[Senate Hearing 115-491]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                              
                                                        S. Hrg. 115-491

                   POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NON-
  WILDERNESS ``1002 AREA,'' OR COASTAL PLAIN, IN THE ARCTIC NATIONAL 
                            WILDLIFE REFUGE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   to

  RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON THE POTENTIAL FOR OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION AND 
   DEVELOPMENT IN THE NON-WILDERNESS PORTION OF THE ARCTIC NATIONAL 
WILDLIFE REFUGE, KNOWN AS THE ``1002 AREA,'' OR COASTAL PLAIN, TO RAISE 
 SUFFICIENT REVENUE PURSUANT TO THE SENATE RECONCILIATION INSTRUCTIONS 
                      INCLUDED IN H. CON. RES. 71.

                               ----------                              

                            NOVEMBER 2, 2017

                               ----------      
                               
                               
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]   


                               


                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
               
               
               
               
               

     POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NON-WILDERNESS ``1002 AREA,'' OR     
         COASTAL PLAIN, IN THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
         
         
         
         
         
         



                                                        S. Hrg. 115-491
 
                   POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NON-
  WILDERNESS ``1002 AREA,'' OR COASTAL PLAIN, IN THE ARCTIC NATIONAL 
                            WILDLIFE REFUGE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   to

  RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON THE POTENTIAL FOR OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION AND 
   DEVELOPMENT IN THE NON-WILDERNESS PORTION OF THE ARCTIC NATIONAL 
WILDLIFE REFUGE, KNOWN AS THE ``1002 AREA,'' OR COASTAL PLAIN, TO RAISE 
 SUFFICIENT REVENUE PURSUANT TO THE SENATE RECONCILIATION INSTRUCTIONS 
                      INCLUDED IN H. CON. RES. 71.

                               __________

                             NOVEMBER 2, 2017

                               __________
                               
                               
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                               


                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
               
               
               

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
        
        
        
                             ______                      


             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 27-436                WASHINGTON : 2020 
         
        
        
        
        
               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                    LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming               MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho                RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah                       BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona                  DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
STEVE DAINES, Montana                AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
CORY GARDNER, Colorado               JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee           MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota            MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana              ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio                    TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama              CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada

                      Colin Hayes, Staff Director
                Patrick J. McCormick III, Chief Counsel
                 Kellie Donnelly, Deputy Chief Counsel
   Lucy Murfitt, Senior Counsel and Public Lands & Natural Resources 
                            Policy Director
          Chuck Kleeschulte, Senior Professional Staff Member
                Annie Hoefler, Professional Staff Member
           Angela Becker-Dippmann, Democratic Staff Director
                Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
                David Brooks, Democratic General Counsel
                
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska....     1
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from 
  Washington.....................................................     7

                               WITNESSES

Sullivan, Hon. Dan, a U.S. Senator from Alaska...................    10
Young, Hon. Don, a U.S. Congressman from Alaska..................    20
Walker, Hon. Bill, Governor, State of Alaska.....................    22
Mallott, Hon. Byron, Lieutenant Governor, State of Alaska........    32
Sheehan, Greg, Principal Deputy Director, U.S. Fish & Wildlife 
  Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.......................    41
Alexander, Sam, Tribal Member, Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich'in Tribal 
  Government.....................................................    46
Rexford, Matthew, Tribal Administrator, Native Village of 
  Kaktovik, Alaska...............................................    51
Schutt, Aaron, President and Chief Executive Officer, Doyon, 
  Limited........................................................    88
Epstein, Lois N., Engineer and Arctic Program Director, The 
  Wilderness Society.............................................   105
Glenn, Richard K., Executive Vice President for Lands and Natural 
  Resources, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation...................   118
Pourchot, Pat, Former Special Assistant to the Secretary of the 
  Interior for Alaska Affairs, Anchorage.........................   128
Cronin, Dr. Matthew A., Biologist and Former Research Professor, 
  Animal Genetics, University of Alaska Fairbanks................   134

