Robert Kennedy Jr And 650,000 Americans Urge President Clinton To Designate Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain A National MonumentCopyright 2000 Internet Wire
December 14, 2000
Press Release
INTERNET WIRE -- Standing next to sacks holding more than 650,000 petitions, Robert Kennedy Jr. and members of the Alaska Coalition today called on President Clinton to designate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain a national monument.
In addition to the signed petitions, the coalition delivered to the White House letters from consumer, religious, human rights, and conservation groups - and a letter signed by more than 250 scientists - all in support of saving the refuge from oil and gas drilling.
"With the holidays approaching, I can think of no better gift for the American people than national monument status for the Arctic Refuge's coastal plain," said Robert Kennedy Jr., senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "President Clinton can leave behind a lasting and magnificent environmental legacy by designating this national treasure a monument."
The coalition letters were signed by a cornucopia of organizations, including the Gwich'in Steering Committee, National Counsel of Churches, NAACP, Global Witness and World Conservation Society (WCS).
"There are many reasons why this extraordinary landscape deserves protection," said WCS's director for science, George Schaller. "Development is incompatible with the biological richness of the region, sustainability of wildlife populations, and the culture of the Gwich'in people in Alaska and adjacent Canada."
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of America's last unspoiled places. Caribou, musk oxen, wolves, three bear species, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds rely on the pristine habitat that the refuge provides. The coastal plain is the only part of Alaska's north slope - America's Arctic - that is not open for drilling or leasing.
The postcards and letters urge the president to use his authority granted under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate the coastal plain a national monument. President Clinton has blocked drilling in the Arctic Refuge before. In 1995, the president twice vetoed budget bills that would have opened the refuge to oil and gas drilling and development.
The fate of Arctic Refuge was one of the most discussed issues of the presidential campaign. Like President Clinton, Vice President Gore opposes oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Texas Gov. George Bush, meanwhile, supports drilling on the coastal plain and opposes monument status. A former oil company executive, Bush received more that $1.7 million in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies, including nearly $60,000 from BP and Exxon-Mobil, two of the largest oil companies in Alaska.
The Alaska Coalition maintains that drilling in the refuge would not reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The most recent U.S. Geological Survey assessment estimates that there is a 95 percent chance that only 3.2 billion barrels could be economically produced from the Arctic Refuge, which would meet the energy needs of the United States for less than six months.
The long-term solution to oil dependence, the coalition says, is energy efficiency, not despoiling the Arctic Refuge. Increasing the average fuel efficiency of cars and trucks by a mere 2 percent per year would save at least twice as much oil as might be found in the coastal plain. Increased auto fuel efficiency also would limit the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.
"We hope that President Clinton listens to the American people - not the oil industry - and names the Arctic Refuge a national monument before he leaves office," said Gene Karpinski, executive director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "All we want for Christmas is an Arctic Refuge National Monument."
The Alaska Coalition, which is comprised of more than 400 local, regional, and national conservation, religious, Native American and public interest groups, includes the Alaska Center for the Environment, Alaska Wilderness League, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace, Gwich'in Steering Committee, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Pew Wilderness Center, Sierra Club, Trustees for Alaska, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, The Wilderness Society and World Wildlife Fund.
The Arctic Refuge: Myths and Facts
Republican Sen. Frank Murkowski and other proponents of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain insist that development will not harm the area. Sen. Murkowski wrote an essay that appeared in the Washington Post's Outlook section on December 10 titled "Drilling Won't Make It Less of a Refuge," in which he presented his arguments. Sen. Murkowski received $171,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies between 1995 and 2000. Only electric utilities gave him more. Below are his major points, followed by the facts.
Myth: The Arctic Refuge coastal plain is not pristine.
