof, he points to the steady population increase of the Central Arctic caribou herd, which migrates through Prudhoe Bay—the largest oil field in North America, located near the coastal plain.

"For anybody to say that the Porcupine caribou herd is going to be affected by an even smaller oil field—two-thirds the size smaller than Prudhoe Bay—that's wishful thinking," Herrera said. "It isn't going to happen."

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