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

Acton-Bond, Brandon:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   443
Agnew, Shauna:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   444
Agni, Steve:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   445
Airport Equipment Rentals, Inc.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   446
Alaska Chamber:
    Letter for the Record........................................   448
Alaska Forest Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   449
Alaska Miners Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   450
Alaska State Senate:
    Letter for the Record........................................   451
Alaska Trucking Association:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   455
Alexander, Sam:
    Opening Statement............................................    46
    Written Testimony............................................    48
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   320
Allison, Matti:
    Letter for the Record........................................   456
Ancel, Nadine:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   457
Anderson, Jeremy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   458
Anello, Marie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   459
Arvin, Ron:
    Letter for the Record........................................   460
Avery, Janis:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   461
Babcock, Tuckerman:
    Letter for the Record........................................   462
Baggen, Corella (Cory):
    Letter for the Record........................................   463
Bailey, R.V.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   464
Baker, Frank:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   465
Baker, Jeff:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   466
Banks, Dale:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   467
Barber, Patti:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   468
Barkdull, Scott A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   469
Barrows, Rebecca:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   470
Barth, Bryan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   471
Basham, Charlotte:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   472
Beaudreau, Lisa:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   473
Beck, Ashley Joy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   474
Beck, Michael:
    Letter for the Record........................................   475
Bell, Elaine:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   477
Bell, Mike:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   478
Belle, Jennifer:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   479
Bell-Jones, Jenny:
    Letter for the Record........................................   480
Beltz, Randy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   481
Benkley, Joanne:
    Letter for the Record........................................   483
Bennett, Cole:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   484
Bergstrom, Frank:
    Letter for the Record........................................   485
Berry, Joshua:
    Letter for the Record........................................   486
Bezenek, Clay:
    Letter for the Record........................................   487
Birch, Hon. Chris:
    Letter for the Record........................................   488
Birkenhead, Jennifer:
    Letter for the Record........................................   489
Bischoff, Valerie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   490
Bitney, John W.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   491
Bixler, Sara C.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   492
Blais-Gestrich, Maureen:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   493
Bogue, Renee:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   494
Boldrick, Zach:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   495
Bond, Marc:
    Letter for the Record........................................   496
Boutin, Tomas:
    Letter for the Record........................................   497
Bowler, Bruce and Judy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   498
Box, Deryl:
    Letter for the Record........................................   499
Boyd, Michael:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   500
Brado, Becca:
    Letter for the Record........................................   501
Branch, K.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   502
Brandenburg, Kim A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   503
Brice, Sam Robert:
    Letter for the Record........................................   505
Briggs, Christopher:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   506
Brooker, Greg:
    Letter for the Record........................................   507
Brooks, Wiley:
    Letter for the Record........................................   508
Brower, Jr., Hon. Harry K.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   509
Brown, Sr., Arthur L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   511
Brown, Hamilton:
    Letter for the Record........................................   512
Brown, Linda (Lou):
    Letter for the Record........................................   513
Brown, Michelle:
    Letter for the Record........................................   514
Brown, Russ and Jennifer:
    Letter for the Record........................................   515
Brown, Thor:
    Letter for the Record........................................   516
Brown, Zach:
    Letter for the Record........................................   517
Brumfield, Gawain:
    Letter for the Record........................................   518
Brunton, John and Jackie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   519
Buch, Lauren:
    Letter for the Record........................................   520
Buhler, Brian:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   521
Bumbaugh, Scott:
    Letter for the Record........................................   522
Burcham, Janet:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   523
Burton, Sean:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   524
Bussell, Hon. Charlie and Vicki:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   525
Buthman, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................   526
Cali, Suzanne:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   527
Calloway, Roger:
    Letter for the Record........................................   528
Campbell, Liz:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   529
Cantwell, Hon. Maria:
    Opening Statement............................................     7
    Chart titled ``2,000-Acre Oil & Gas Development Scenario--
      Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain''..............................     9
Capps, Robby:
    Letter for the Record........................................   530
Cash, Barbara L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   531
Cash, Larry S.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   532
Cassidy, Hon. Bill:
    Sullivan slide titled ``Alaska North Slope Reduced 
      Footprint''................................................    64
    Sullivan slide titled ``Alaska As A Global Leader''..........    66
Cassidy, Kevin:
    Letter for the Record........................................   533
Castleton, Ken:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   534
Cazort, James:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   535
Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America:
    Letter for the Record........................................   536
Chan, Jenny:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   537
Chandler, Jr., Frank S.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   538
Chapin, Bonnie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   540
Chapman, Barbara:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   541
Chenault, Hon. Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................   542
Christensen, Reed B.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   544
Christenson, Gary:
    Letter for the Record........................................   545
Christenson, Robb:
    Letter for the Record........................................   546
Chugach Alaska Corporation:
    Letter for the Record........................................   547
Ciriaco, Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................   548
Clark, Christine:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   549
Clark, Todd:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   550
Clary, Glenn:
    Letter for the Record........................................   551
Classick, Jr., Dave:
    Letter for the Record........................................   552
Coastal Helicopters, Inc.:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   553
Cohen, Susie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   554
Cole, Eric W.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   555
Collinge, John:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   556
Connelly, Steve and Carol:
    Letter for the Record........................................   557
Conover, Karen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   558
Consumer Energy Alliance--AK:
    Letter for the Record........................................   559
Cook Inlet Region, Inc.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   561
Coons, Mike:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   563
Cooper, Scott:
    Letter for the Record........................................   564
Corbett, Sally:
    Letter for the Record........................................   565
Cowan, Tim:
    Letter for the Record........................................   566
Crapuchettes, Sara:
    Letter for the Record........................................   567
Crawford, Craig:
    Letter for the Record........................................   568
Crewdson, James ``Jay'':
    Comment for the Record.......................................   570
Cronin, Dr. Matthew A.:
    Opening Statement............................................   134
    Written Testimony............................................   136
Crosby, Lance:
    Letter for the Record........................................   571
Crum, Joey:
    Letter for the Record........................................   572
Cruz, Dave:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   573
Dacey, Florence:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   574
Danby, Dr. Jennifer:
    Letter for the Record........................................   575
Dark, Alx:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   576
Darsey, Jack:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   577
Davis, Dr. Bonnie D.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   578
Davis, Regina:
    Letter for the Record........................................   579
Davison, Jen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   580
Debenham, Shaun T.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   581
Deering, Sydney E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   582
DeHaven, Tony:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   583
DeMocker, Mary:
    Letter for the Record........................................   584
Derkevorkian, Richard:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   585
DeWitt, Denny:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   586
Dickerson, Julianne:
    Letter for the Record........................................   587
Dickson, Robert J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   588
Didier, Sydne:
    Letter for the Record........................................   589
Dieckgraeff, Tammy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   590
Digel, Jace R.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   591
Diltz, Hope:
    Letter for the Record........................................   592
DiPaula, Mary:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   593
Dippolito, Theresa:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   594
Dixon, Jr., Gary:
    Letter for the Record........................................   595
Donley, Hon. Dave:
    Letter for the Record........................................   596
Donley, Jamie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   597
Doyon Shareholders:
    Letter for the Record to the Board of Directors of Doyon, 
      Limited dated 10/31/17.....................................   598
    Doyon, Limited Board Resolution No. 95-45....................   604
Dubofsky, Megan Fredericks:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   605
Dunham, Diane:
    Letter for the Record........................................   606
Dunn, Lara:
    Letter for the Record........................................   607
Durham, Dana:
    Letter for the Record........................................   608
Durling, Kevin:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   609
Eaton, Benjamin:
    Letter for the Record........................................   610
Eby, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................   611
Edwards, Rebecca Hartman:
    Letter for the Record........................................   612
English, Candice:
    Letter for the Record........................................   613
Ensworth, Rebecca:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   614
Epstein, Lois N.:
    Opening Statement............................................   105
    Written Testimony............................................   107
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   329
Erickson, Greg:
    Letter for the Record........................................   615
Erkmann, John:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   616
Fabrello, Dan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   617
Fagnani, Laurie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   618
Fagnani, Matthew:
    Letter for the Record........................................   619
Fall, Michael J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   621
Fantozzi, David Scott:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   623
Faulkner, Glen:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   624
Fernandez, Louis:
    Letter for the Record........................................   625
Ferris, Michael S.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   626
Fink, Patricia and Siegfried:
    Letter for the Record........................................   627
Fiscus, Ron (Maureen, Ronnie, Alex, Riley):
    Letter for the Record........................................   628
Fletcher, Todd I.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   629
Flippo, Craig P.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   630
Flynn, Jenith:
    Letter for the Record........................................   631
Ford, Wyche:
    Letter for the Record........................................   632
Foster, John Wm.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   633
Fox, Parke:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   634
Foy, Susan Farris:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   635
Fradley, Dennis and Patricia:
    Letter for the Record........................................   636
Frasca, Cheryl:
    Letter for the Record........................................   637
Fread, Beth:
    Letter for the Record........................................   638
Freeman, Christina:
    Letter for the Record........................................   639
Freund, Kate:
    Letter for the Record........................................   640
Friends of Animals:
    Letter for the Record........................................   641
Friese, Paul:
    Letter for the Record........................................   643
Frost, Dr. John D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   645
Gabbard, Erin:
    Letter for the Record........................................   646
Gallagher, George and Peggy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   647
Garnett, Tonya:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   648
Garvin, Richard H.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   649
Gath, Jessica:
    Letter for the Record........................................   650
Gee, Edward:
    Letter for the Record........................................   651
Gee, Tamara:
    Letter for the Record........................................   652
Geraghty, Michael C.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   653
Gerondale, Chad D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   654
Gies, Wade:
    Letter for the Record........................................   655
Giessel, Richard:
    Letter for the Record........................................   656
Gitzen, Rebecca:
    Letter for the Record........................................   657
Glenn, Jaci:
    Letter for the Record........................................   658
Glenn, Richard K.:
    Opening Statement............................................   118
    Chart titled ``2,000-Acre Oil & Gas Development Scenario--
      Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain''..............................   120
    Written Testimony............................................   123
Glowa, Tristan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   660
Gohr, Ed:
    Letter for the Record........................................   661
Goldberg, Joe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   662
Gonnason, Dr. Jeff:
    Letter for the Record........................................   663
Gordon, Daniel:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   664
Gothard, Kirk:
    Letter for the Record........................................   665
Grabacki, Stephen T.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   666
Gray, Kent:
    Letter for the Record........................................   667
(The) Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce:
    Letter for the Record........................................   668
Green, Richard:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   670
Greenway, Randy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   671
Griffith, Fred and Allison:
    Letter for the Record........................................   672
Grummett, John:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   673
Gurny, Nancy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   674
Haase, Don:
    Letter for the Record........................................   675
Haley, E. Phil:
    Letter for the Record........................................   676
Hall, Peter:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   677
Halpern, Lisa:
    Letter for the Record........................................   678
Ham, Patricia:
    Letter for the Record........................................   679
Hanley, Alyce:
    Letter for the Record........................................   680
Hannah, Douglas:
    Letter for the Record........................................   681
Hannum, David:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   682
Harkins, Edie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   683
Hart, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................   684
Hartley, Joe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   685
Hartman, David H.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   686
Hartman, Linda:
    Letter for the Record........................................   687
Harvey, Garrett:
    Letter for the Record........................................   688
Hass, Mary:
    Letter for the Record........................................   689
Hasty, Shannon:
    Letter for the Record........................................   690
Hayden, Scott:
    Letter for the Record........................................   691
Hayssen, Virginia:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   692
Helfer, Rebeca:
    Letter for the Record........................................   693
Helie, John:
    Letter for the Record........................................   694
Helinski, Rich J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   695
Helms, Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................   696
Hendrix, Tom:
    Letter for the Record........................................   698
Henri, Joe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   699
Henry, Cynthia:
    Letter for the Record........................................   700
Herrell, Michael:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   701
Heston, Dave:
    Letter for the Record........................................   702
Hickel, Johanna ``Josie'':
    Letter for the Record........................................   703
Hickman, Steve:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   704
Hill, Jim:
    Letter for the Record........................................   705
Hinton, Jennifer:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   706
Hirst-Hermans, Terry:
    Letter for the Record........................................   707
Hiscock, Bruce:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   708
Hollis, Harold:
    Letter for the Record........................................   709
Honowitz, Samantha:
    Letter for the Record........................................   710
Hooton, Larry:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   711
Horton, Barbara A.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   712
Hosford, Kathy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   713
Howard, Terry:
    Letter for the Record........................................   714
Howdeshell, Jacob:
    Letter for the Record........................................   715
Hughes, Andy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   716
Hughes, Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................   717
Hughes, Richard A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   718
Hughes, Susan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   719
Humphrey, Amanda:
    Letter for the Record........................................   720
Humphrey, Lowell:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   721
Hutchison, Christine:
    Letter for the Record........................................   722
Hutchison, Garry:
    Letter for the Record........................................   723
Hyman, Joan K.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   724
International Union of Operating Engineers:
    Letter for the Record........................................   725
Isaacson, Doug:
    Letter for the Record........................................   727
Iverson, Pete:
    Letter for the Record........................................   728
James, Christopher:
    Letter for the Record........................................   729
Jardell, Kevin:
    Letter for the Record........................................   730
Jeffress, Bill:
    Letter for the Record........................................   731
Jenkins, Roger:
    Letter for the Record........................................   732
Jimmerson, Mark:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   733
Joans, Laura:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   734
Joels, Barbara J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   735
Johnson, Dave:
    Letter for the Record........................................   736
Johnson, Judd:
    Letter for the Record........................................   737
Johnson, Lana:
    Letter for the Record........................................   738
Johnson, Mitch:
    Letter for the Record........................................   739
Jolly, John:
    Letter for the Record........................................   740
Jolly, Matt:
    Letter for the Record........................................   741
Jonas, Jenna:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   742
Jones, Katie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   746
Jordan, Jennifer M.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   747
Jordan, R. Glen:
    Letter for the Record dated 11/14/17.........................   748
    Letter for the Record dated 11/15/17.........................   749
Jordan, Ronald:
    Letter for the Record........................................   750
Jumps, Satonya:
    Letter for the Record........................................   751
Jungwirth, Scott:
    Letter for the Record........................................   752
Kahler, Shawn:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   753
Kane, William D. and Carol G.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   754
Kaplan, Miranda:
    Letter for the Record........................................   755
Karnos, Nick:
    Letter for the Record........................................   756
Karraker, Mary J.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   757
Keller, Jennifer:
    Letter for the Record........................................   758
Kelly, Judy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   759
Kelly, Hon. Pete:
    Letter for the Record........................................   760
Kelty, Holly:
    Letter for the Record........................................   761
Kennedy, Chris:
    Letter for the Record........................................   762
Kennedy, Wenda:
    Letter for the Record........................................   763
Kilroy, Colleen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   764
King, Jr., Hon. Angus S.:
    Chart titled ``2,000-Acre Oil & Gas Development Scenario--
      Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain''..............................   290
King, Carrie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   765
King, Janet A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   766
Kirch, Marian:
    Letter for the Record........................................   767
Kirkpatrick, Dennis M.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   768
Kloc, Emily:
    Letter for the Record........................................   769
Knight, Rebecca:
    Letter for the Record........................................   770
Knutson, Doug:
    Letter for the Record........................................   771
Koon, Lori:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   772
Kopp, Monica:
    Letter for the Record........................................   773
Kowalke, Randall and Karen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   774
Kreig, Lee Ann:
    Letter for the Record........................................   775
Kreig, Ray:
    Letter for the Record........................................   776
Kreitzer, Annette:
    Letter for the Record........................................   777
Kremers, Carolyn:
    Letter for the Record........................................   778
Kriel, Linda:
    Letter for the Record........................................   785
L'Heureux, Tristan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   786
La Porte, Nathan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   787
Lagerstam, Kristen:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   788
Lakey, Kay:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   789
Lampert, Jake:
    Letter for the Record........................................   790
Lane, Adrian and Marilyn:
    Letter for the Record........................................   791
Laner, Morgan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   792
Lash, Michael A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   793
Lasher, Fred:
    Letter for the Record........................................   794
Latto, Robert G.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   795
Lawrence, Connie Dolan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   796
Leaves, Willow:
    Letter for the Record........................................   797
Leight, William:
    Letter for the Record........................................   798
Leman, Loren:
    Letter for the Record........................................   799
Levine, Dr. David W.:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   800
Lewis, Steve:
    Letter for the Record........................................   802
Liebing, Michael V.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   803
Linder, Matthew:
    Letter for the Record........................................   805
Lipsman, Josh:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   806
Liston, Donn:
    Letter for the Record........................................   807
Liu, Dr. Sharon L.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   808
Lloyd, Tamara:
    Letter for the Record........................................   809
Loewenstein, Kate:
    Letter for the Record........................................   810
Long, Kodi:
    Letter for the Record........................................   811
Lovdahl, John:
    Letter for the Record........................................   812
Lowry, Shawn D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   813
Lundquist, Peter and Denise:
    Letter for the Record........................................   814
MacKinnon, Neil:
    Letter for the Record........................................   815
Mallon, Teresa:
    Letter for the Record........................................   816
Mallott, Hon. Byron:
    Opening Statement............................................    32
    Written Testimony............................................    34
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   305
Malloy, Sharon:
    Letter for the Record........................................   817
Maloney, Tom:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   818
Mangino, Jennifer:
    Letter for the Record........................................   819
Manuel, Joni:
    Letter for the Record........................................   820
Manuel, Paul:
    Letter for the Record........................................   821
Mao, Julie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   822
Marchetti, Joe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   823
Marinucci, Sally V.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   824
Marken, Erica:
    Letter for the Record........................................   825
Markward, Anne:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   826
Markwood, Cheryl:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   827
Marquiss, Lisa:
    Letter for the Record........................................   828
Marshall, Philip and Janet L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   829
Martin, Lauren:
    Letter for the Record........................................   830
Martin, Susannah:
    Letter for the Record........................................   831
Martinsons, Alex:
    Letter for the Record........................................   832
Matteson, Barry:
    Letter for the Record........................................   833
Mavis, Jodie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   834
May-Ross, Dr. Pamela:
    Letter for the Record........................................   835
McClain, Anna:
    Letter for the Record........................................   836
McCloskey, Cynthia:
    Letter for the Record........................................   837
McCormick, Carol:
    Letter for the Record........................................   838
McCormick, Casey:
    Letter for the Record........................................   839
McCrummen, Hugh D. ``Dan'':
    Letter for the Record........................................   840
McDaniel, Robert:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   841
McDonnell, Dr. Andrew:
    Letter for the Record........................................   842
McElroy, Lilly:
    Letter for the Record........................................   843
McKenzie, Connie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   844
McKenzie, Lee:
    Letter for the Record........................................   845
McLean, Garrett:
    Letter for the Record........................................   846
McMullen, Craig:
    Letter for the Record........................................   847
McMullin, Vicki:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   849
McQuality, Stefanie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   850
McQueary, Frank E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   852
McQueen, Curtis J.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   853
Meldrum, Samantha:
    Letter for the Record........................................   854
Melton, Matt:
    Letter for the Record........................................   856
Merrick II, A.J. ``Joey'':
    Letter for the Record........................................   858
Merrick, Keith:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   859
Michelsohn, Karen Kassik:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   860
Micklin, Philip:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   861
Miller, Dale:
    Letter for the Record........................................   862
Miller, Greg:
    Letter for the Record........................................   863
Miller, Jeff D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   864
Miller, Michael D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   865
Millett, Hon. Charisse:
    Letter for the Record........................................   866
Mills, Andy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   868
Milton, Sharon:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   869
Mitchell, Faye (and Michael Herrell):
    Comment for the Record.......................................   870
Mitchell, Faye:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   871
Moller, John:
    Letter for the Record........................................   872
Moore, Alison:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   873
Moore, Cortney:
    Letter for the Record........................................   874
Moore, Dorothy Anna:
    Letter for the Record........................................   875
Moore, Marcus:
    Letter for the Record........................................   876
Moore, Samuel A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   877
Moore, Dr. Seneca:
    Letter for the Record........................................   878
Morris, Julie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   879
Morris, Mark:
    Letter for the Record........................................   880
Mountcastle, Gene:
    Letter for the Record........................................   881
Mulholland, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................   882
Mulholland, Kristi:
    Letter for the Record........................................   883
Munsell, Barry R.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   884
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
    Chart titled ``1002 Area--Small Area, Big Potential''........     2
    Chart titled ``Alaska North Slope Reduced Footprint''........     5
Myers, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................   885
Myers-Lewis, Pamela:
    Letter for the Record........................................   886
Nadel, Marcy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   887
Nees, David:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   888
Nelson, Daniel:
    Letter for the Record........................................   889
Nelson, Daria:
    Letter for the Record........................................   890
Nelson, Lori:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   891
Nelson, Margaret:
    Letter for the Record........................................   892
Nelson, Mark:
    Letter for the Record........................................   893
Nelson, Meghan L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   894
Nelson, Zak:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   895
Neuerburg, Drew:
    Letter for the Record........................................   896
Noethlich, Tony:
    Letter for the Record........................................   897
Noling, Will:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   898
O'Bannon, Allen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   899
O'Connell, Kathleen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   900
O'Connor, Christine:
    Letter for the Record........................................   901
O'Donnell, Anne Stewart:
    Letter for the Record........................................   902
Okamoto, Margaret:
    Letter for the Record........................................   903
Oliva, Stacy A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   904
Opheim, Chris R. and Kathleen:
    Letter for the Record........................................   905
Orenstein, Dr. Myrna:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   906
Ota, Yuko:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   907
O'Toole, Michael J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   908
Ozuru, Yasuhiro:
    Letter for the Record........................................   909
Pachak, Mark:
    Letter for the Record........................................   910
Page, Jay D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   911
Pappalardo, Tom:
    Letter for the Record........................................   912
Parsons, Carol:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   913
Patrick, Judy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   914
Payne, Suzanne:
    Letter for the Record........................................   915
Pease, Mary Ann:
    Letter for the Record........................................   916
Peloza, Amy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   917
Penney, Henry:
    Letter for the Record........................................   919
Pennington, Stanley W.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   920
Perkins, Dr. Robert A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   921
Peter, Darcy L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   922
Petro, Andy and Rachael:
    Letter for the Record........................................   925
Phillips, Gail:
    Letter for the Record........................................   926
Pichler, Ron:
    Letter for the Record........................................   927
Pitcairn, Jeremy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   928
Place, Ronald:
    Letter for the Record........................................   929
Plaquet, Jim and Jan:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   930
Plevin-Foust, Mimi:
    Letter for the Record........................................   932
Pohland, Don:
    Letter for the Record........................................   933
Post, Steve:
    Letter for the Record........................................   934
Pourchot, Pat:
    Opening Statement............................................   128
    Written Testimony............................................   130
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   390
Ralston, General Joseph W.:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   936
Raynolds, Martha:
    Letter for the Record........................................   940
Reber, Sheldon J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   941
Reed, Ashley:
    Letter for the Record........................................   942
Reed, Everett and Carol:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   943
Reese, Mark:
    Letter for the Record........................................   944
Reeve, Forrest:
    Letter for the Record........................................   945
Reeve, Renee Limoge:
    Letter for the Record........................................   946
Reh, Jesse:
    Letter for the Record........................................   947
Rexford, Matthew:
    Opening Statement............................................    51
    Written Testimony............................................    53
Rice, Donald E. ``Buck'':
    Letter for the Record........................................   948
Rich, Chris:
    Letter for the Record........................................   949
Riggs, Joe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   950
Rodkewich, Jacqueline:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   951
Rodman, Bruce E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   952
Rose, Patrick:
    Letter for the Record........................................   953
Rosen, Molly:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   954
Ross, Jean:
    Letter for the Record........................................   955
Ruedrich, Randy:
    Letter for the Record........................................   956
Ruge, Greg:
    Letter for the Record........................................   957
Rush, R.T.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   958
Rutkowski, Gregory:
    Letter for the Record........................................   959
Rybus, Greta:
    Letter for the Record........................................   960
Ryser, Lori:
    Letter for the Record........................................   961
Sadeh, Shamu Fenyvesi:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   962
Samson, Michael:
    Letter for the Record........................................   963
Sanfacon, Keith:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   964
Santa Claus:
    Letter for the Record........................................   965
Satre, Mike, Sarah and Miriam:
    Letter for the Record........................................   966
Saunders, Cyndi:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   967
Sauvageau, Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................   968
Schaefer, Jill:
    Letter for the Record........................................   969
Schok, Dan:
    Letter for the Record........................................   971
Schok, Jr., Genevieve:
    Letter for the Record........................................   972
Schutt, Aaron:
    Opening Statement............................................    88
    Figure 1. Minimizing Footprint Through Technology............    90
    Figure 2. Penta-Lateral Well Drilled by Doyon Rig 142........    92
    Figure 3. Doyon Rig 26 Horizontal Reach......................    94
    Figure 4. Doyon Rig 141 Exploration in NPRA..................    96
    Written Testimony............................................    98
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   325
Schutte, Gage:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   973
Schutte, Kathy:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   974
Schutte, Steve:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   975
Schwab, Christina D.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   976
Schwartz, Eve:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   977
Schwemmer, Hank:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   978
Securing America's Future Energy:
    Statement for the Record.....................................   979
Sedor, John M.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   983
Seitchik, Paula:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   984
Seymour, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................   985
Sheehan, Greg:
    Opening Statement............................................    41
    Written Testimony............................................    43
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   312
Sheppard, Stormie:
    Letter for the Record........................................   986
Sherman, Susan:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   987
Shively, John:
    Letter for the Record........................................   988
Shults, Kelly J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   989
Siller, Janna Berger:
    Comment for the Record.......................................   990
Silver, Keith:
    Letter for the Record........................................   991
Simpson, Paulette:
    Letter for the Record........................................   992
Simpson, William L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   993
Sims, Mary:
    Letter for the Record........................................   994
Sisters of Mercy--NY:
    Letter for the Record........................................   995
Sisters of Mercy--PA:
    Letter for the Record........................................   998
Skipper, Steven and Kim:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1000
Skoglund, David:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1001
Slivka, Alex:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1002
Sloan, Amber:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1003
Smedley II, Dennis L.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1004
Smith, Beverly:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1005
Smith, Ian:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1006
Smith, Ron E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1007
Snowden, Brad:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1008
Snyder, Judy:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1009
Soffa, Laurel M.:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1010
Solie, Rick:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1011
Sorkin, Dr. Suzanne:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1012
Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1013
Spickler, Scott:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1014
Spraggon, Wanda:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1015
Sprinkle, Sue:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1016
Sproul, Chad:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1017
Stapleton, Jr., Robert E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1018
Stedman, Carol:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1019
Steiner, Kimberly:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1020
Stern, Rebecca:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1021
Stevens, William H.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1022
Stewart, Scott A.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1023
Stinson, Bob:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1024
Strait, Steve:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1025
Strand, Scott:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1026
Strange, Karen:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1027
Studard, Kristen:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1028
Sullivan, Hon. Dan:
    Opening Statement............................................    10
    Slide titled ``Alaska As A Global Leader''...................    12
    Slide titled ``Point Thomson''...............................    13
    Slide titled ``Energy Independence & Foreign Relations''.....    14
    Slide titled ``New Technology''..............................    15
    Article by Clifford Krauss for The New York Times dated 10/
      29/17, titled ``Russia Uses Its Oil Giant, Rosneft, as a 
      Foreign Policy Tool''......................................    17
Sullivan, William:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1029
Sumpter, Jasah:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1030
Swartz, Jerram:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1031
Swoffer, Gary:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1032
Tarr, Christina:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1033
Tarver, Karen J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1034
Tauriainen, Kay:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1035
Tauriainen, Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1036
Tauriainen, Ray and Sue:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1037
Teal, Louise:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1038
Thodos, Diane and Christine:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1039
Thompson, Craig:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1040
Thornton, Jessica:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1041
Tidwell, Crystal:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1042
Tilton, Hon. Cathy and Wilson, Hon. Tammie:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1043
Tornai, Mark:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1046
Treadwell, Mead:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1047
Tucker, Daniel J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1048
Tuckness, Barbara Huff:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1049
Tuckness, George:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1050
Tupou, Jacqueline:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1051
Turner, Darlene J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1052
Turner, Jeff:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1053
Udelhoven, James:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1054
Udelhoven, Sandra:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1055
United Tribes of Bristol Bay:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1056
Vance, Archie S.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1057
Vierra, Scott:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1058
Vinas, Jayson:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1060
Vincelette, Todd:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1061
Wahl, Julie K.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1063
Wald, Hannah:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1064
Walker, Hon. Bill:
    Opening Statement............................................    22
    Written Testimony............................................    24
Wall, Robert:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1065
Ward, Jason:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1066
Waterman, Nancy:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1067
Watson, Dr. Kelly:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1068
Weber, Jim:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1069
Weedman, John:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1070
Weinberg, Melodi:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1071
Wellman, Gabrielle:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1072
Wheeler, John E.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1073
White, Debbie:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1074
White, Kenneth:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1075
Wilkes, Tiffany J.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1076
Williams, Ryan:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1077
Williams, Tom:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1078
Wilson, Curt:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1079
Winkler, Kurt:
    Comment for the Record.......................................  1080
Winzenburg, Clint:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1081
Wise, Karyn:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1082
Wise, Michael:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1083
Wodkowski, Mike:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1084
Wolff, Lee Ann:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1085
Yockey, Kenneth:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1086
York, Julia:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1087
Young, Hon. Don:
    Opening Statement............................................    20
Yukon, Office of the Premier:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1088
Zaruba, Thomas T.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1090
Zimmerman, Tom V.:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1091
Zins, Ryan:
    Letter for the Record........................................  1092


