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Alaska Wild Update #195 - Jan 16, 2003 QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Once
their backdoor ploy gets on the front burner, some of their moderate Republicans
are going to feel the heat. What they think are solid yeses may turn out
to be defiant noes,". HEADLINES ALERT - TONGASS ANTI-WILDERNESS RIDER IN APPROP. BILL THE NEW FACE OF CONGRESS (HINT: IT AIN’T PRETTY) STUDY SHOWS PRESS MIS-REPORTING ON OIL FROM ARCTIC REFUGE NEW STUDY SHOWS GOLDEN EAGLES USE ALASKA’S NORTH SLOPE
Deep in the pages of a sweeping appropriations bill, wilderness opponents have buried language that threatens the Tongass, America's largest National Forest. The short sentence inserted by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens provides that a nine million acre wilderness review underway for the Tongass may NOT be subject to further Forest Service public appeal process or any judicial review by any court in the United States. The Forest Service had been scheduled to release its decision on whether to recommend wilderness in the Alaska Forest in late February. Aurah
Landau, a grassroots organizer for the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council,
said the omnibus bill language affects timber interests as well as environmentalists. The paragraph, which appears deep inside H.J. Resolution 2, the 2003 omnibus appropriations legislation now before the U.S. Senate, says: “Section 329. The record of decision for the 2002 supplemental environmental impact statement for the 1997 Tongass Land Management Plan shall not be reviewed under any Forest Service administrative appeal process, and its adequacy shall not be subject to judicial review by any court of the United States.” “It looks like we're just basically being headed off at the pass by Senator Stevens," stated Tim Bristol, director of the Alaska Coalition, a coalition of conservation, religious, and sporting groups. Liz Williams, a homeowner in Saltery Cove, Prince of Wales Island, and former Ketchikan Pulp Co. employee, commented Thursday about the language in the omnibus bill. “This is classic — putting government above the people,” She said. “When you can’t win any other way, you shut off their voice?” After
the Forest Service completed their court mandated draft review, and recommended
no new wilderness areas, Alaskans and the American public were outraged.
In record numbers Americans asked the Forest Service that TAKE ACTION!!! We need to protect our democratic ability to comment on the Forest Service’s plan or to challenge it if it is once again inadequate. Ask Congress to make the Omnibus FY03 appropriations a clean bill without language that would silence the American public's support for protecting the Alaskan rainforest! Please take action! Over the holiday weekend let’s flood the email inboxes of the U.S. Senate! No time for postal letters, we need to send emails!! Go to the Alaska Wilderness League’s website and pick the “Tongass Anti-Rider Wilderness Alert” to send an email directly to your Senator. Then send this to all your friends and family and ask them to do it too! They need to hear from us, and they need to hear LOTS! Let’s give them an earful! THE
NEW FACE OF CONGRESS (HINT: IT AIN’T PRETTY) In
the Senate Budget committee, outgoing Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) will
be On
the House side, retiring House Natural Resource Committee Chair Jim While
committees may in part be stacked with drilling supporters, two facts
Senate Republican leaders said in a Wall Street Journal article on Wednesday, January 15, that they were serious about using a back-door maneuver to move Arctic drilling through the budget process. According to the article, Senate Republican leaders are considering this method because the budget manuever is filibuster-proof. Two Senate committee chairmen -- Sens. Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Don Nickles of Oklahoma -- who would play central roles in the maneuver have discussed the strategy in some detail, these sources said. Both strongly favor oil development in the refuge in far northeastern Alaska. Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the new chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said he believes the controversial Arctic-refuge provision will be included as part of this year's budget-reconciliation process. The committee, working in collaboration with the White House and the Senate Budget Committee, will put together a revenue-raising package that could result in a floor vote on the Arctic refuge as early as March or April. Leading Senate Democrats – including Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts, as well as Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle -- have vowed to use every means available to keep a drilling provision from passing the Senate. Senator Domenici admitted that Arctic refuge supporters don't have the 61 votes necessary to defeat a filibuster being planned by drilling opponents. But by using budget reconciliation, in which Congress fine tunes revenue and spending levels at the end of the fiscal year through a bill that may not be filibustered, only a simple majority is needed for approval. Dan Gerstein, spokesman for Sen. Lieberman, contends that Republicans will lack the votes to win on the Arctic-refuge provision. "Once their backdoor ploy gets on the front burner, some of their moderate Republicans are going to feel the heat. What they think are solid yeses may turn out to be defiant noes," he said. Under the reconciliation package, the Bush administration will request a sum of money be raised by selling oil leases along the Arctic refuge's 110-mile coast. The Senate Budget Committee will order the Senate energy panel to raise that sum without specifying how to do it. Sen. Domenici says if this method is followed , then he will comply with a proposal to raise about $1.6 billion by allowing drilling in the refuge. If