Fact: The Arctic Refuge coastal plain is one of the wildest places left on earth. It is true that the coastal plain includes Kaktovik on Barter Island - a village of 260 Inupait natives - the U.S. military's Distant Early Warning radar site, and other facilities. The Alaska Coalition is not proposing that these small, discrete developed sites already on the coastal plain be declared wilderness. But the rest of the coastal plain is one of the last, large wilderness areas in the world with an intact ecological system.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is unique to the north slope of Alaska and to the world. It is the only place in the nation where the full spectrum of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems is protected in an unbroken continuum. Known as "America's Serengeti," it is home for a herd of 130,000 caribou that gather on the coastal plain to bear and nurse their young each year. The coastal plain also is the nation's most important polar bear denning habitat on land and hosts as many as 300,000 snow geese and more than 130 other migratory bird species.
Myth: More than 70 percent of Alaskans and 54 percent of Americans support drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
Fact: Statewide public opinion polls show Alaskans to be closely divided. Other polls indicate Americans do not support drilling.
In a recent poll, 45 percent of Alaskans agreed that "the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, should be protected from oil drilling," while 49 percent disagreed and 6 percent were neutral or didn't know (Alaska Conservation Alliance, July 2000). In response to the statement, "The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be protected from British Petroleum's oil drilling and development plans," 41 percent agreed, 43 percent disagreed and 16 percent were neutral (Alaska Conservation Alliance, November 1999).
Most Alaska residents polled in rural areas, Southeast Alaska and Fairbanks; and Alaskan Democrats, moderates and women agree that the refuge should be protected from oil development by a wide margin (ACA, November 1999).
Nationally, different polls generate different results. An October 2000 poll by the Mellman Group found that Americans, by a 56 to 29 percent margin, say drilling in the refuge is not worth the risk it poses to the environment for what would amount to less than six months worth of the U.S. oil supply.
Myth: Oil development in Prudhoe Bay has not harmed caribou.
Fact: Caribou and other wildlife have been harmed by oil field development. Scientific studies have found that oil development has had a significant negative impact on calving habitat use and has disrupted caribou movements. Although the Central Arctic herd population has increased over the past 30 years - as have populations throughout the Arctic - this regional trend has masked significant changes in habitat use and reproduction. As companies built more roads in the Kuparuk oil field, concentrated calving disappeared.
In the early 1990s, biologists from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game found that caribou inhabiting the oil fields had lower calf productivity compared with members of the same herd that seldom encountered oil-related facilities. The herd has been split by the Trans-Alaska pipeline into two groups, and according to 1995 surveys a sharp decline occurred in the part of the range nearest oil development. In fact, there was a 41 percent decline in the Kuparuk oil field. Studies also found that female caribou generally avoid the north slope oil fields, which feature a network of roads, pipelines and other facilities.
Myth: Prudhoe Bay development has not harmed caribou, so development on the coastal plain would not threaten the Porcupine caribou herd.
Fact: Oil development has harmed caribou in Prudhoe Bay, and its impact on the Porcupine herd in the coastal plain could be far worse.
The refuge coastal plain area provides essential calving and post-calving habitat for a herd that is nearly six times as large as the Central Arctic herd in a birthing and nursery area that is one-fifth the size of the Prudhoe Bay area. Over the past 25 years, the most consistently and heavily used calving area for the Porcupine caribou herd has been in the coastal plain area of the refuge proposed for oil development. Nearly every year, females and calves use this area for post-calving, and most males usually join them. There is no alternative habitat for the herd, according to the International Porcupine Caribou Board.
Myth: Oil development in the coastal plain would not harm polar bear habitats.
Sen. Murkowski says that "the bears rarely den on land in this region, preferring the arctic ice."
Fact: The coastal plain is the most important onshore denning area for Beaufort Sea polar bears.