                   POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE NON-
  WILDERNESS ``1002 AREA,'' OR COASTAL PLAIN, IN THE ARCTIC NATIONAL 
                            WILDLIFE REFUGE

                              ----------                              


                       THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2017

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 
SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

    The Chairman. Good morning, everyone. The Committee will 
come to order.
    We are meeting this morning to consider opening a very 
small portion of Alaska's 1002 Area to responsible energy 
development to meet the $1 billion budget reconciliation 
instruction that our Committee received last week.
    The 1002 Area covers 1.57 million acres of land in 
northeast Alaska within the non-wilderness portion--will you 
bring it over here, Sean?--of the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge (ANWR), and I think it is important to put this in 
context in terms of the areas that we are talking about.
    ANWR itself is 19 million acres--approximately the size of 
South Carolina. The non-wilderness area, this 1002 Area, is 1.5 
million acres--approximately the size of Delaware. The area 
here is designated as wilderness, federal wilderness, 8 million 
acres there.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]   
    
    The Chairman. So when we are talking about ANWR itself, I 
think it is important to recognize that there are parts of ANWR 
that are designated as wilderness, and there are parts of ANWR, 
the 1002 Area, that have been specifically designated for 
consideration for oil and gas exploration.
    So again, I want to be clear--the 1002 Area is not federal 
wilderness. Congress recognized the value of ANWR when it 
designated more than seven million acres as the Mollie Beattie 
Wilderness--this area here. That is an area that is protected 
and will not, and cannot, be touched.
    The Coastal Plain, again, is separate from the wilderness 
in ANWR. It is about the size of Delaware, again, in a refuge 
the size of the State of South Carolina.
    So again, the areas that we are talking about are 
significant, and what Alaskans are asking for is to develop 
just 2,000 federal acres within it, about one ten-thousandth of 
ANWR.
    We should also understand that if we open the 1002 Area, 
the economic benefits will be substantial, our national 
security will be strengthened, and the environmental impacts 
will be minimal.
    For starters, we will create thousands of new jobs and 
those jobs will pay the types of wages that support families 
and put our kids through colleges. We will also generate 
substantial revenue for every level of government, tens of 
billions of dollars over the life of the fields.
    Now there has been some discussion out there as to whether 
or not we can meet our $1 billion instruction. The answer to 
that is a simple yes. And I would remind the Committee that the 
first 10 years are just the start. This is the smallest part 
here, of a 40-year period where responsible production raises 
billions of dollars in revenues for our country every year.
    The Congressional Research Service has estimated that the 
Federal treasury could, depending on oil prices and the amount 
of resources that are ultimately produced--and we all put that 
in a caveat there--but it could raise anywhere from $48.3 
billion on the low end to $296.8 billion over 30 years.
    And bear in mind, that is new wealth and prosperity. New 
wealth. It will not be created, not redirected or repurposed 
like so much of what we deal with. Those revenues will directly 
reduce our debt, while simultaneously creating the growth 
conditions needed to reduce it on a greater scale.
    Opening the 1002 Area will help to keep energy affordable. 
Here in the Lower 48 we have somewhat forgotten what it feels 
like to pay $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline. Prices are moderate 
right now, we recognize that, but we also know they do not 
necessarily stay that way. So we need to be taking steps to 
plan for the long-term and we need to do that now, not in 10 
years, to keep energy prices affordable.
    A number of experts are already pointing to the warning 
signs. The International Energy Agency (IEA) found that, 
``Global oil supply could struggle to keep pace with demand 
after 2020, risking a sharp increase in prices, unless new 
projects are approved soon.''
    Now some are going to argue that we are doing just fine, we 
are producing more, we are even exporting some, so we can turn 
our attention to other matters. But I think that that is a 
mistake.
    We are projected to remain a significant net importer well 
into the future. And setting aside some of the shorter-term 
concerns that I have just mentioned, even the more cautious 
forecast from the EIA, the Energy Information Administration, 
projects that oil prices will be back above $100 per barrel by 
the year 2040.
    I think it is also misleading to suggest that all of the 
benefits of opening the 1002 Area will happen all at once or 
all in the near-term. We know that is not true. We will see the 
benefit for decades, not just over the ten-year budget window.
    We talk a lot about where we were back in 1995, when the 
Congress had passed ANWR and President Clinton at that time 
vetoed the effort to open the 1002 Area. 1995. Think about 
where we would have been had that action not taken place. We 
would not have seen as dramatic a run-up in oil prices in the 
mid-2000s. States like California would not be importing so 
much of their oil from abroad, but that is exactly what has 
happened as supply from Alaska has declined.
    There is no question that opening the 1002 Area is 
important for our state and our national economy. And we can be 
just as confident that the new technologies that are in place 
and are still coming online will ensure that responsible 
development does not harm the environment.
    Between the 1970s and today, the surface footprint of 
Arctic development has decreased by about 80 percent and 
several of our witnesses this morning will speak directly to 
that. But put in context, what was once a 65-acre pad now takes 
about 12 acres or less.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
        
    The Chairman. Then, below ground, the extended reach 
drilling from a single pad will grow to an area of 125 square 
miles by 2020. So just in a few years here, and again, we will 
have Mr. Schutt speak to that, but that is an increase of more 
than 4,000 percent since we began oil exploration and 
production in the 1970s.
    Now development in the Arctic has always raised concerns 
about wildlife and the environment, and appropriately so. But I 
would remind everyone here this morning, because Alaskans have 
been so careful with development, fears of impacts to our 
wildlife and our land have repeatedly been proven wrong. Most 
of our roads are now built from ice and melt in the summertime, 
leaving no impact on the tundra. Developers follow thousands of 
regulatory requirements, best practices, and mitigation 
measures. We inventory and we assess wildlife and we study 
their habitat so that we avoid any sensitive places.
    We always talk about the caribou. The Central Arctic 
Caribou herd, which lives year-round in and around Prudhoe Bay, 
increased from 3,000 animals in 1969, just prior to 
development, to 5,000 when development began in earnest in 1974 
and was at about 22,000 animals just this last year. It is now 
more than seven times larger than when development began.
    Now it also may surprise some to learn that we are 
developing energy just outside of ANWR, at Point Thomson, a 
point that my colleague Senator Sullivan knows very, very well, 
but this is located on state land just two miles from the 
border of the 1002 Area. That project at Point Thomson is being 
carried out responsibly. It is not harming the wildlife that 
cross the invisible western boundary of that Refuge, again, 
defying the claims we hear about possible harm.
    For over 40 years now Alaskans have repeatedly proven that 
we can develop safely and responsibly and development in the 
1002 Area will be no different. We will not harm the caribou 
who move through the area; we will not harm the polar bears, 
whose dens can be protected; the snow geese, whose nesting 
areas can be safeguarded; or, any of the other birds and 
wildlife that visit the Coastal Plain in the summer. We are 
sensitive to the habitat in the region and care for it, and 
Alaskans understand this. This is why more than 70 percent of 
us have supported opening the 1002 Area to responsible 
development.
    We are also acutely aware that our state needs this, and we 
will hear this from our Governor. Right now we have the highest 
unemployment rate in the country, we have massive budget 
deficits that are projected to last for quite a while, and our 
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, the economic backbone of our 
state, is just one-quarter full.
    We know full well that opening the 1002 Area is not an 
immediate cure. But we also know that it is something that we 
have to do today, because the benefits of development will take 
time to be fully realized. It is like the old saying, we say it 
a lot around here, ``The best time to plant a tree was 20 years 
ago. The second-best time is now.'' We need to take that first 
step today so that we can realize the benefits going forward.
    I was born in Alaska. My husband and I have raised our boys 
there and I hope that they lead long and healthy lives in a 
place that is so beautiful and so gorgeous that it sometimes 
takes your breath away.
    What I know is that no one cares more for Alaska than those 
of us who live and work and raise our families there. We love 
our state. We respect the land. We would never risk its future 
for the sake of development. But we also realize that is not 
the case here.
    The 1002 Area was created by a Congressional compromise. We 
always knew its future would require another one, and today 
Alaskans are offering just that. We are not asking to develop 
all of the 1002 Area, but instead we are asking for 2,000 
acres, or about one ten-thousandth of the Refuge. We have 
waited nearly 40 years for the right technologies to come along 
so that the footprint of development is small enough to ensure 
that the environment continues to be respected and will not be 
harmed.
    This is not a choice between energy and the environment. We 
are past that. What we have today is a great lineup of 
witnesses to help our Committee understand that.
    We have our entire Alaska delegation with us, our Governor, 
our Congressman, our Senator, we have our Lieutenant Governor, 
and we have a number of Alaskans who actually live up on the 
North Slope.
    I thank all of our witnesses for being here this morning. I 
look forward to an excellent and informative hearing.
    Senator Cantwell, I turn to you and welcome your remarks.

               STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON

    Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I welcome the 
Governor and our colleagues to today's discussion.
    But I should start this by saying this hearing is a great 
departure from the strong, working relationship that Senator 
Murkowski and I have set to work together on an energy agenda 
that will move our country forward.
    It is too bad that we are not using our resources this 
morning to force our House colleagues to reconsider the very 
important bill that included over 100 different priorities to 
move our country forward on everything from cybersecurity to 
energy efficiency.
    I also do not support the makeup of today's panels and the 
fact that our two colleagues who do not support opening up the 
Arctic Wildlife Refuge, who have carried the bill this 
legislative session and last legislative session, Senator 
Markey and Senator Bennet, were not allowed to be part of this 
panel.
    I also believe that we should have had more witnesses from 
Indian Country that represent not just the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act Corporations. Yes, corporations are charged with 
economic development, but individual tribal members as we have 
seen throughout Alaska and throughout the United States of 
America do not support this kind of development because they 
believe in the wildlife nature that God has given us, and that 
we are stewards of Mother Earth. So I thank them for that. I 
thank them for their strong spiritual beliefs--thank you.
    We are here today because someone has come up with a 
ludicrous idea that we can pass a tax reform bill that raises 
the deficit, increases our taxes, and that we will take a 
sliver out of a wildlife refuge to do it. I almost want to call 
this ``Caribou for Millionaires'' because it is the most 
ridiculous idea I have ever heard as it relates to meeting the 
tax reform agenda.
    So no, I do not like the setup of these three panels. I am 
always glad to hear from the Governor and I am always glad to 
hear from our colleagues, but our other colleagues should have 
had their voices heard and Indian Country should have been 
better represented.
    We have no bill before us today. We have no bill and there 
is a proposed markup for next Wednesday. When will we see that 
language? When will we have any idea about this process?
    I am disturbed and I could go in a direction of saying that 
we don't have to worry because some of the press reports are, 
from Bloomberg News and others, that ``The Coastal Arctic 
Refuge does not have any promising oil-bearing rock 
formations,'' a former BP petroleum analyst said, ``There is 
not great interest in developing the Arctic Wildlife Refuge,'' 
and ``There are safer bets.'' So one could have the attitude 
that there are, particularly with the Trump Administration's 
desire--I am not sure where in the United States of America 
they do not want to drill. But with their 1.7 billion acres 
they want on the Outer Continental Shelf and many other places 
in America, I find it hard to believe that there will be the 
economic incentive to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. But 
why put a big X on top of something that has been so unique to 
the United States of America?
    When I recently researched why we got to this point and 
heard some of the first people that made their case to the 
Eisenhower Administration, quoting from their reports, ``We all 
knew that it must be preserved as an original fragment of our 
past. The last opportunity to protect part of this continent as 
it once was.'' Why? Because as other people said, ``It was a 
spiritual place, an Arctic Wildlife Refuge.'' The fact that 
they also said it was an area that had been left undisturbed by 
man, that it was the last laboratory in which plants, animals 
and where they live, as they have always lived, is preserved. 
So this is why we got to this point, and this is what is unique 
about it, and this is why, from the Eisenhower Administration 
to today, we have fought to protect it.
    Is Alaska's economy a great concern to us as a nation? Yes. 
Do we in the Pacific Northwest--I think one of the first things 
I said to the Chairwoman when we started a discussion is, let's 
talk about why the natural gas pipeline in Alaska hasn't been 
built because it has a bigger economic impact than this.
    So there are issues in which we need to be mindful about 
the energy economy moving forward, but this idea is not new and 
it is not better. There is nothing that has changed here. There 
is no new science that says we do not have to worry about this 
wildlife and there is no new science that says that the oil 
development will take up a smaller footprint.
    This map that we will get to everyone basically shows that 
the development will take up a significant portion of the 
Refuge, the 800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline, 219 miles of 
power transmission lines and so on and so forth.
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    Senator Cantwell. So the notion that wildlife can exist in 
this unique environment in the same way with this development 
is just wrong.
    I look forward to hearing from Secretary Perry on this, 
because I sent him a letter yesterday asking him how they can 
exist together. We will look forward to seeing how he answers 
that.
    I also point out that the uniqueness of this area has led 
to an international agreement. The caribou population is so 
unique, so specific, and so special that we have entered into 
an agreement with Canada on it. That is because they want to 
protect this population of caribou as well.
    The notion that we should move forward on a wrongheaded 
idea because all of a sudden people want some revenue for a tax 
bill and move forward today on something when we don't even 
know what we are moving forward on in language, is just not the 
way I think we should be proceeding.
    I hope that we will have a chance, our colleagues, to ask 
our witnesses questions about this, but be assured that even 
though we do not agree with this process or the process of 
trying to get 51 votes to change the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge, we are never stopping. We are never stopping in trying 
to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its 
uniqueness and working with the indigenous people who also 
support that idea.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
    We have several panels this morning and I appreciate not 
only our delegation being here but all the Alaskans and the 
visitors that have joined us this morning.
    A very distinguished panel will be led off by our colleague 
here, Senator Sullivan. He will be followed by the Congressman 
for all Alaska, Congressman Young, who has represented us in 
the House of Representatives for 45 years, going on 46. And the 
panel will be rounded out by our Governor. Governor Walker has 
been in office now for three years, is a life-long resident and 
has great leadership. I appreciate you being here as well, 
Governor.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. And an Independent, Senator.
    The Chairman. That is true. He is an Independent. Okay, we 
do not talk about the political affiliations here of anybody--
--
    [Laughter.]
    ----but that is noted for the record.
    Senator Sullivan, if you would like to lead off with the 
welcome, please.

                STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN, 
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

    Senator Sullivan. Well, thank you, Chairman Murkowski, 
Ranking Member Cantwell, all of my colleagues, for the 
opportunity to say a few words on this very important issue for 
our country.
    Now many in this room have claimed to be protectors of 
Alaska's environment. But with all due respect to my colleagues 
here today, there are three people in Congress who care more 
about Alaska's environment than anyone else in the entire body: 
Senator Murkowski, Congressman Young, and myself.
    The fundamental disconnect in the discussion of the 1002 
Area is that the debate has not kept up with Alaska's high 
standards, the highest in the world, and I'll talk about that 
and advancements in technology. So with all due respect to the 
Ranking Member, a lot has changed, a lot has changed.
    Responsibly developing the 1002 Area is truly a win-win-win 
for our country: it will create jobs, it will help grow the 
economy, increase energy security for Americans and, very 
importantly, it will help protect the global environment and 
strengthen our national security. It is these last two points I 
would like to emphasize in my remarks this morning.
    Madam Chair, as you know, Alaska has the highest 
environmental standards regarding responsible Arctic resource 
development of any place in the world. I was in charge of these 
standards as Alaska's Commissioner of the Department of Natural 
Resources, and I can tell you, whether it is what we call ``no 
impact'' exploration or specific requirements related to our 
incredible species like the polar bear or caribou, or mandating 
use of the best available technology, we have a 50-year record 
of responsible resource development in our state.
    Let me just give you one example of ``no impact'' 
exploration. As the Chair noted, on the North Slope of Alaska 
we only allow for exploration activities during the winter 
months. Companies are required to build ice roads across the 
tundra, ice pads where they put their equipment and drill rigs, 
and you can see examples in some of the slides I've provided, 
and they have to leave before the winter ends.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
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    Senator Sullivan. The ice pads and roads literally melt and 
have zero impact on the tundra. The only thing left is a small 
capped well and that is just one example of Alaska's very high, 
mandated standards.
    As the Chair pointed out, we have used these standards, 
very recently, in the past four years on the Coastal Plain in 
the same ecosystem of the 1002 Area that is being debated right 
now with the development of the Point Thomson project. There is 
a slide that you can take a look at. See how close that is to 
the 1002 Area. There was literally minimal impact or no impact 
on the environment and wildlife. The footprint, as you can see 
from the slides, is very, very small and it is producing energy 
right now.
    Madam Chair, here is the big issue that those in Congress 
who want to shut down resource development in Alaska never 
acknowledge. When you disallow investment in Alaska, the place 
with the highest standards on the environment in the world, you 
do not end up protecting the global environment. What you do is 
you end up driving capital and investment to jurisdictions with 
much less environmental standards or, in some cases, no 
environmental standards--countries like Nigeria and Venezuela 
and Iran and Russia, many of which are also our geo-political 
foes.
    This brings me to my second point, producing more energy 
responsibly--oil, natural gas, renewables--and making the 
United States, again, the world's energy superpower will 
dramatically strengthen our national security.
    As some of you know, I served in the Marine Corps for 24 
years. I have also served as a U.S. Assistant Secretary of 
State, whose portfolio included energy security issues, global 
energy security issues, and I have seen how energy can be used 
as a tool for good, productive diplomacy but also can be used 
for troublesome power grabs by our nation's foes.
    We do not have to import energy. When we do not have to 
import energy from countries that do not like us or, better 
yet, when we can export American energy to our allies like 
Japan or Korea or even to countries like China, this helps our 
national security and foreign policy.
    I sit on the Armed Services Committee, and we have heard 
from military and civilian leaders from our country, Democrats 
and Republicans, from Secretary Ash Carter to Secretary Mattis, 
consistently state that producing more energy strengthens our 
national security. And I know my friends, Senator King and 
Senator Hirono, have heard these comments consistently on the 
Armed Services Committee as well. But it is not just American 
officials who recognize this, the Russians know this as well.
    Madam Chair, I would like to submit for the record a recent 
New York Times article, just from a few days ago, October 29, 
titled, ``Russia Uses Its Oil Giant, Rosneft, as a Foreign 
Policy Tool.''
    The Chairman. We will include that as part of the record.
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    Senator Sullivan. The first sentence of that story reads, 
``Russia is increasingly wielding oil as a geopolitical tool 
spreading its influence around the world and challenging the 
interests of the United States.''
    Let me end with an anecdote of a meeting I was just in last 
year at the Halifax International Security Forum with Senator 
McCain. We were meeting with a senior level, Russian dissident 
and we asked him at the end of the meeting, ``What more can we 
do as a country to push back against the Putin regime?'' He 
looked at us and said, ``The number one thing you can do, the 
number one thing you can do, is produce more American energy.''
    Opening the 1002 Area using the highest environmental 
standards in the world and the most advanced technology will 
produce more American energy for the betterment of our country.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Sullivan.
    Congressman Young, you have been through a few ANWR 
debates. We welcome your comments this morning.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. DON YOUNG, 
                  U.S. CONGRESSMAN FROM ALASKA

    Representative Young. Are you sure of that?
    Madam Chair, thank you for having this hearing, and Ranking 
Member Cantwell and the rest of the members of the Senate, I 
don't feel too comfortable on the Senate side. I need a 
flashlight most of the time because sometimes it's pretty dark 
over here.
    I am one of the few people, there's only one left in the 
Congress, that went through this battle 45 years ago, actually 
42 years ago. Now this 1002 Area, I have to go through the 
history of it, was created by Senator Jackson, Senator 
Magnuson, and Senator Stevens when the Senators were really 
knowledgeable about what goes on. We recognized this area at 
that time and about the valuable oil and why we had the 1002 
Area.
    As you mentioned, I believe the ANWR is about 19 million 
acres of land. The 1002 footprint will probably be--I can't 
really say what size it is. But I represent Alaska. [Inks a dot 
on his nose.] You see anything different with my nose right 
now? This is--I am Alaska--one tenth of one tenth a percent 
that we're talking about disturbance.
    The map that the Ranking Member showed was actually drawn 
up by the Sierra Club. That bothers me. That's old information.
    This little dot on my nose, I weigh 225 pounds, and this 
little dot is what we're talking about, the 1002 Area. It has 
the potential of probably around--early estimates were 10 
billion barrels, now the estimates are probably around 20 
billion barrels of oil.
    Senator Sullivan brought it up, this is an issue of 
national security, national security. It is the one weapon 
Russia is wielding. We can have the security for the nation as 
a whole.
    And I was interested to hear about the caribou. You're 
going to hear a lot of nonsense stories later on in the day.
    Interested in Canada? The Ambassador sent out a letter 
about it opposing ANWR. Did we say anything when they drilled 
270 wells right in the area for the caribou? Two hundred 
seventy wells were drilled in this caribou herd's area where 
they cross every year. They built a 400-mile road right across 
the caribou area too. Did we say anything then?
    This is not about--it's not about the environment or the 
caribou, it's about economics.
    I'm ashamed of Canada right now because they're wielding an 
emotional issue that most people don't know what they're 
talking about nor have they been there, nor seen it, or 
understand the caribou herd.
    That's one thing that bothers me probably the most of all 
about the legislative process. What used to be, as I mentioned, 
Warren Magnuson and Senator Jackson worked together, when the 
states were affected we didn't get involved in the shipyards 
and certain members' districts about how they were mis-
manufacturing a ship. We didn't do that. But we have people 
going and saying this is a great environmental area. Maybe I'll 
find out how many of you have gone up there from the Senate 
side.
    But let's think about national security. I run every two 
years--I'm not one of you guys, every six years--and I've 
supported this and fought for it 13 times. Thirteen times I've 
moved it out of the House and it has died on the Senate side, 
all but once, and President Clinton vetoed it because he said 
it wouldn't relieve the embargo we had that quickly.
    But think about that a moment. If we are to be energy 
sufficient, to control the international incidences that can be 
faced, we need ANWR. The Congress recognized it when we passed 
the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). 
Scoop Jackson, Warren Magnuson, Mo Udall, and John Seiberling 
all agreed to this provision because they knew the value of 
that oil and the value to this nation.
    Now we're fighting the same battle again because of the 
ignorance and misinformation from those that wouldst not have 
any resources developed at all, not only in Alaska, we're easy 
to pick on because of the three-person delegation, but the 
nation as a whole to make us less strong, to make us a second-
rate nation. That's what a lot of you wish to do.
    Now, as a House member, I'm going to pass this again and I 
hope you have the courage to do what's right for this nation--
what's good for Alaska, what's good for the nation, and good 
for all the people in the future.
    Madam Chairman, I do thank you for having this hearing. And 
I will remember and remind you, look at that little blue dot on 
my nose. That is the 1002 Area.
    I don't think it changed my appearance very much because 
the Coastal Plain is not that pristine area you see in the 
propaganda that's purveyed by all the environmental groups. 
It's a flat terrain that, in fact, was set aside by this 
Congress and the Washington Senators for the development, not 
the preservation.
    I yield.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you for being 
here.
    Governor Walker, welcome.

           STATEMENT OF HON. BILL WALKER, GOVERNOR, 
                        STATE OF ALASKA

    Governor Walker. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski, Ranking 
Member Cantwell. Thank you for this opportunity to speak today.
    I am the Governor of Alaska. I am non-partisan. I am--I 
have a goal as the Governor that future generations will be 
able to have the same benefits growing up in Alaska that I had 
growing up in Alaska. Born in the territory--Lieutenant 
Governor Mallott, also born in the territory--we've seen many 
changes in our state and many for the good.
    Alaska is different. Resource development is in our DNA. 
We've done that long before statehood. We'll continue to do 
that. That's how we earn--it was 90 percent of our income--now 
70 percent of our income from resource development. We've done 
it for a long time. We do it right. We're careful in what we 
do. We're very vigilant of the environment.
    I remember well when we became a state. It was a day we 
celebrated. We made a--the deal we made was the Statehood 
Compact that said that Alaska, we cannot sell the resources in 
the ground. We have to live off of them. We have to live off 
the royalties of them. That's how we fund our state. That was 
the deal then. We accepted that deal. But what we didn't 
understand and didn't realize is that we may not be able to 
have access to resources responsibly developed, to live off 
those resources. That was the deal. All I'm asking for is that 
we get the deal that we made in 1959 under the Statehood 
Compact.
    The great compromise that was made under ANILCA was that 
the 1002 was set aside for future development. That's what the 
deal was. All we're asking for is the benefit of the deal that 
was made long ago.
    This has become something that I have lived with as an 
Alaskan resident all my life, and now I'm dealing with it as 
the Governor of Alaska in many ways which I'll get to.
    The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. The only thing wrong with 
the oil pipeline is it's three-quarters empty. Three-quarters 
empty sitting next to, miles away, from the most prolific area 
of hydrocarbons you can imagine, ten billion barrels.
    You know, this is not about money. This is not about who 
gets what money in Alaska. This is about a future. This is 
about an economy. This is about the young people that want a 
decent education.
    I want to thank the Committee members that came into a 
field hearing in Bethel and went on to a location in 
Oscarville. You saw a part of Alaska that many have not seen, 
and I thank you very much for doing that. I'm a big believer in 
seeing first-hand what Alaska looks like.
    We are a vast state, as we all know. We have, we own, as 
the State of Alaska, 242 airports. The reason we do that is 
because 80 percent of our communities do not have roads. When 
we talk about infrastructure, upgrading infrastructure, we 
don't have enough infrastructure to upgrade.
    You know, I sat in a listening circle in Utqiagvik a few 
years back and one of the elders said to me, he said--I was not 
Governor--he said, ``Mr. Walker, my goal as a grandfather is to 
see one of my grandchildren flush a toilet in their village.''
    The infrastructure that we need needs to be paid for out of 
the, with the resources. That was the deal we made with 
Congress when we became a state. We need the benefits of that 
bargain, and we need it now.
    As I came into office it was a $1.6 billion deficit that 
quickly drew to $3.7 billion deficit per year. I've had to do 
things I hope no future Governor ever has to do. We've had to 
make some very, very difficult decisions. I've had to say no to 
some very good requests for help for funding. We have had to 
close facilities across the state, lay off thousands of people. 
We have reduced the budget by $1.7 billion. That's a tough 
thing to do in a couple years. That hurts.
    Public safety. Alaskans don't feel safe right now, because 
we've gone too far in that direction. We're having a special 
session, right now as we speak, to bring that safety back.
    I signed recently, earlier this week, a climate change 
administrative order. We have stood up a climate change team. 
You know, we address both in Alaska. We are looking at climate 
change. Climate change has impacted Alaska. There's no question 
about it. We're looking at having to relocate as many as 12 of 
our villages. I've been to Kivalina. I've seen that island 
becoming a smaller island, but we cannot do it without the 
resources, the financial resources to do it. I don't see it 
coming from Washington to relocate 12 villages. So we need to 
look at how can we bring in the revenue. The only way we can do 
it is to live off our resources.
    Alaska is unique that the beauty above ground is 
unparalleled. The beauty below the ground is unparalleled as 
well. The beauty below the ground is our resources that we need 
to develop responsibly.
    As a Governor, I can tell you that the support in the 
Alaska legislature has been 90 percent. Last year was the last 
resolution passed, 90 percent in support of this. Please, 
please, let us develop our resources responsibly so we can fund 
our state. We can make Alaskans feel safe. We can fund our 
education, fund our health services. Our health services are 
the highest in the nation by multiples. Please let us have the 
benefit of the bargain that we made in 1959 with this body.
    Thank you very much for your time today.
    [The prepared statement of Governor Walker follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Governor, Senator, Congressman, thank you 
for, not only your testimony here this morning, but putting it 
into perspective from a historical perspective, from a defense 
perspective, from a resource perspective. It adds great value 
to the conversation, and we certainly appreciate it.
    I know, Congressman, it is a long way over to the House 
side, so we will let you get back as we move to our second 
panel, but I want to thank each of you.
    Senator Cantwell. Madam Chair, could I----
    Representative Young. Thank you, Madam Chair, but I'm glad 
to see so many of my colleagues up there on this side, all 
served with me.
    The Chairman. It is not so bad on the Senate side.
    Representative Young. Everybody but Abraham Lincoln served 
with me----
    [Laughter.]
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Cantwell. Madam Chair, could I ask the Governor a 
quick question?
    The Chairman. We were not prepared to do questions, but if 
it is very quick, I think we can get to it.
    Senator Cantwell. We don't get a chance to talk to him that 
often and certainly appreciate chances that we do.
    The Chairman. Certainly.
    Senator Cantwell. Part of this idea is traveling with a 
package of legislation moving through the House that gets rid 
of our local sales deductions. Washington and Alaska are unique 
in that we don't have an income tax and we get to deduct.
    Are you supportive of that concept? In addition, there are 
some who thought that they would package this legislation up 
with another try at health care where they would go back to 
block granting Medicaid. Are you supportive of those concepts 
as part of a package just to get ANWR opened up?
    Governor Walker. Senator Cantwell, I have certainly looked 
at the package and I will evaluate the package in its entirety. 
I've not been through it as thorough as I'd like to because 
I've been getting ready for this hearing today, obviously.
    You know, we look at that as us, as a part of that, part of 
the solution on the deficit, revenues from Alaska because the 
royalties will be shared equally between the Federal Government 
and the State of Alaska. So we see that, certainly, as if 
there's interest in reducing the federal deficit, I'm certainly 
interested in reducing the state deficit. That's what my focus 
is today.
    Senator Cantwell. Well, I would--we will get you 
information, but our analysis is that Alaskans will pay about a 
$1,100 to $1,400 tax increase and individuals a $900 increase 
under that sales tax deduction idea.
    I think it is a bad idea for our state and your state and, 
certainly, I hope no one around here takes the bait on block 
granting Medicaid just to open up ANWR.
    Thank you for being here, Governor.
    Governor Walker. We will do all we can to open up ANWR. 
Thank you.
    Senator Cassidy. Madam Chair, just for point of fact.
    The Chairman. Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cassidy. Health care reform is not part of this. 
Block granting Medicaid is not part of this. It can be a 
disinformation campaign put out there to obscure the truth. We 
will come back to health care reform, but that should not be 
spoken of here as if it is germane to the argument. That is 
misleading to the American people.
    The Chairman. We do have somewhat limited jurisdiction here 
in the Energy Committee. Our instruction is to find $1 billion, 
and as we mentioned repeatedly, we have that opportunity within 
the 1002 Area of Alaska.
    Governor, Senator, Congressman, thank you for being here 
this morning.
    Let's call up the second panel, please. As you are getting 
seated, I will provide brief introductions.
    We have heard from our Governor, Governor Walker. His 
Lieutenant Governor and partner is our Lieutenant Governor, 
Byron Mallott. The Lieutenant Governor is a leader of great 
renown in our state, an Alaskan Native leader hailing from 
Yakutat, and has had an opportunity to appear before our 
Committee on numerous occasions. We welcome him back.
    His testimony will be followed by Mr. Greg Sheehan. Greg is 
the Principal Deputy Director for the Fish and Wildlife Service 
at the Department of the Interior. It is good to have you 
before the Committee.
    Mr. Samuel Alexander has joined us, and we welcome him as a 
Tribal Member from the Gwich'in Tribal Government. Thank you 
for being here this morning and traveling such a long distance.
    Mr. Matthew Rexford is the Tribal Administrator in the 
Native Village of Kaktovik, the one community, the one village 
within the 1002 Area. It is good to have you here, Matthew.
    Lieutenant Governor, if you would like to lead off this 
morning.
    We have asked you to try to limit your comments to about 
five minutes. Your full statements will be incorporated as part 
of the record. After the conclusion of your testimony, we will 
have an opportunity to ask specific questions of each of you.
    Lieutenant Governor, thank you again for traveling the long 
distance and, again, for being before the Committee. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON MALLOTT, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, STATE OF 
                             ALASKA