Republicans in the Senate use the budget as a method of allowing drilling
in the Arctic Refuge, the reconciliation bill could reach the Senate floor
for a vote as early as late February, but more likely in March or April. STUDY SHOWS PRESS MIS-REPORTING ON OIL FROM ARCTIC REFUGE A new study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Environmental Protection Agency entitled "Sorry, Wrong Number: The Use and Misuse of Numerical Facts in Analysis and Media Reporting on Energy Issues," contends that media reports have inconsistently stated the amount of economically recoverable oil under the fragile tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. According
to the study, “drilling advocates also commonly quote estimates in
the 10 to 12 billion barrel range,” and can range as high as 20 billion
barrels. These estimates, however, are based on a 5 percent probability
of economically recoverable oil. The fact is, after factoring in the price
of Researchers found that many media reports have not used figures generated by the U.S. Geological Survey accurately, with most stories stating there is approximately 10 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the Arctic Refuge. This, according to the study, “implicitly overstates the amount of economically recoverable reserves in the 1002 area by about a factor of three.” The
study is published in the 2002
Annual Reviews of Energy and the Environment. NEW STUDY SHOWS GOLDEN EAGLES USE ALASKA’S NORTH SLOPE As reported in Land Letter, January 9, 2003 by Lauren Miura A recent study of Alaska's golden eagle migration found that birds born in Denali National Park return to summer all over Alaska, a finding some say could make conservation difficult and raise concerns about oil development. The study, funded by the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey, tracked the migration routes of golden eagles for the first time. NPS wildlife biologist Carol McIntyre and co-author Michael Collopy, a professor at the University of Nevada-Reno, tracked 42 eagles over four years. After their birth in Denali National Park, the birds fly south and spent about six months in northern Mexico. In April, the young birds head back north and spend their summer everywhere from the Mackenzie River Delta all the way across the North Slope to Point Lay, McIntyre said. About half the birds ended up in the North Slope, she said. "The most interesting thing that came out is what a huge area of western North America they wander over," McIntyre said. "They have a tremendous range." The eagles'
immense range while in Alaska and the lower 48 states presents a challenge
in conserving the species and its habitat, Collopy said. "When species
return to very specific locations it's easier to target conservation methods,"
he said. "It's a real challenge in the sense that there's no single
action that can be proposed in consequence of learning the birds are widely
distributed." And preserving the entire expanse of land the eagles
frequent is not practical either, Collopy said. Instead, Collopy said
the study's findings should raise awareness that the birds are using habitat McIntyre downplayed the study's implications for oil development. "What we've learned really just enhances our knowledge of resources of the North Slope of Alaska," she said. Environmentalists say the report's findings raise concerns about oil development on the North Slope and opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. "It illustrates for me more than anything that in the Arctic, we need to manage with caution," said Sara Chapell, spokeswoman for the Sierra Club in Alaska. "There are still so many things we do not know about the Arctic environment that we need to proceed with a high level of caution and just be very careful of where we authorize drilling and how we authorize projects." Stan Senner,
executive director of Audubon Alaska, said the study underscores the possible
impacts of oil development on North Slope birds such as the golden eagle,
a species of concern for the group. The more industry infrastructure the
region has, the greater the potential impact on McIntyre downplayed the study's implications for oil development. "What we've learned really just enhances our knowledge of resources of the North Slope of Alaska," she said. “The study didn't have any goals of trying to look at the impact of drilling on wildlife at all." February
issue of the OUTSIDE magazine has a major article on the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, by Peter Mathiessen (author of The Snow Leopard) with
photographs by Subhankar Banerjee. This issue is now currently available
at the newsstands. You can also see more of Subhankar's This article
is adapted from an essay by Peter Matthiessen in Subhankar Banerjee's
upcoming book "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and
Land" to be published by The Mountaineers Books in April, 2003. Subhankar's
Arctic Refuge images will be showcased in a solo exhibit at the |