The Arctic Refuge is the only national conservation area where polar bears regularly den and the most consistently used polar bear land denning area in Alaska. Every year, polar bears come to the refuge to den and give birth. Many others congregate along the coast of the refuge in October and November. These bears are part of the Beaufort Sea population, estimated at 2,000 animals. They use an area extending more than 800 miles along the north coasts of Alaska and Canada. The bears spend most of their time on the drifting pack ice, feeding, resting and denning. Each year, however, many of the pregnant females come to shore to dig maternity dens in Arctic Refuge snow drifts.
Myth: Oil development on the coastal plain would take up only 2,000 acres.
Fact: Oil development would industrialize the biological heart of the refuge.
The Interior Department estimates that oil development on the coastal plain would introduce a web of roads, drill pads, processing facilities and airports covering more than 12,500 acres extending over hundreds of square miles.
Sen. Murkowski wants to open the entire 1.5 million acre coastal plain area to oil leasing. The most recent U.S. Geological Survey study concluded that potential oil resources are located in many small accumulations in a complex geological formation, not in one giant field like Prudhoe Bay. Therefore, it is more likely that oil development would spread over a large region connected by roads, pipelines, power plants, processing plants, airports, gravel mines, power lines and other infrastructure.
Myth: Oil exploration and development would take place in the winter months when no caribou are present.
Fact: Oil development and production operations would occur all year round. Even during winter, oil exploration would threaten denning polar bears, disturb sensitive muskoxen, which are year-round residents, and cause lasting harm to tundra vegetation. Polar bears are especially sensitive to disturbance during denning.
During the winter months on the north slope, heavy vehicles involved in seismic oil exploration have caused significant harm to vegetation, despite regulations and permits developed to minimize damage. Newer, more sophisticated seismic oil exploration surveys would result in much more extensive and long-lasting damage.
Sen. Murkowski's drilling legislation would not mandate seasonal restrictions, and the option for seasonal closures only would apply to exploratory drilling, not development and production. Moreover, his bill would override a law requiring that commercial activities within national wildlife refuges do no harm to refuges, implicitly acknowledging that oil development and the purpose of the Arctic Refuge are not compatible.
Myth: There may be as much as 16 billion barrels of oil in the coastal plain, more than at Prudhoe Bay.
Fact: Only about 4.3 billion barrels would be recoverable.
The 1998 U.S. Geological Survey study concluded that it would expect to find four oil fields scattered across the refuge capable of producing approximately 3.2 billion barrels of oil at $20 per barrel - a fifth the amount of oil Sen. Murkowski claims. The 16-billion-barrel estimate touted by Murkowski and other development proponents is in the low probability (5 percent, or a 1 in 20 chance) for technically recoverable oil.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Fact Sheet
A Precious Natural Treasure
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of America's last unspoiled places. Located on Alaska's north slope, it is one of the last true wilderness areas on Earth. Its awe-inspiring landscape, traversed by dozens of rivers - and untouched by roads or development - contains forests, glaciered peaks and windswept tundra. The heart of this spectacular wilderness is its coastal plain, a 25-mile band of tundra wetlands that provides the most important birthing and nursing ground for Arctic wildlife. Every year the coastal plain explodes with an extraordinary diversity of life as Arctic animals return in search of food and sanctuary.
The refuge is the only area in America's Arctic that is closed to drilling or leasing, but multinational oil companies, led by BP and ExxonMobil, and their friends in Congress are promoting legislation that would turn America's premier birthing ground for polar bears, caribou, wolves and other wildlife into a vast, polluted oil field. George W. Bush, if he becomes president, has vowed to open the refuge to drilling.