    Lieutenant Governor Mallott. Thank you, Madam Chairman, 
Ranking Member Cantwell, members of the Committee.
    The statement of Governor Walker in the record details the 
reasons, clearly, that the State of Alaska supports the issue 
before the Committee: that the need for development is clear, 
that the need for the revenue is clear, that the availability 
of revenue should development take place, will be real.
    I want to focus my remarks, briefly, on the history of, as 
also has been spoken to, the ANWR issue.
    I was here as a young staffer during the development of the 
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), ANILCA, and 
ultimately the federal classifications in Alaska flowed from 
ANCSA.
    In section (d)(2) of that Act there were bargains made that 
were made very clear to Alaska which from time to time I had 
the opportunity to help develop and which, in practice, I saw 
go away. In my home village of Yakutat, I saw preserve areas 
created in the St. Elias National Park in which we were 
promised, as Native residents, as Native subsistence users, as 
folks who lived in that area for centuries, were promised that 
we could use that area into the future. They were carved out 
for that purpose. And I saw camps that my family owned and 
others in our community used for generations, burned down by 
the National Park Service, regardless of what had been promised 
to us by this Congress.
    I see in ANWR, the 1002 Area being an area in which the 
Congress made a promise to Alaska and to our country that we 
would develop those resources should they be able to be done 
safely, should they meet the market tests, should they be able 
to be brought to market.
    We see a complete infrastructure on the North Slope of our 
state with a pipeline to market. As the Governor said, that is 
now at only 25 percent of capacity. We see Point Thomson 
literally on the border of the 1002 Area with the 
infrastructure to allow the minimal impact in the 1002 Area for 
exploration and even development made possible without any 
further significant impact on the environment.
    We see the ability to deal with our national security 
requirements which Alaska is very concerned about as we look to 
certain neighbors of our state, our unique global national 
security location.
    We see the need for our people. Alaska is the one state 
that makes use of our fish and game and plant resources as the 
highest priority for food security among all the uses of our 
resources. It's called subsistence. It is our highest public 
policy use.
    And as resources become scarce, as they cycle through the 
life cycles of resources, we make sure that our people who 
depend on those resources for their livelihood, for their life 
ways, for food security, are the ones that have the ultimate 
access to those resources. No other state does that.
    My wife, my children are Athabascan. They're Koyukon, not 
Gwich'in, but I came to this office largely on the basis that I 
have fought for my entire life, the life ways, the desire, the 
aspirations of Alaska's native peoples and I will continue to 
do so with every breath that I have.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mallott follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Thank you, Lieutenant Governor.
    Mr. Sheehan, welcome to the Committee.

STATEMENT OF GREG SHEEHAN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. FISH 
      & WILDLIFE SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Mr. Sheehan. Thank you.
    Thank you, Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, and 
members of the Committee, for the opportunity to present the 
Department of the Interior's testimony on resource development 
in Alaska's 1002 Area. The 1002 Area is contained within the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
    I am Greg Sheehan, Principal Deputy Director of the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service. I've spoken to many people about 
this issue including our dedicated and highly professional 
staff in Alaska. I appreciate the passion that surrounds every 
aspect of this issue.
    The debate before us is a significant policy question that 
Congress anticipated decades ago and one we are addressing 
today. The roots of this hearing date back to 1980 when the 
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA, was 
signed into law. That law expanded the existing Arctic National 
Wildlife Range to 19.3 million acres and renamed it the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge.
    ANILCA made great strides to enhance long-term conservation 
of fish and wildlife resources in the Refuge. The law also set 
aside a part of the Refuge, the 1002 Area, for potential 
development of oil and gas reserves.
    ANILCA designated eight million acres of the original range 
as wilderness requiring the area to be managed in accordance 
with the Wilderness Act.
    ANILCA also added the Refuge purposes including 
conservation of fish and wildlife populations, fulfilment of 
international agreements, providing for continued subsistence 
uses by rural residents, and ensuring water quality and 
quantity within the Refuge, as well as defining the 1002 Area 
within the Refuge.
    Section 1002 of ANILCA provides for the continuing 
assessment of the fish and wildlife resources of the Coastal 
Plain of the Arctic Refuge. It also provides for the analysis 
of the impacts of oil and gas exploration, development and 
production and authorizes exploratory activity within the 
Coastal Plain. Research, observation, and exploratory 
activities have been occurring on an ongoing basis since the 
passage of ANILCA.
    In section 1003 of ANILCA, Congress statutorily deferred a 
decision regarding future management of the 1.5 million area 
Coastal Plain in recognition of the area's natural resource 
potential. Specifically, section 1003 states, ``. . . no 
leasing or other development leading to production of oil and 
gas . . . shall be undertaken until authorized by an Act of 
Congress.''
    Since the passage of ANILCA, a number of key steps were 
taken by the Department related to the 1002 Area's unique 
status. In an assessment completed and sent to Congress in 
1987, the Secretary of the Interior recommended that Congress 
consider leasing the 1002 Area for oil and gas. Since 1987, the 
U.S. Geological Survey has conducted a number of assessments of 
the resources in the 1002 Area. Their most recent economic 
analysis, published in 2009, determined that there is a mean 
estimate of 10.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil with 80 to 
90 percent of that volume being economically recoverable at $42 
per barrel. Consistent with ANILCA, the services continued to 
inventory, monitor, and assess the fish, wildlife, and natural 
resources within the 1002 Area so that current data is 
available to inform future activity.
    In 1988, the Arctic Refuge's initial Comprehensive 
Conservation Plan recognized the Coastal Plain as a critical 
calving area for the Porcupine Caribou herd which is an 
important subsistence use for Alaska Native peoples. Other 
important wildlife species including polar bear, migratory 
birds, and several fish species, inhabit the 1002 Area. At the 
Fish and Wildlife Service we're committed to ensuring the 
health of all species as Congress provides direction on future 
uses of this area.
    Last spring, Secretary Zinke visited the North Slope with 
Chairman Murkowski and a bipartisan Senate delegation. He 
signed a Secretarial Order that requires the U.S. Geological 
Survey to update its resource assessment for the 1002 Area. 
This includes collection and consideration of new geological 
and geophysical data as well as the potential for reprocessing 
existing data. The Secretarial Order does not modify any 
environmental or regulatory requirements for energy 
development. This evaluation is consistent with the scope and 
intent of ANILCA and will provide the Department's 
understanding of resources within the 1002 Area.
    The Administration's FY'18 budget proposes oil and gas 
leasing in the 1002 Area, and we support Congress' effort to 
open the area for production. If leasing is authorized by 
Congress, the Administration believes it will bolster our 
nation's energy independence and national security, provide 
economic opportunity for Alaskans, and provide much needed 
revenue to both the State of Alaska and the Federal Government. 
Should that authorization be enacted, the Department will 
follow applicable environmental review requirements in the law 
to ensure that development of the area is conducted 
responsibly.
    Chairman Murkowski, I appreciate the opportunity to testify 
on behalf of the Department on this issue and look forward to 
answering any questions you and the members of the Committee 
may have. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Sheehan follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Sheehan, for being here on 
behalf of the Department.
    Mr. Alexander, welcome to the Committee.

   STATEMENT OF SAM ALEXANDER, TRIBAL MEMBER, GWICHYAA ZHEE 
                   GWICH'IN TRIBAL GOVERNMENT

    Mr. Alexander. Vanh gwinzii, Shoozhri' Sam Alexander 
oozhii, Gwichyaa Zhee gwats'an ih5ifif, gaa Tanan gwihch'ii. 
Shiyeghan naifif Clarence ts'a' Ginny Alexander gaavoozhri', 
Gwichyaa Zhee gwats'an ginlifif.
    Good morning, my name is Sam Alexander. I am from Fort 
Yukon, Alaska, but I live in Fairbanks. My parents are Clarence 
and Ginny Alexander from Fort Yukon.
    Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, and fellow 
members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 
speak with you about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
    Today I am here to talk with you about why my people, the 
Gwich'in Nation, adamantly oppose the opening of the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge. As a graduate of West Point and as a 
prior U.S. Army Special Forces Officer, my people have asked me 
to speak because I have walked in two worlds: your world and 
the Gwich'in world.
    So why do we oppose the opening of the Refuge to drilling? 
At the heart of the issue is freedom. The freedom for us to 
continue to exist as indigenous people, to exist as Gwich'in.
    What does it mean to be Gwich'in? The word Gwich'in means 
people of a place and for tens of thousands of years our place 
has been the land now known as Northeastern Alaska and Western 
Canada. To be Gwich'in is to be connected to the land. To be 
Gwich'in is to believe that the land and the animals on it are 
owed our deepest respect. In that regard, it is our duty as 
Gwich'in to protect the land and animals. We as Gwich'in see 
the desire to open up the Refuge as an attack on us and on the 
Porcupine Caribou herd on which we depend.
    Like many Gwich'in, I served in the U.S. military. As a 
Green Beret, I deployed to Iraq to ``free the oppressed.'' 
Little did I realize that I'd come home to find my own people's 
freedom under attack.
    When we advocate for our traditional ways, we are sometimes 
viewed with derision, as if we were trying to fight the 
unstoppable advance of ``progress.'' But we take the long view 
and we embrace our traditional ways because they have served us 
well for millennia.
    Even people down here have started to embrace our ways. You 
see it in renewed interest in diets free of processed food, 
what we would call our traditional diet.
    Science now tells us that walking amongst the natural world 
is good for your brain. You don't have to tell a Gwich'in 
person that. In fact, when someone is looking unhealthy, we say 
``Nanakat gwats'i'hindii.'' Go to your land. We say that 
because we know that the land will heal you.
    The land is essential to our way of life; it provides us 
sustenance and we view it as sacred. The caribou come from a 
place we call ``Izhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit,'' the sacred 
place where life begins, and these very grounds are being 
threatened by oil development. A study by the National Research 
Council outlines how drilling on the North Slope has already 
disrupted the migration and behavior of caribou.
    This brings us to the issue of food security. What is food 
security? According to the United States Department of 
Agriculture, food security means access by all people at all 
times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food 
insecurity is defined as a household-level economic and social 
condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food. What 
is adequate food? For Gwich'in, the only real adequate food is 
food that comes from the land--caribou, moose, salmon. We have 
a hard time eating your ``health food.'' As a cadet at West 
Point, I tried following a ``healthy diet'' full of fruits and 
vegetables and it was disastrous. I found out years later that 
I couldn't eat tomatoes, apples, and a whole host of other 
``healthy foods.'' Over the thousands of years of calling the 
Arctic home, we had adapted to a largely animal-based diet. It 
wasn't until I started eating more traditional Gwich'in food 
did I start to feel healthy again.
    The opening of the Refuge to oil development and subsequent 
decline of the Porcupine Caribou herd will limit our access to 
traditional, healthy food and push us from food security into 
the realm of food insecurity. No amount of money can replicate 
our healthy traditional diet. No amount of money can replicate 
our ways. Tell me how replacing caribou with highly processed 
foods is going to be better for us. It will not. If we had to 
rely on our stores for food, we'd be looking at a steady diet 
of SPAM, macaroni and cheese and other shelf-stable delicacies, 
often at four or five times the price of what you find in the 
Lower 48.
    And to what end are you opening up the Refuge? To what end 
will you destroy our way of life? You aren't addressing climate 
change, which has been stressing our other food sources as well 
as stressing the caribou. You aren't addressing our nation's 
growing deficit; in fact, opening the Refuge represents a drop 
in the bucket of our budget ills. You aren't even addressing 
energy security. As a former Special Forces Officer, I fail to 
see how opening the Refuge at a time when we are already a net 
exporter of energy provides us any geopolitical advantage. We 
are hard-pressed to understand your reasoning behind opening 
the Refuge.
    So I will leave you this. The late Traditional Chief Moses 
Sam of Arctic Village once said when describing his upbringing 
on the land, ``I was never hungry, it was a rich life.'' We 
Gwich'in live a rich life. We live a rich life because of our 
connection to the land and to the Porcupine Caribou herd.
    Money can't buy our wealth, but the reckless pursuit of 
money can take it away. And for that, we will never stop 
fighting to protect the Porcupine Caribou herd and our way of 
life.
    Thank you for your time.
    Mahsi' choo.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Alexander follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Mahsi' choo. Thank you, Mr. Alexander.
    Mr. Rexford, welcome to the Committee.

  STATEMENT OF MATTHEW REXFORD, TRIBAL ADMINISTRATOR, NATIVE 
                  VILLAGE OF KAKTOVIK, ALASKA

    Mr. Rexford. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, 
members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to speak 
to you today.
    My name is Matthew Rexford, and I serve as the Tribal 
Administrator for the Native Village of Kaktovik (NVK). I am 
also the President of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation (KIC). 
Both NVK and KIC serve as members of the Voice of the Arctic 
Inupiat (VOICE) along with 18 other North Slope communities and 
entities.
    I was raised and live in Kaktovik, Alaska, located inside 
the 1002 Area of ANWR. All of the organizations I previously 
mentioned--NVK, KIC, and VOICE--support oil and gas development 
there.
    Approximately 92,000 acres of surface lands in and around 
the community are owned by the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, 
our Village Corporation. These lands are within and are then 
surrounded by ANWR. We are an island in the middle of the 
largest wildlife refuge in America.
    Much of that land is also the ancestral home of the 
Inupiat. Our people are the indigenous inhabitants of the 
region and have used the resources it has blessed us with for 
more than 10,000 years. While many refer to the controversial 
section of ANWR as the 1002 Area, this is the home of the 
Kaktovikmuit, the people of Kaktovik.
    The bowhead whale, caribou, Dall sheep, musk oxen and the 
fish of the region are a vital food source to the Kaktovikmuit. 
Another of those natural resources is oil and gas and lots of 
it. We rely on the bounty of the land and find sustenance 
within ANWR.
    Since the mid-1980s, our people have fought unsuccessfully 
to open our homelands to responsible exploration and 
development. At the same time, Lower 48 lawmakers and special 
interest groups in the country have waged war on the idea, 
citing the disruption of wildlife and the pristine Arctic 
environment.
    The Kaktovikmuit and the Arctic Inupiat will not become 
conservation refugees. We do not approve of efforts to turn our 
homeland into one giant national park, which literally 
guarantees us a fate with no economy, no jobs, reduced 
subsistence and no hope for the future of our people. We are 
already being impacted by restrictions of access to the federal 
lands for subsistence purposes.
    As ANWR debates occur, the views of the Kaktovikmuit are 
often left out. In fact, that is precisely why the leadership 
of the Arctic Slope region created VOICE in 2015. We were tired 
of outsiders living thousands of miles away, speaking on our 
behalf and driving Arctic policy decisions that directly affect 
us and our communities.
    My fellow Inupiat and I firmly believe in a social license 
to operate, and perhaps no other potential project in the 
history of America has called for such a blessing from local 
indigenous peoples more than this one. We Inupiat have the 
benefit of decades of experience working with the oil and gas 
industry to implement stringent regulations to protect the 
lands through best management practices and the industry 
consistently has lived up to our standards. We know development 
in ANWR can be done safely because it's already being done 
safely, all over the Arctic. We think that now is the time to 
open ANWR to measured exploration and development for the 
benefit of our community, all of Alaska, and the nation.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Rexford follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Mr. Rexford, thank you, and thank you to each 
of you on the panel here this morning.
    We will now begin with a round of questions, five minutes 
to each member here.
    Mr. Rexford, I want to begin with you, if I may, and I do 
so because I believe that you are right in your statement that 
so often the voice of the people who actually live within the 
1002 Area, the area that we are speaking about today, are often 
either not heard or just overwhelmed by outside voices.
    I think people are often surprised when they realize that 
there is a village within the 1002 Area, that there are people 
who live there, that the community of Kaktovik, you fly into 
and there is an airstrip there, that you have a school for your 
children. You have a community hall. You have a store where, I 
think, most who go in are shocked and horrified by the prices. 
But you live and work and raise your families within the 1002 
Area.
    I think oftentimes I go back to the map that I showed 
initially. This is an area the size of, ANWR is an area the 
size of the State of South Carolina. The 1002 Area is an area 
the size of Delaware. But there is one village in Delaware and 
that village of Kaktovik is home to you and your family and to 
others.
    Can you provide for the Committee a little bit of the 
expectation that the people of Kaktovik might have from the 
development of the 1002 Area? Again, we are talking about a 
small, small piece. You have seen development at Point Thomson, 
which is just 45 miles from the village of Kaktovik. If you 
could put it in context, I would appreciate it.
    Mr. Rexford. Thank you, Chairman Murkowski.
    Yes, the benefits to the community of Kaktovik will be a 
lot because the North Slope Borough has a tax base and that is 
our regional municipal borough who taxes industry and that 
provides the infrastructure that has provided so much to our 
communities. It provided us roads, houses, schools, clinics, 
and to be able to flush our toilets.
    And so, yes, the benefits, we've seen the benefits and we 
do not want to go backward. We do not want to hinder the 
economy of the North Slope Borough.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Matthew.
    I remind people that your kids, what you are hoping for for 
your children is no different than mine or anybody else. You 
want them to be well educated. You want them to have a good 
future.
    Lieutenant Governor, I would like to ask you a question. 
You have spoken very passionately here, as you have in other 
forums, about subsistence and the identity that it is to our 
Alaska Native people throughout our state, whether you are up 
north in the 1002 Area or down in Yakutat in your home 
community. Many will say that a subsistence lifestyle and an 
opportunity to access the 1002 Area are not consistent, that 
there is an inconsistency here, that it cannot be done. Why do 
you believe that ANWR development within the 1002 Area can 
occur without negatively impacting the Porcupine Caribou herd 
or the Native subsistence way of life?
    Mr. Mallott. In the some 40 years of development of the 
Arctic for oil and gas production, the resources have been most 
stable and have grown and waned as their biological cycles 
determine, particularly the caribou resource has grown. It has 
moved, generally, as it always has in that region.
    The impact of development has been carefully managed and 
constrained. The management by Alaska of both the petroleum 
resource and the renewable natural resources, particularly fish 
and game, has been, as Senator Sullivan, a former Commissioner 
of Natural Resources of our state and Attorney General of our 
state has emphasized, has been of the highest order. The 
priority for subsistence use of our fish and game resources is 
the highest statutory priority in our state.
    As I indicated, it is something that I personally have 
fought for my entire life. And whether it is the Gwich'in, the 
Inuit, the Tlingit, or any other rural user group of our 
natural resources, the State of Alaska has that management and 
that responsibility as its highest priority and we will 
continue to fight for it.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator Cantwell.
    Senator Cantwell. Mr. Alexander, thank you for your service 
to our country and thank you for articulating what I think so 
many people know, or a lot of people know intuitively, that our 
great outdoors provide great relief. It is one of the reasons 
why our veterans have been so outspoken against this 
Administration's wrongheaded policies, whether it is tacking on 
park fees or trying to run over the Antiquities Act, whatever 
it is. I so appreciate our veterans being so supportive of 
making sure we have a place to fish and hunt and recreate. So 
thank you for that.
    I just would point out for the record, I think there have 
been something like 640 oil spills in Alaska's North Slope 
since 1995, including 13 spills of over 10,000 gallons. Since 
2009, thousands of gallons of oil have spilled in the North 
Slope as a result of those operations, including, in 2000 when 
British Petroleum was ordered to pay $22 million in civil and 
criminal penalties because they had illegally disposed of 
hazardous waste containing benzene and other toxic chemicals. 
And in 2011, BP Exploration Alaska was ordered to pay $25 
million in civil penalties for spilling an estimated 213,000 
gallons of crude oil from its pipelines onto the North Slope.
    So we know what happens. We know what happens. The notion 
that people think that this is commensurate is, I think, not 
supported by the science, but we will find out what the 
Secretary says.
    On the Gwich'in and the caribou population, you talked 
about the migration impacts and I know that we have seen some 
changes in that caribou population. What is the biggest concern 
here in the development? That the migration will move out of 
the reach of subsistence for the Gwich'in people, or could you 
explain what it is that we are so concerned about?
    Mr. Alexander. You know, it's interesting when you're down 
here in the states and you want to go get some food, you go to 
the store and you grab you some beef and it costs you maybe 
$4.00 a pound or something like that. You want to get something 
organic, nice and tasty and healthy for you, it's going to cost 
you about $10, $15 a pound.
    As Gwich'in we recognize that we already have that tasty 
organic caribou running around up there. It plays a big part of 
our diet. And so, what we're concerned with is that, you know, 
we call this place, ``lizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit,'' a 
sacred place where life begins. This is where the Porcupine 
Caribou herd calve. This is it, folks. This is the only spot 
that they have their calving. And we're concerned that you have 
any type of disruption in that calving ground, it's not that 
they're going to move elsewhere, it's that they're not going to 
exist.
    If you take a look at the boundaries of the Gwich'in Nation 
it follows the path of the caribou. So when people talk about, 
you know, us being not in the 1002 Area, that's, you know, 
true, in one sense, but in the other sense, we speak for the 
caribou. That's why we're here. We're their voice.
    And they live in that 1002 Area. That's where their babies 
are born, alright? That's where their children come from. And 
it's our responsibility to ensure that they have a safe place 
to do that, to calve. And it's our responsibility to future 
generations of Gwich'in people to ensure that we maintain our 
livelihood which is tied to the caribou. So very important for 
us.
    Senator Cantwell. And have we seen changes in that 
population closer to the area to where drilling has happened?
    Mr. Alexander. You know, people always bring the Central 
herd and they talk about how the numbers have grown. They said, 
there's more caribou there.
    Well, more of something doesn't mean healthier of 
something, alright? Let's keep that in mind. There's Americans, 
we're a lot more now, aren't we? It doesn't mean we're a lot 
healthier. So, let's keep that in mind.
    In terms of the impact, though. We do see an impact. The 
caribou, they are scared of the development. They run away from 
that stuff. They don't want to be out there.
    In fact, when we go hunting, you might not know this, but 
caribou actually have scouts. They have scouts that go up in 
the front. And when the scouts come into trouble, the rest of 
the herd moves. Alright? So we always tell our people, you 
leave those scouts alone. You let them go ahead and you let the 
main herd go by. So the impact that it's going to have is a 
real impact.
    And we also haven't addressed the impact of climate change 
and that's impacting the caribou's land as well as there's more 
brush than there has ever been in the past. They've had to 
change where they go, alright?
    This climate change is real. I just left Fairbanks and 
there's no snow on the ground. When I was a kid, it'd be 30 
below by the time it's Halloween. It was 30 degrees when I 
left. And that has a real impact on the caribou as well. When 
it ices over they have a harder time getting to their food. So 
I'm hoping to see that this body recognizes that.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Alexander.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator Lee.
    Senator Lee. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    I want to add my support for the opening up of the Coastal 
Plain region of ANWR to responsible energy development. This 
proposal makes sense on a number of levels.
    From an economic perspective, opening up this small, remote 
area will provide potentially billions of dollars in federal 
revenues alone over the next few decades which could be used to 
chip away at our staggering budget deficits that we are facing. 
And new development will be a boon, certainly, for Alaska, a 
state that is struggling with high unemployment and with its 
own budget shortfalls.
    Opening up the Coastal Plain also makes sense from an 
environmental perspective. Energy development in the United 
States meets some of the most rigorous environmental standards 
in the entire world. This is especially true in Alaska where 
responsible energy production has occurred for decades without 
undue harm to the surrounding environment, including polar bear 
and caribou habitats.
    Much of the credit for this environmental record of 
responsibility should go to recent technological innovations. 
For example, thanks to modern drilling methods developers can 
access hundreds of miles of oil, of subsurface oil, while 
occupying just a few acres of surface land. As companies 
continue to innovate, the environmental and financial cost of 
energy development will fall even further.
    But perhaps the biggest, single reason why I support the 
opening of the Coastal Plain is because it is widely supported 
by the people of Alaska, and particularly the Inupiat, who 
actually live in that part of the Refuge. I am a strong 
believer that local input should play an outsized role in land 
management issues. People living in, on, and near the land in 
question should have the most significant say in it. The people 
closest to the land deserve to have their voices heard and 
deserve to have their wishes respected.
    Coming from the State of Utah where the Federal Government 
owns nearly two-thirds of the land, I fully understand the 
frustrations of Alaskans whose lives and whose livelihoods are 
subject, almost constantly, to the whims and wishes of well-
connected interest groups, regulators, and politicians in 
Washington, DC, thousands of miles from where the people 
connected to the land, themselves, live.
    Mr. Rexford, in your testimony you articulated these 
frustrations very clearly, very passionately, and eloquently. 
Can you talk about the importance that we should take into 
account, the importance of incorporating local knowledge and 
input in major land decisions, including decisions like the 
ones that we are discussing today?
    Mr. Rexford. Yes, thank you, Senator Lee.
    So, we--I am sorry, can you repeat that question?
    Senator Lee. Yes.
    Can you just talk to us a little bit about the importance 
of taking into account local knowledge, input, local sentiment, 
the sentiment of people immediately affected by the land on 
making decisions like these?
    Mr. Rexford. Yes, thank you.
    I would have to say that also the, what brought about the 
technological advances was the participation of the local 
government on the North Slope and their stringent rules and 
conditions and stipulations that they put in place to ensure 
that this is done right.
    And living in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 
troublesome in the sense that we have limited access to our 
lands, to the mountains, during the summer season. We cannot 
travel over the tundra without disturbing or harming the tundra 
because it is wetland. But throughout most of the year, it's 
frozen and we use snow machines to go to the areas where we 
need to find what we are looking for.
    Senator Lee. So you experience the land differently. You 
have a deeper familiarity with it than say, somebody in 
Washington, DC, would have and that has an impact on the way 
you view it and on the way it should be managed?
    Mr. Rexford. Yes, very much so.
    And we care deeply about the caribou, about the polar bear, 
about the whales, more than anything else because that is what 
gives us our livelihoods. We are a strong, subsistence 
community and much of what is caught, if we have an 
overabundance it's traditional knowledge to share that 
abundance with first the elders and those who cannot provide 
for themselves.
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Lee.
    Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Mr. Alexander, I want to thank you for 
being with us here today. I had a chance to visit the North 
Slope, places like Deadhorse, to see a number of the 
developments that have occurred there in the Prudhoe Bay area, 
and to visit the Refuge as well and to go to places like Arctic 
Village.
    I was struck by the connection, the language and the 
cultural connections with the Navajo people in the Southwest. 
That really surprised me.
    And in listening to everyone here today, what really struck 
me was the way you talked about this place and how different it 
was from the way my colleagues talked about this place or the 
way the gentlemen from the Department of the Interior talked 
about this place.
    They talked about the 1002 Area. They talked about ANWR. 
ANWR, to me, sounds like a Middle Eastern country covered in 
sand where we should just develop lots of oil and gas. They 
don't talk about a Refuge.
    You said this is the sacred place where life begins. Can 
you talk a little bit more about how your people talk about 
this place?
    Mr. Alexander. Thank you, Senator.
    Our people think of this place as the heart, you know. We 
think of ``lizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit'' as the heart of 
the Refuge. Okay? This is the heart of the Refuge.
    And you know, it was interesting earlier our Congressman 
talked about how it was just a little dot on his nose. And I 
thought that was funny because, you know, if I were to say to 
you, you want to do something about that dot on your nose, 
let's go ahead and have open heart surgery. You'd probably 
think, well, that's not a good idea. Right? That's not a good 
idea.
    And so, when we talk about the Refuge, we talk about the 
land. It is tied to our language and our understanding of the 
world. And you know, the ``vadzaih,'' the caribou, we are 
connected to them and we recognize that.
    You know, we talk about, I hear this talk about development 
all the time. We need to develop this, we need to develop that. 
What I think we need is a little bit of understanding of the 
sustainability of the life that we live as Gwich'in, alright?
    We're not asking. We're not sitting here asking for 
anything. We're not saying we need hospitals. We need schools. 
We need all these things. We're not saying give us money. What 
we're saying is let us live as Gwich'in because we already 
recognize the wealth that we have as people. And there's 
nothing that you can give us. But we recognize it's something 
that can be taken away from us. And so, when we talk about the 
land, when we talk about the caribou, it's in reverence to 
them.
    And you know, I keep hearing well, the locals, let's hear 
what the locals have to say about the 1002 Area. You know who 
the locals are? They're caribou. Those are the locals that 
don't have a voice and that's why we're here as Gwich'in.
    Senator Heinrich. One of the things that really struck me 
about that geography was how the Arctic Plain, where the 
caribou calve, is the flat place. To the West is, frankly, an 
industrial zone. You can say how--you can say birds nest on 
every drilling rig, but it doesn't look like that when you are 
there.
    Then to the South and to the East are mountains, and this 
is the place where the caribou flow like a river. And this is 
the spring. And if you lose the spring, you lose the whole 
river, don't you?
    Mr. Alexander. Absolutely because, you know, I think 
there's this idea that with development, you know, you're only 
going to maybe harm part of the herd or maybe they'll just move 
over a little bit. There's not that option for them. There's 
not that option.
    And so, we're talking about the destruction of the herd and 
irreparable damage to our culture, to people that have been 
living there for tens of thousands of years. And when I say, 
tens of thousands of years, I'm not just making up numbers. 
There's a place called Bluefish Cave in the Yukon Territory. 
It's the oldest known human campsite in North America, and 
that's Gwich'in territory.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cassidy. Thank you.
    Thank you all for being here.
    I am from Louisiana and, believe it or not, even though 
your average temperature in July is probably colder than my 
average temperature in December, there are a lot of 
similarities between the states.
    We obviously have a lot of oil and gas development. One of 
the reasons that I think this is such a positive thing is that 
there are so many folks in our state who did not go to college, 
good people who make good incomes because they are able to work 
in the oil and gas industry and actually make a product which 
the rest of the world wants and which is economically 
beneficial for that family. It is about economic opportunity 
for these folks.
    But I can also apply what we do in Louisiana to some of the 
stuff that we see here. Everybody discusses responsible oil and 
gas development with a limited footprint and I can say that in 
the Gulf of Mexico that technology has progressed so that you 
can dynamically drill going from a central point far out and 
then tying back, therefore limiting the pad, if you will, so 
the subsea is tiebacks or similar to what is here.
    And I look at that because if you look at what Senator 
Sullivan gave us: it took a 65-acre gravel pad in 1970 to do 
three square miles of drilling; a 12-acre gravel pad in 2016 to 
do 55 square miles; and now, for future extended-reach 
drilling, it will take a 12-acre gravel pad to do 125 square 
miles.
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    That is very similar to what we are currently doing in the 
Gulf of Mexico where once you have the rig, you go far out and 
then tie back in a way which minimizes impact. So I will say 
that.
    I understand there is currently a project in Alaska that 
has an extended drilling well of 35,000 feet, again, that can 
reach 125 square miles. So it is not just the Gulf of Mexico, 
it is also in Alaska.
    Mr. Lieutenant Governor, we actually have empiric evidence 
though of everything we are discussing. Since the drilling has 
begun in Prudhoe Bay, not far from the 1002 Area, how has 
development affected the area and how have these technological 
advances that we have spoken of, if you will, modified that 
impact?
    Mr. Mallott. The technological capacity, as you've just 
described, is working on the North Slope. The ability to reduce 
the footprint, the ability to reach out is taking place as we 
speak. There has been no impact on the 1002 Area simply because 
that is the issue before us today, to allow that potential to 
be tapped.
    There have been comments about spills and other negative 
consequences of a massive, decades-long development on the 
North Slope producing billions of barrels of oil. And what I 
can say to that is that technology has, again, allowed us to be 
aggressively responsive, that the regulatory regime has 
changed, will continue to evolve and the technology has grown. 
Our ability to respond to difficulty has grown. The ability to 
maintain the habitat, literally the ecosystems, has been 
aggressively managed and issues responded to.
    And that is, of course, part of the emphasis of our 
testimony today is to say that we can deal both with the need 
for the development, the production of the petroleum resource, 
to manage the future of the renewable resources----
    Senator Cassidy. Let me just mention, because I am about to 
run out of seconds.
    Just to reiterate your point or to emphasize your point 
from the picture about your way to do responsible drilling--
Senator Sullivan gave this out----
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    Senator Cassidy. ----and it shows ice pads being used for 
this rig and when it thaws you see no roads, you see no pads 
because they are ice pads and ice roads and they all melt away. 
And the only thing left is an 8x8-foot well house that remains 
for future development, but nothing else is seen. So you all 
have done a very nice job of preserving the ecosystem without 
trace, except for an 8x8-foot well house.
    Mr. Mallott. That is exactly right.
    Senator Cassidy. I am out of time. I yield back. Thank you.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thank you, gentlemen, for the conversation today.
    I would like to start with Mr. Sheehan.
    Mr. Sheehan, you have an extensive background in 
conservation and 25 years in Utah. Nevada appreciates it. It is 
our neighbor to the east, and I have spent a lot of time in 
southern Utah, beautiful country. I know you have been there 
for 25 years with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, that 
is correct? And the Director at some point in time in the last 
five years?
    Mr. Sheehan. I was the Director for the past five years, 
yes.
    Senator Cortez Masto. That is great.
    Can I ask you this? My understanding of the 1980 law and 
the purpose of the Refuge states four things: to conserve fish 
and wildlife populations and habitats in their natural 
diversity; to fulfill the international treaty obligations of 
the United States with respect to fish and wildlife and their 
habitats; to provide, in a manner consistent with purposes one 
and two, the opportunity for continued subsistence uses by 
local residents; and to ensure water quality and necessary 
water quantity within the Refuge. Are those purposes still true 
today?
    Mr. Sheehan. Excuse me, yes, absolutely. Those are still 
being fulfilled.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    Then can you explain to me how, if we are to open it up to 
oil and gas drilling, that is compatible with those purposes?
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, thank you, Senator.
    As part of the 1980 ANILCA law that you referenced, it 
certainly established criteria to manage the Refuge area by and 
that's still being fulfilled.
    But when you talk about compatibility in the 1997 Wildlife 
Refuge Act, it says, ``Each refuge shall be managed to fulfill 
the mission of the system as well as the specific purpose for 
which that refuge was established.'' And at the time that that 
refuge was established, sections 1002 and 1003 of ANILCA 
created an avenue for the discussion of exploratory work and 
potentially drilling down in the future, under section 1003. So 
at this point the Department of the Interior and the President 
and Secretary are committed to honoring the desires of the 
state, honoring the desires of the need for energy independence 
and still fulfilling the law of ANILCA which provided 
opportunity under that very law, that you mentioned, to perform 
these types of activities.
    Senator Cortez Masto. So there is no compatibility standard 
that you have to look at? You feel it is in the law that you 
have the authority to come in and listen to the locals. This is 
what they want, so this is what you are going to do. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. Certainly we strive to make every action 
compatible, as best we can within that area.
    As has been mentioned multiple times today, that's a 19.5-
million-acre area within the boundaries of the Refuge, about 
1.5 million of that are in the 1002 Area. If this body of 
Congress elects to allow for the development of oil and gas 
resources in that area, we'll work to ensure compatibility of 
that use with other existing uses----
    Senator Cortez Masto. So is your position today that you, 
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, does not have a position? 
You are just going to really do whatever we in Congress say you 
should be doing? So you are not here advocating one way or the 
other?
    Mr. Sheehan. No, Senator. I'm saying that the compatibility 
of that Refuge will be determined, as I mentioned, with the 
specific purposes for which that Refuge was established.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Is it different than what I just 
identified previously?
    Mr. Sheehan. It is those four elements you mentioned.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    Mr. Sheehan. But it's certainly also the potential 
exploration and development of other uses as we've heard from 
multiple members here today.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay, thank you.
    Let me just turn to Lieutenant Governor Mallott. Thank you 
so much for joining us today.
    We have been instructed to raise $1 billion in this 
Committee as part of Fiscal Year '18 budget in order to pay for 
$1.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy. I do not see how 
opening the Refuge to oil and gas leasing will come close to 
raising that $1 billion, but I am here to understand the 
numbers and understand why many think it can. Can you explain 
that math to me or do you have an understanding of that at all?
    Mr. Mallott. I have a general understanding. I've seen the 
materials. I've seen the analysis. It seems very clear that 
with the prospective development and the already existing 
analysis of the size of the reserve or reserves that very 
significant revenue can accrue to both the federal and the 
state governments.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Do you think it is going to be $1 
billion to the Federal Government to cover that?
    Mr. Mallott. It will. I believe it will be many multiples 
of that number, yes.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Based on the numbers that you have 
seen?
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay. I appreciate that.
    I notice my time is up. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Barrasso.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
    Lieutenant Governor, it is a pleasure to see you. When 
Governor Walker testified a little earlier, he mentioned a 
bipartisan group of us who have been to Bethel and then to 
Oscarville. I had a chance to do that. And then I was with 
Senator Murkowski again this spring and had an opportunity to 
visit Pump Station 1 of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in 
Deadhorse. It is my understanding that the throughput on the 
pipeline peaked in the late '80s, which is what the Governor 
had talked about, and since then it has declined to about 25 
percent of the pipeline capacity.
    Could you explain the importance of the pipeline to 
Alaska's economy and why it is so important to maximize the 
throughput on that pipeline?
    Mr. Mallott. The pipeline is at 25 percent of its capacity. 
The need to continue to utilize it and its full capacity is 
clear when we look at the national security interests of our 
nation, when we look at the revenue needs of our state, when we 
look at the revenue needs of our nation and the impact on the 
economy of our state, the impact on the economy of our nation, 
are each very clear.
    The opportunity to allow our nation and our state to have 
revenue, not just to meet the full range of existing budgetary 
needs, but to be responsive to a changing climate, particularly 
in our state, is very real and must be addressed and if not by 
our nation, then by our state, which we are fully prepared to 
do. But it requires resources, fiscal resources, in order to do 
so.
    I want to emphasize once again, that our national security 
interest is critical, that we, in Alaska, sometimes feel fairly 
vulnerable. We are in a geopolitical area where modest capacity 
of destructive force that we can be a target.
    We know that a changing Arctic is changing the security 
interests of each of the nations involved. Those are open 
questions as we speak. And the need for our nation and our 
state to have security is very significant.
    We also support and believe that with that kind of national 
security interest being responded to, that the full range of 
interest that allow us to live reasonable, responsible, good 
lives, create a society for our state, are significantly tied 
in with the pipeline and its ability to deliver petroleum to 
our nation and to our world.
    Senator Barrasso. I agree. That is essentially the same 
assessment that I had, having been to the locations and 
obviously being from an energy state in Wyoming, the similar 
concerns and similar needs that we have for a nation, in terms 
of energy security, energy independence, and now as President 
Trump says, energy dominance, in terms of the geopolitical 
threats that we face from around the world, as you so 
appropriately stated.
    I have one other follow-up question. Given the close 
proximity of the Coastal Plain area to the Trans-Alaska 
Pipeline System and other development in Prudhoe Bay, do you 
believe that there are some opportunities to conduct some 
coordinated mitigation projects that could, in fact, actually 
improve existing wildlife habitat?
    Mr. Mallott. I believe so, yes.
    Senator Barrasso. Okay.
    Mr. Mallott. The North Slope Borough has a very robust 
resource management program. The State of Alaska and our Fish 
and Wildlife Management and our Natural Resource Department and 
our Department of Environmental Conservation will work as hard 
as we can in order to both maintain and, where opportunities 
present, to grow the full range of fish and wildlife and other 
natural resources on those lands.
    Senator Barrasso. Yes.
    Mr. Sheehan, do you have anything that you might want to 
add to that in terms of opportunities to conduct some of these 
mitigation projects and, in fact, improve existing wildlife 
habitat?
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, thank you, Senator.
    Certainly, I think there's work that is going on throughout 
those areas now for mitigation, but there's also a lot of 
research going on up there.
    Our U.S. Geological Survey is doing work and we're trying 
to learn, not just simply about how to mitigate, but how to use 
best practices to avoid conflicts, to avoid challenges that 
could exist from the introduction of oil and gas so that if we 
do have this type of work done down the road, that it's done 
responsibly and as best it can be with the wildlife resources.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
    Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I have a series of somewhat technical questions that I 
think are important in evaluating this. I do not see any 
witnesses that can strictly address them. I am afraid, Mr. 
Sheehan, you are the nearest I have so you are going to get the 
questions.
    Mr. Sheehan. Okay, I'll give it a try.
    Senator King. Hopefully, eventually, we will be able to get 
this.
    The first question is, as I understand this proposed 
legislation which we have not seen yet, that the House bill 
talks about a 2,000-acre limitation and I have heard that 
mentioned. Senator Sullivan has mentioned that. Is that a 
contiguous 2,000 acres within this 1.5 million acres or is that 
12 acres here and 10 acres over there? Do you know what that 
2,000 acres means?
    Mr. Sheehan. Thank you, Senator.
    I'm going to have to defer that question because I've not 
seen any language so I can't respond to that. I don't know----
    Senator King. Well, I think that is an important question 
because it was presented to me as the size of Dulles airport, 
which is fine if it's just one place, but I think what it means 
is it is scattered all over the place and if you add it all 
together it is 2,000 acres.
    Second question. Do you know how many wells are 
contemplated in this development?
    Mr. Sheehan. Again, I think that depends on what's passed 
by the body of this Congress if, in fact, an action is passed 
because that could stipulate which area of this could be 
developed, potentially all of it, potentially some part of it.
    So I think until we have a better sense of that I can't 
really respond to how many wells might be----
    Senator King. Again, if we are being told that there are 
ten billion barrels here, then we have to do--if that is what 
people are representing is what we are after, it seems to me we 
have to do some calculations about what that implies.
    My back-of-the-envelope, and it is always dangerous to turn 
me loose with a calculator, is we are talking several thousand 
wells to produce ten billion barrels over ten years. Again, I 
think it is an important question to assess the impact. Are we 
talking ten wells, a hundred wells, or a thousand wells?
    Third question. Any idea how this oil is going to get out 
from all these wells? How does it get anywhere?
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, again, I suspect that the most likely 
method of moving that would be via pipelines, but that's how 
most of that oil is moved now----
    Senator King. We are not only talking about these 12 acre 
pads, but now we are talking about pipelines and, presumably, 
roads to get to these various places.
    Any ideas on the cost of extraction in this region? What we 
are talking about is whether this is $50 barrel oil or $40 or 
$60?
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, the analysis done by the U.S. Geological 
Survey said it's economically recoverable at $42 a barrel. And 
when they define economically recoverable they say that there 
would be a 12 percent profitability factor, if you will, or 12 
percent margin on that. So that's the price point that was done 
in analysis in 2009. And certainly, oil prices, a little higher 
than that today, but it's hard to say what they could be in 
many years.
    Senator King. Well, I understand that you are a resource 
guy and you are from the Department of the Interior, not an oil 
and gas guy, but it does bother me that you are representing 
the Administration today telling us that this is an okay deal 
without knowing the answers to my questions.
    I do not see how you can say this looks fine unless you 
know how many wells, how many miles of pipeline, or where they 
will be located. I mean, we are being asked to make an 
assessment here of essentially economic benefit versus 
environmental risk, but I do not see how you can make that 
evaluation without knowing the answers to those questions that 
I have raised.
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, thank you again, Senator.
    You know, without having a full set of legislation, knowing 
what that direction is to us, it would be hard for myself or 
even an oil and gas expert to answer all of those questions, 
but what I will say is that, you know, there are difficult 
choices to make here----
    Senator King. I agree with that, but I want to know what 
choices I am making. I don't want to make choices where I don't 
understand what the impacts are going to be. That is all I am 
suggesting.
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, and what I would say today is that we 
support responsible development in whatever form or fashion 
that that best occurs in and we know more about what that 
footprint of that area looks like and what technologies are 
best available, if and when this effort takes place, which 
could be many years from now before drilling took place. I 
expect that there will be evolving technologies between now and 
then just as we've seen many in the last eight or nine years.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Madam Chair, I hope that if we are talking about marking up 
legislation, that we will have the materials and the data 
necessary to answer the questions that I have raised.
    I do not see how we can possibly make this decision without 
answering the fundamental question of how many wells are we 
talking about? How many miles of pipeline? We just cannot make 
that trade-off without having that data. I respectfully request 
that we have an opportunity to explore that data before we are 
asked to mark up a bill.
    The Chairman. Senator King, I do hope that you are going to 
be able to stick around for the second panel because I think 
that we will have an opportunity to get into some more of the 
specifics, but again, recognizing----
    Senator King. Yes.
    The Chairman. ----recognizing that in terms of what may 
actually be produced, again, depends on a lot of variables that 
we are going to make assumptions on, but again, I think you 
will get more of the specifics with some of the folks that we--
--
    Senator King. I hope so. I looked down the list and did not 
see anyone that I thought would be responsive to those 
particular questions.
    Senator Cantwell. I think, Madam Chair, too, my colleagues 
and I feel very strongly that we want to see something and 
understand it before we vote on it. So it is hard to believe 
that that would take place by next Wednesday.
    The Chairman. We are certainly not going to be voting on 
anything that we do not have in front of us. This is an 
opportunity for us to----
    Senator Cantwell. And to understand the impact on the 
Interior Department. That is the issue. My colleague is saying 
he wants to understand from experts what that impact is.
    The Chairman. Today's hearing is an opportunity for us to 
hear about the 1002 Area, something that this Committee has not 
had an opportunity to do in about seven years now.
    Let's go to Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member 
Cantwell.
    I know it is a long flight from Alaska to Washington, DC. 
Thank you for making that journey.
    I must tell you as a Montanan, somebody who respects the 
voice of the states and the voice of the people who live in 
those states, I am struck, deeply struck, by the fact we have 
had both U.S. Senators from the State of Alaska, their lone 
Congressman, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, 90 percent 
of the Alaska legislature and 70 percent of Alaskans when 
polled on this issue support moving forward, as we are 
proposing to do with drilling in the 1002.
    I just think it is a bit arrogant for Washington, DC, folks 
who are long ways away from Alaska to be in some way dictating 
the future of what Alaskans want to do and being contrary, some 
here in this body, and your voice should count in this city. 
And to this Senator, it does. Thank you for making the journey.
    In my home state, like Alaskans and those from Colorado, we 
have a blend of protecting the environment as well as 
responsibly developing our natural resources. This is a Senator 
who spent August backpacking 70 miles in the wilderness with my 
wife, over two weekends. A credit to my wife for carrying all 
that weight too. She is tough.
    But I cherish those kind of outdoor experiences. I cherish 
the ability to fly fish, to hunt, to backpack, to climb 
mountains. This is in no way an either/or kind of proposition. 
This is truly a both/and situation.
    I saw that same blend, that passion for the outdoors, for 
the incredible landscapes in Alaska when I had the opportunity 
to see the North Slope in May, in fact, with the Chairman of 
this Committee. And I am just struck. Alaska is an amazing 
place, truly beautiful. But I know the frustrations of Alaskans 
that say, we want to be able to define our future and not have 
Washington, DC, do it for us.
    Mr. Sheehan, as I stated earlier, protecting the 
environment is a value that both Montanans and Alaskans share. 
As an outdoorsman, I am particularly interested in caribou. I 
have never hunted caribou, but it would be on my bucket list. 
