Alaska Wild Update #200 - Apr 3, 2003

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

As the mayor and former community health aide for the village of Nuiqsut, I have serious concerns about the ongoing effects of oil development in Alaska's Arctic.”
- Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, Nuiqsut, AK, As published in the Anchorage Daily News, April 1, 2003

Editor’s note: Nuiqsut is west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, near the Beaufort Sea coast in the Colville River delta and within eight miles of the Alpine oil development project.

HEADLINES

IT’S NEVER OVER; HOUSE TO CONSIDER DRILLING IN ARCTIC REFUGE

BUDGET RESOLUTION MOVES TO CONFERENCE

IT’S HIGHWAY ROBBERY: THE STORY OF RS2477

IT'S NEVER OVER; HOUSE TO CONSIDER DRILLING IN ARCTIC REFUGE

Despite exclusion by the Senate earlier this month, the White House is turning to the House to address the possibility of drilling. "We continue to press about ANWR because that one small spot is believed to have the ability to produce more oil than the entire state of Texas," Norton said at the annual meeting of the National Wildlife Federation.

On Wednesday, April 2, the House responded. The House Resources Committee moved the Energy Security Act of 2003 out of committee with a provision to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) offered an amendment to remove the Arctic provision, but the amendment failed by a vote of 17-27.

House leadership has said that they would like to finish the full energy bill and have it passed the House by the time they leave for the spring recess. Spring recess starts April 12, so the full House could be voting on whether or not to allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge within the next several days.

Last year, the House and Senate both passed an Energy bill, the Senate without drilling and the House version with drilling. When the bill got to the conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate, Arctic drilling was one of the issues that caused the entire conference committee to become completely bogged down. No energy bill ever passed Congress last year as a result. With the Senate voting just two
weeks ago to reject drilling, it is highly unlikely that they would reverse themselves on the issue.

Once again, the House is attempting to move an issue which should be dead.

BUDGET RESOLUTION MOVES TO CONFERENCE

The House and Senate have both now passed the budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2004. Now, the budget moves to a conference committee to work out the differences between the two versions.

Earlier this week the House appointed their conferees, Representative Jim Nussle (R-IA), Representative Chris Shays (R-CT), and Representative John Spratt (D-SC). Nussle and Shays both worked closely together to make sure that the House budget didn’t mention the Arctic Refuge at all. The resolution that passed the House has instructions in it that could be used to allow drilling in the Refuge if other members of Congress wanted to
interpret them that way (they could also chose not to). Since the members in question are the same ones on the House Resources Committee that just did pass drilling as part of the Energy bill, it is likely that given the choice, they would choose to do it in the budget also.

The Senate version on the other hand has no instructions in it at all due to the Senate voting two weeks ago to take out the instructions that specified drilling in the Arctic Refuge. In order to make certain that the final conference committee report can not allow drilling, the Senate will have to keep their version and have the House remove all the instructions that could otherwise be used to allow drilling.

To take action, please go to HERE

IT’S HIGHWAY ROBBERY: THE STORY OF RS2477

R.S. 2477 became law in 1866—nearly 140 years ago. It provides simply: "the right-of-way for the construction of highways across public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted." Roughly translated, this means that any public land that isn’t specifically set aside for some other purpose can have a road claim filed for it. For instance, cow paths on public lands can have a claim filed on it for road construction. The statute was later repealed, but a grandfather clause left wilderness foes a loophole for asserting bogus "road" claims to prevent wilderness designation. Now, Interior Secretary Gale Norton is about to boost their efforts.

General History & Background
Across the American West, state and local governments are exploiting a loophole in an obscure law to falsely claim that thousands of miles of cow paths, trails, and dry creek beds are highways. Other examples of the claimed highways include reclaimed century-old mining wagon roads, water courses, jeep trails, and in the most egregious example, in Alaska they are even claiming the section lines on the map that go through some of this
country’s most precious national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wilderness areas, and other public lands. Mining and logging companies, oil and gas developers, all-terrain-vehicle users, and other special interests hope to use this slavery-era statute—which has the technical title of R.S. 2477—to punch dirt-bike trails and paved roads into our National Parks and Wildlife Refuges and to prevent wilderness
designations by asserting that old trails should be considered “highways.” New “Disclaimer Regulations” Revive and Heighten Threat On January 6, 2003, Interior Secretary Norton issued new “disclaimer regulations” that could be used to give away public lands in our national parks, wildlife refuges, and other special places. The new rule opens the
door for states, counties, and special interests to file thousands of unsubstantiated road claims using a loophole in a mining law passed in 1866. Compounding the offense is that the Department of the Interior still does not have standards to assess the validity of these claims.

Why This Is Bad for Alaska’s Natural Wonders
The Tongass National Forest, Chugach National Forest, Denali National Park, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are some of our most beloved national parks and public lands in Alaska—our nation's birthright. They are all in the crosshairs of a plan to authorize counties and states to lay claim to thousands of new "highways," effectively thwarting conservation efforts.

Acts of Congress protected these unique places for all Americans, not just a few special interests. Now, our cherished national parks and other public lands could be subject to road claims by greedy developers and local governments.

The creation of a spiderweb of unneccessary roads in wild areas would increase the risk of vandalism to valuable archaeological sites, expand already unmanageable use of dirt bikes, ATVs, and other off-road vehicles, increase habitat fragmentation and erosion, and undermine conservation efforts for lands that should be preserved for future generations.

Visit www.highway-robbery.org to learn more about the national coalition of groups working to stop this travesty.

April 8th, there is a National Call-In Day against the R.S. 2477 public lands giveaway. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, request your representative's office, and ask him/her to sign onto the Udall letter. Urge your Representative to demand that Secretary Norton NOT process RS2477 claims under the new “disclaimer rule.”

To take immediate action online, go to HERE