Drilling would harm many of the refuge's most striking attributes:
The people of the caribou, the Gwich'in, one of the last subsistence cultures in North America who have lived south and east of the refuge for 20,000 years. More than 300 muskox, a species once nearly extinct, that live year-round on the coastal plain. The most important onshore denning area for Beaufort Sea polar bears. In fact, the refuge is the largest polar bear denning area in the United States. Polar bears are very sensitive to human activity. If disturbed, females may abandon their dens, leaving cubs to die. Millions of migratory birds. There are 135 bird species, including Snow geese, sandhill cranes and red-throated loons, that nest in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain. They migrate annually to most states, a number of South American countries, and the Pacific Rim. The Porcupine River caribou herd. The coastal plain of the refuge serves as the spring calving ground for 130,000 Porcupine River caribou, named after the Porcupine River region in Canada where the herd spends the winter. For thousands of years, the herd has traveled 800 miles round-trip to escape predators and mosquitoes to give birth on the coastal plain. It is one of nature's most magnificent spectacles: Over a three-day period every spring, some 42,000 calves are born. The Department of Interior has warned that drilling in the refuge could damage or displace as much as 40 percent of the herd.
Lawmakers Left the Heart of the Arctic Refuge Unprotected
Congress established the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1980 over the objections of oil companies such as ExxonMobil and British Petroleum (BP). As a compromise with the oil industry, Congress designated the refuge's coastal plain as a "study area," leaving its future in limbo until lawmakers decided whether it should be protected permanently or not. the last 20 years, Arctic advocates, including the Gwich'in and religious and conservation groups, have urged Congress to protect the integrity of the refuge by designating the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain as "wilderness." With several bills now languishing and George W. Bush about to , Arctic advocates are appealing to President Clinton to preserve the area by designating it a national monument.
Drilling in the Arctic: A Dirty Business
Oil companies already have ruined the once-pristine area to the west of the refuge, near Prudhoe Bay. There, development has permanently altered some 400 square miles. Now the area is one of the world's largest industrial complexes, with more than 1,500 miles of roads and pipelines, 1,400 wells, three airports, 17 sewage treatment plants and hundreds of large waste pits. drilling near Prudhoe Bay has caused major environmental problems:
Drilling operations annually discharge into the air more than 43,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog and acid rain, and 100,000 metric tons of methane, which contributes to global warming; Some 1,600 spills from 1994 to 1999 involving 1.2 million gallons of oil, diesel fuel, acid, biocide, ethylene glycol, drilling fluid, produced water and other materials; Gravel fill, excavation and waste disposal alone have destroyed 12,000 acres of wildlife habitat and 508 acres of marine and estuarine habitat; and Every day, oil industry operations generate 3,000 cubic yards of drilling waste, which can contain toxic metals and additives; 40,000 gallons of oily liquid waste, and 300 cubic yards of oil-contaminated solid waste and sludge.
Oil Companies Pushing for Access to the Coastal Plain
With the recent spike in oil prices, BP, ExxonMobil, Philips Petroleum and Chevron are aggressively lobbying Congress to open the refuge to drilling because it may sit on top of an oil field. And they are backing up their lobbying effort with money.
In 1997 alone, the oil and gas industry spent $51.7 million on lobbyists as well as meals, travel and other favors for public officials and their staffs, according to a study by the Associated Press. Oil companies that want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge also have bought influence by contributing more than $8.7 million to congressional campaigns and to the Republican and Democratic parties' campaign committees.
Drilling in the Refuge Won't Solve Our Oil Shortage Problem
Despite this year's spike in oil and gasoline prices, opening up the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge would not solve U.S. energy problems. Oil is a global commodity; its price is determined primarily by international markets. Given that the United States produces only about 12 percent of global petroleum supplies, even a significant boost in domestic production would have only a marginal effect on global markets.
More important, the most recent U.S. Geological Survey assessment estimates that there is a 95 percent chance that only 3.2 billion barrels could be economically produced from the Arctic Refuge's coastal plain, which would meet the energy needs of the United States for less than six months.
Increasing the average fuel efficiency of cars and trucks by a mere 2 percent per year would save at least twice as much oil as might be found in the coastal plain. Increased auto fuel efficiency also would limit the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.
For more information: www.alaskawild.org/arctic
Contact:
Elliott Negin
NRDC
202-289-2405
Athan Manuel
USPIRG
202-546-9707