As the agency that manages our wildlife, the agency that 
manages our wildlife, Mr. Sheehan, do you believe that 
production in the 1002 Area can have minimal impact on the 
local caribou herds?
    Mr. Sheehan. Thank you, Senator Daines.
    You know, I guess I'd harken back to my time, was brought 
up by the good Senator from Nevada, about serving as the State 
Director in Utah where we, too, there built great populations 
of large ungulates, deer, elk, moose and commercially had 
energy development within many of those same areas. You've seen 
that both in Colorado and Montana, as has been pointed out.
    These efforts to go into these fragile landscapes can be 
done. They can be done successfully. Yes. Do our employees have 
concerns about doing this in a very careful manner? Certainly, 
they do. But we have wildlife challenges throughout America 
that we're challenged with every day, not only the federal U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service, who I'm honored to serve among the 
great employees there, but all of the states.
    And as we look at all of the challenges that exist in 
America, whether that's oil and gas development, wind energy, 
solar and all the other opportunities that are there for 
developing energy, all of those have impacts of wildlife 
resources and fishery resources.
    But I'll say this, if this Congress directs us that way we 
use the best science, the best technologies and other 
strategies such as timing that we've heard much about today and 
reduced footprint, to make sure that that has the least amount 
of impact on the native wildlife species.
    Senator Daines. I want to talk to Lieutenant Governor 
Mallott.
    We have a vibrant outdoor economy like Alaska does. We have 
millions of acres of public lands, of wilderness. Alaska has, I 
understand, over 56 million acres of wilderness, about 15 
percent of the total acres, and hundreds of millions of 
additional acres of federal lands, totaling around 60 percent. 
Some is suitable for hiking, some for snowmobiling, some should 
be left as wilderness. But some is suitable for timber 
production, others for mining, oil, or gas exploration.
    Do you believe that we are taking a balanced approach by 
opening up the 1002 Area to production allowing Alaska and all 
Americans to benefit from the revenue and security generated 
from this land?
    Mr. Mallott. Thank you, Senator.
    I will just emphasize once again that I was with the Alaska 
Federation of Natives when ANILCA was being developed. I was 
with the Native community as a leader in the development of 
ANCSA which is the precedent act to ANILCA.
    The effort at balance was among the most important 
considerations in the development of the Alaska National 
Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA, which ultimately 
gained the approval of such giants of conservation as 
Congressman Mo Udall, the Secretary of the Interior at the time 
from Idaho, the range of conservation interests and other 
interests across our nation and within Alaska. It was a grand 
bargain that was dealing with immense millions of acres, 160 
million acres of land in our state went into the federal 
classifications in our state.
    Within those classifications there were----
    Senator Daines. I do not have a lot of time, I will insert 
myself here.
    Mr. Mallott. Right.
    Senator Daines. Do you think we are taking a balanced 
approach?
    Mr. Mallott. Absolutely.
    Senator Daines. Okay, thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Mr. Mallott. You mean when I'm responding I'm using your 
time? Wow, I didn't know that, sorry.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Daines. It was probably better that I interrupt you 
than the Chairman from your state, so . . .
    The Chairman. I appreciate that.
    Lieutenant Governor, thank you.
    Senator Stabenow.
    Senator Stabenow. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
    I am very, very concerned about the direction of where this 
is going, and one of the reasons I did not support the budget 
resolution was because of the provision that would assume $1 
billion coming from opening ANWR. I appreciate the Ranking 
Member's opening comments and other colleagues that have 
expressed concerns. But when we talk about listening to people 
from Alaska, we certainly want to do that. I wish we had more 
diversity here in terms of viewpoints from Alaska. That would 
be more helpful.
    I remember in 2010 I traveled with Senator Begich to Alaska 
to attend a field hearing on the impact of climate change on 
Alaska, and we saw what was happening in terms of the snow 
melting, really quite astounding to see the impacts of climate 
change on our Arctic. On that trip, I had an opportunity to 
visit the Tutusix Bay and to meet with the Native Americans 
there in the far Southwest part of Alaska which has become a 
center of alternative energy investments. I was so impressed 
with the very tall large wind turbines, and was particularly 
happy to find out that some of the component parts were 
actually manufactured in Michigan. So I felt an immediate 
connection with what the tribe was doing and how the vision of 
moving to types of energy that would actually be so much better 
for Alaska in terms of what is happening because of the 
changing climate.
    And then I had the opportunity to meet with the tribal 
elders of Newtok to discuss what was happening for them, the 
importance of preserving local language and culture and the 
fact that they are going to have to be evacuated. I don't know 
if that has fully happened yet, Lieutenant Governor, but I know 
at the time we were walking on boards. Water was seeping up. 
The whole community, the whole village was going to have to be 
moved because of the water that was coming in and going to 
engulf the community as a result of the permafrost melting. And 
we saw directly what was happening.
    This is deeply concerning to me that we are not embracing 
what I saw in terms of new opportunities with types of 
alternative fuel that would actually, it would seem to me, 
benefit the quality of life of people in Alaska.
    But as we sit here today to discuss opening ANWR to oil 
drilling, even with no evidence that drilling in these areas 
will increase U.S. energy security and real questions about 
whether allowing drilling will help the federal budget at all, 
it feels very much like a political exercise as opposed to 
looking to the future and what is needed for the people of 
Alaska, as well as preserving this pristine area.
    Mr. Alexander, I know you have spoken a little bit about 
this, but could you help me better understand real world 
consequences of allowing drilling in ANWR and talk a little bit 
more about important cultural and tribal perspectives about 
what it would mean, from your standpoint, to allow for new 
drilling in these pristine lands?
    Mr. Alexander. Thank you, Senator.
    You know, when we think about the real-world consequences 
of drilling it goes back to the protection, you know, of our 
way of life as Gwich'in people.
    There's a story about how, you know, long ago we had to 
rely on the caribou and the closeness of our relationship is 
such that we even say that there's a little bit of caribou 
heart in us and a little bit of human heart in the caribou.
    And so, this impact is a real impact. And it's funny to me 
because I don't quite understand. We kept talking about 
economic development and I hear this a lot as an excuse to be 
going in and drilling.
    Economic development. Economic development. What does that 
actually mean? I think that's not a recognition that the 
subsistence economy is a real thing. It's not a recognition 
that, you know, I find it hard to understand, like, why would 
somebody, why would a Gwich'in person want to work a 40 hour a 
week job making money so they could turn around and go buy 
organic food? How does that make sense to anybody? Why would 
you do that? So I'm going to go work harder so then I could buy 
food of lower quality, like, how does that make sense? That 
doesn't make sense to me. That's why we're just perplexed as to 
what you say when you're talking about progress. Is progress 
like eating Spam? Is that progress? I don't think so.
    You know, here down in the states when you want to talk 
status, people talk about going to, you know, talking about 
going to Whole Foods and eating organic food. That's status. 
Alright? You're saying oh, it's important because it's 
important for our health to eat this healthy food.
    So what is all this drilling for? So that we can have money 
to do what? To live like Gwich'in? We already live like 
Gwich'in. We're not trying to change anything in that regard. I 
think you could learn a lot by seeing how we live. You could 
learn a lot because we're not chasing our tails up there.
    And so, you know, going back to the tribal perspective. The 
tribal perspective is that it is our responsibility and our 
duty to take care of the land and take care of the animals 
because they've taken care of us for thousands of years, 
thousands of years.
    And you know, you're going to hear Alaska Native 
Corporations representatives coming up here and talk about 
responsible development too. And I just want to make it clear 
while I have the time to do such. The Alaska Native 
Corporations are not tribes. They are not tribes. They do not 
have a traditional language. Their purpose is profit.
    Our purpose as Gwich'in is to protect our traditional way 
of life and to live that traditional way of life in an 
honorable way. And so, our elders told us when you go up there 
you do it in a good way. You do it in a good way. And that good 
way is to be respectful.
    I have a peer over here. You know he's from the North 
Slope. And we respect their food security. Whenever there's any 
issue of drilling in the Arctic Ocean, we know that the Inupiat 
don't want drilling in the Arctic Ocean because it will impact 
the whales. It will impact the sea life and they know that and 
they're worried about that. So they don't want it. And we stand 
beside them and we say we recognize your right to exist as 
indigenous people and we recognize that you have a right to 
food security. And we stand beside you when you do such.
    Senator Stabenow. Thank you. I realize my time is up. I 
have further questions, but I will submit them for the record.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Stabenow.
    Senator Gardner.
    Senator Gardner. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to 
the witnesses for being here today. I realize and recognize, as 
Senator Daines did, this is a long ways to travel. So thank you 
very much for being here.
    Mr. Sheehan, a couple questions for you that came up, I 
think, during some of the other questions.
    When Congress moves forward, as we are today, if there is a 
lease plan developed for the 1002 Area, environmental laws do 
not change, they are not waived. They remain the same as they 
are today. Is that correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. Yes, that's correct, Senator.
    Senator Gardner. And there would be a leasing plan that 
would be developed with public input. Is that correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. Absolutely. There'd be full environmental 
impact reviews.
    Senator Gardner. And there are environmental reviews? Is 
that correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. Absolutely.
    Senator Gardner. And there is an analysis of how this would 
impact the environment. Is that correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. Does that change as a result of the 1002 
process?
    Mr. Sheehan. No, there's nothing in that process that would 
allow for changing any of those environmental considerations or 
rules.
    Senator Gardner. Will this area be going into production 
the day after Congress passes legislation?
    Mr. Sheehan. We would expect that probably lease sales, 
perhaps two, would occur four to five years from now with 
drilling being potentially as far out as seven to ten years.
    Senator Gardner. So seven to ten years.
    Litigation? Do you get sued or does this waive lawsuits?
    Mr. Sheehan. This doesn't waive lawsuits, but certainly we 
don't like lawsuits any more than anyone else does.
    Senator Gardner. So there is going to be--yes.
    I guess what I am saying is that the process of 
environmental protection, environmental reviews, environmental 
analysis does not change one iota. Correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. That's true. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. Thank you.
    Lieutenant Governor, the Governor's opening statement and 
your extensive written testimony lay out some of the history of 
the founding of Alaska, the laws that led us to the current 
situation, and your experience working with the oil and gas 
industry. I have a couple questions for you.
    Alaska was brought into the Union as a state with the 
understanding that it would be allowed to responsibly develop 
the resources available to it. Is that correct, yes or no?
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. When the compromise legislation, the 
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, was passed in 
1980, it expanded what was then known as the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge, by almost nine million acres to create what we 
now know as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, excuse me, 
previous, the Range, now the Refuge. Is that correct?
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. That bill doubled the size of the National 
Park System, doubled the size of the National Refuge System and 
tripled the amount of federal land designated as wilderness. Is 
that correct?
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. That same bill, which massively expanded 
conservation protections for many areas of the state, also 
specifically set aside the Coastal Plain, or 1002 lands, for 
the scientific evaluation of its petroleum development, 
potential environmental qualities, and the possibility of safe 
development. Is that correct?
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. And the studies conducted by the 
Department of the Interior led them to recommend Congress adopt 
a full oil and gas leasing program for the 1002 Area. Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. Does the United States consume more oil 
today than it produces?
    Mr. Mallott. It does. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. So we still import oil today. I think that 
has been talked about.
    Is it fair to say that not all of the countries we import 
oil from share the same values as the United States?
    Mr. Mallott. Absolutely.
    Senator Gardner. And I think production of domestic energy 
allows us greater leverage over those nations that we import 
oil from.
    Does it make any sense that we would tie the hands of the 
State of Alaska, the hands of her people, when we have the 
opportunity to responsibly and sustainably develop a resource 
that will increase national security of the United States and 
the prosperity of your state? Does it make any sense to tie 
your hands?
    Mr. Mallott. It does not.
    Senator Gardner. And so, based on your experience, I think, 
and these answers, this is not a situation where there is 
something new being proposed by Congress. It is actually 
something that Congress set forward to allow.
    Mr. Sheehan, it was mentioned, your experience in the State 
of Utah, in the wildlife work, in particular. I think 25 years 
in Utah, is that correct, as a conservation specialist?
    Mr. Sheehan. Yes.
    Senator Gardner. And the last five years, prior to your 
appointment, you were running the State of Utah's Division of 
Wildlife Resources. You oversaw a significant increase in mule 
deer production. Is that correct?
    Mr. Sheehan. That's true.
    Senator Gardner. Utah has a heck of a lot of energy 
production, is that right?
    Mr. Sheehan. In certain areas of the state, yes.
    Senator Gardner. How do you balance that? How did you 
actually grow a population when you have that development? How 
do you balance that?
    Mr. Sheehan. Well, I think the key to balancing any of that 
work is to try to avoid and minimize footprints the best we 
can.
    Our biologists and team members there work with those 
development companies to look at siting locations and have 
tried to develop those areas in the most responsible way they 
can to minimize impact to wildlife numbers and I think we've 
seen some good success with those efforts.
    Senator Gardner. Based on your professional experience 
then, can we responsibly develop the resources that Congress 
has put in agreement with the State of Alaska and minimize 
impact to wildlife and other parts of the ecosystem?
    Mr. Sheehan. Certainly I believe that if that's developed 
there can be similar efforts to minimize the impacts to 
wildlife in that 1002 Area.
    Senator Gardner. Thank you.
    My time is expired, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Gardner.
    We will next go to Senator Franken.
    Senator Franken. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    One argument that we often hear from my friends across the 
aisle is that we need to open more federal land to drilling, 
and in Alaska, but if you look at the facts it is simply not 
true that the big oil companies like access to public lands, 
especially in Alaska.
    Of the more than one million acres of federal land under 
lease for oil and gas drilling in Alaska, only about 17,000 are 
actually being drilled on by the end of Fiscal Year 2016, 
17,000 out of one million. Maybe that is why the pipeline is 
only operating at 25 percent of capacity. And the Trump 
Administration just announced that it would lease another ten 
million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. They 
announced this in December. Simply put, there is no shortage of 
federal oil and gas leases in Alaska. It is not even close.
    I don't know why it is necessary to open a pristine natural 
area like this Refuge. Why the Refuge?
    And speaking to Senator King's questions that Mr. Sheehan 
could not answer, I just think that if my colleagues across the 
aisle think that drilling in this Refuge is such a good idea, 
we should have hearings. We should do this as regular order and 
not do this on the quick and cheap because of a tax plan.
    Mr. Alexander, I would like to read you a quote from my 
good friend, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, and get your 
response.
    Senator Wellstone fought for more than a decade to preserve 
the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and for the rights of the 
Gwich'in people. Sorry if I pronounced it wrong. He said of 
your people, and I quote, ``They are fighting for their most 
fundamental right to exist as an indigenous people who are an 
integral part of the landscape of the unique ecology of this 
region. We cannot condemn the Gwich'in as a people. We must 
respect their right for survival.''
    You have spoken eloquently to this. I do have some other 
questions, but doesn't it seem strange to all of us, to me it 
does anyway, that we are talking about you as--and by the way, 
thank you for your service in our military. But we are talking 
about changing the habitat and the way of life for these 
indigenous peoples to get $1 billion worth of resources, a lot 
of which is to address climate change. Can you just talk to the 
irony here or your feelings on it?
    Mr. Alexander. That's absolutely correct, Senator, and 
thank you for your words.
    It is absolutely astounding that we want to--you know, when 
I was in the Army we used to call it a self-licking ice cream 
cone. And this is really what this has become where we are 
trying to drill more oil, pump out more pollutants, to address 
climate change and the impact that it has. And that is just 
insanity to me. And that's insanity to the Gwich'in people. We 
don't understand that. And so, you know, perhaps my colleagues 
here can explain it, but I can't understand it.
    Senator Franken. Lieutenant Governor, you know that the 
impact of climate change on your state, that your state is 
warming twice as fast as the rest of the country.
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Franken. And this means coastal erosion and loss of 
sea ice and melting permafrost. I hear that part of the reason 
for drilling in this area, when there is going to be over 11 
million other acres available to drill, is to address 
mitigation for climate change. Drilling for oil in the last 
pristine Arctic ecosystem on the continent while climate change 
is having a disproportionate impact on the region seems, to me, 
kind of ironic.
    As you have made clear, Lieutenant Governor, climate change 
has deeply impacted your constituents. I think we need to curb 
emissions and provide support to communities to help them adapt 
to climate change, but not by drilling in the habitat of the 
food source for an indigenous people. Do you disagree that 
there is some irony here?
    The Chairman. Lieutenant Governor, the Senator's time is 
expired, but I will allow you an opportunity to answer the 
question because it is an important one.
    Mr. Mallott. I disagree. We need to continue to evolve our 
petroleum-based economy as we also seek to be responsive to our 
climate change reality. Nobody knows that better than we do. We 
live with it every single day.
    It will take decades for us to withdraw from reliance on a 
petroleum-based economy. And for us, in the meantime, to rely 
on sources other than our own raises national security issues. 
It raises economic issues. It raises issues that impact us in 
Alaska very directly.
    The resources that the development of the Coastal Plain can 
bring to Alaska will allow us to have fiscal resources to meet 
rapidly changing climate circumstances. Otherwise, we have no 
real ability to respond. The national government must 
ultimately also respond.
    I do not believe there is an irony when the ecosystem that 
we are discussing is already in place to allow the most 
minimal, going forward, impact on the Arctic Coastal Plain of 
any oil development. I do not think it is ironic----
    Senator Cantwell. Madam Chair? