ARCTIC COASTAL PLAIN PUBLIC LAND

LEASING ACT OF 1987

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1987

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES,

Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:41 a.m., in room SD366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Timothy E. Wirth, presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIMOTHY E. WIRTH, A U.S.

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

Senator WIRTH. If the committee would come to order. Today the committee is continuing its consideration of legislative proposals designed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas leasing exploration, development and production. The bill to accomplish these purposes, S. 1217, has been introduced by Senators Murkowski and Stevens. This is the ninth hearing that the committee has conducted on the question of opening ANWR to these activities.

Today we are going to hear from a variety of witnesses, predominantly representing the conservation and environment side of the questions faced by the committee as it examines the legislation related to opening ANWR.

I greatly appreciate the Chairman's willingness to include this extensive panel, which is here at my urging and that of a number of other Senators who are, I might say-I can speak for myself in any case-increasingly skeptical about opening ANWR at a time when we are not taking the initiatives that ought to be taken on a variety of other energy proposals. But this is exactly the kind of balanced discussion that members of the committee have had, as well as the perspectives to be offered by many of today's witnesses, that will be extremely important to the committee as it attempts to better understand the ramifications of the legislation introduced by Senators Murkowski and Stevens.

And as we attempt to fulfill the mandate given us by the Chairman to constructively examine this legislation and to try to better understand how that legislation might be changed, rather than simply to look at the legislation and say that it ought to be killed altogether.

So, it would be my hope that witnesses today would, as much as possible, be constructive, as we attempted to have witnesses do last week in the response to questions that I offered, as to what ought

to be done, for example, on the various technical requirements, the EPA requirements, and so on. The witnesses last week were very forthcoming in their criticism of the bill and are going to get back to us on language that they thought ought to be added to the legislation to make it more acceptable.

Because of the large number of witnesses scheduled to testify today, we would like the witnesses to limit their statements to no more than five minutes. And we will have a high-technology set of lights up here. The green runs for four minutes. The orange will then run for a minute. And with the red light I will be forced to bring down the gavel and ask that witness to conclude.

We will include the full statements in the record, and we will leave the record open for additional comments and remarks that the witnesses may like to add in response to questions from members of the panel or in response to the comments made by others of the witnesses.

Why don't I ask the first panel to come up, and then while I'm doing that, ask Senator Hecht if he has any opening statement that he might like to make.

Senator HECHT. No. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to commend you for holding these hearings. It looks like you have got an aggressive agenda, so I am anxious to hear from the witnesses.

Senator WIRTH. Our first witnesses this morning: Ms. Lois Irwin from Mercer Island, Washington; Dr. Stephen M. Jones from Seattle, Washington; Ms. Joanne Roberts from Seattle, Washington; and Mr. Wilbur Mills from Seattle, Washington. We welcome all of you and ask you to again observe the rules that I have laid out to limit your statements, if you might, to no more than five minutes. We will include them in full in the record. And perhaps we might just start from right to left, if you could all identify yourselves for the purposes of the record, and then proceed. If you might start please, Ms. Irwin.

Ms. ROBERTS. Jo Roberts.

Senator WIRTH. You're Joanne Roberts.

Mr. MILLS. And Wilbur Mills.

MS. IRWIN. Lois Irwin.

Senator WIRTH. Excuse me?

MS. IRWIN. Lois Irwin.

Dr. JONES. And Stephen Jones.

Senator WIRTH. Fine. Then Ms. Roberts, why don't we start with you? You have to pull the microphone right up close, if you would, as it will be difficult for us to hear otherwise.

Ms. ROBERTS. I have testimony here from

Senator WIRTH. You could sit. If you could do that, and we will ask somebody to pick up those pictures so that everybody can hear and it will be part of the record, if we could do that please.

Senator FORD. You remind me of my mother. She wanted to do everything herself. Around here you ought to just let them help you. We will send somebody down to give you some help.

STATEMENT OF JOANNE ROBERTS, THE MOUNTAINEERS

Ms. ROBERTS. I represent The Mountaineers. The Mountaineers is the largest outdoor recreation club in the Northwest with over 11,000 members. Founded 1906, we have been leading trips for many years into what is now called the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We were there last summer and we will be there next summer. And here are pictures of our trip last summer.

The area is becoming more popular as our numbers increase and 'the wilderness experience we seek becomes less available close to home because of logging and development and increased use around our area.

When my grandchild Emily takes my great grandchild to hike in ANWR in the year 2040, they will be one of 32,000 mountaineers. And they and the rest of the folks on our crowded planet are likely to need wilderness a lot more than we need oil now.

Birds and animals have become the perpetual refugees of the modern world. Luckily they have a very large support group, 109 million of us Americans who actively participate in non-consumptive wildlife enjoyment, and we are drawn to the arctic coastal plain because there is nowhere else in the universe that we know of that can provide us with a similar experience.

Scientists call it our last whole arctic ecosystem: upland forest, coastal plain and marine environment. To us, the viewer, that translates not just to Dall sheep and polar bears, but to Dall sheep looking down on polar bears with caribou in between and the expectation of a wolf or a grizzly bear or an arctic fox appearing on the scene. The flocks of snow geese are the same that winter in our Skagit River flats. We feel connected to this wilderness.

Wilderness is a gestalt. It is more than the sum of its parts. It cannot be a little bit developed. It cannot be improved. It is as good as it is going to get.

Mountaineers historically are problem solvers. And we find it unjustifiable to develop ANWR at this time when we as a country have hardly begun to set in place all the methods of conservation and research on alternative sources that will make us truly independent. Indeed, we have regressed by lowering standards of efficiency and increasing speed limits. Focusing political energy on such diversionary projects as ANWR is postponing, as we speak, crucial national efforts to develop workable solutions to our energy problems.

Therefore, The Mountaineers urge the U.S. Congress to give as a legacy to our grandchildren not destruction of the last arctic wilderness but an adequate national energy policy which will give the United States of America the direction we so greatly need and preserve irreplaceable natural resources such as ANWR.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Roberts follows:]

Our

The Mountaineers is the largest outdoor and conservation organization in the Northwest, with more than 11,000 members. club has long had close ties with the State of Alaska, and the club frequently sponsors outings to Alaska, including the area now designated as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We are currently planning to sponsor another trip to this area next year. In addition, some of our members have organized backpack and kayak trips on their own. Moreover, a number of commercial expedition

guides and outfitters from this area lead trips to the Refuge.

With the growth of leisure time and the importance of recreation in our daily lives, more of our members and more of the general public are visiting the Wildlife Refuge. As more and more areas in the State of Washington are opened up to logging, recreation homes, and other forms of development, the availability of a pristine Wilderness area becomes more and more important.

The Wildlife Refuge is a unique eco-system and is a world class Wilderness resource. Many of the Wilderness areas in the "lower 48" are primarily mountainous areas. The Wildlife Refuge is unique because it is the last complete Arctic eco-system in our

TO EXPLORE STUDY PRESERVE ANO AN

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country. It includes upland forest, coastal plain, and marine environment in one area. The area is a wildlife refuge because it is the home of a great variety of wildlife, including caribou, Dall sheep, polar bears, fox, wolves, grizzlies, musk oxen, geese, loons, arctic terns, and many shorebird species. We feel a par

ticular tie to the bird life in the Refuge because great flocks of snow geese, arctic tern and shorebird species frequent the Skagit River flats and Bowerman Basin in Washington in their Spring and Fall migrations.

We believe that this unique and world important area should be protected by formal Wilderness designation. We support legislation in the Senate similar to the Udall Bill in the House which will provide Wilderness protection. We strongly oppose S.1217 which would open up the Wildlife Refuge for full scale leasing and development.

The Wildlife Refuge amounts to only ten percent of the 1100 mile coastline. The State of Alaska has opened its lands for leasing and development, and most the area north of the Brooks Range has already been leased. Although the State of Alaska favors development, it estimates that there is only a five percent chance that recoverable reserves would exceed a five day supply. It would be foolhardy in the extreme to destroy this world class eco-system on the remote possibility that recoverable reserves would be developed.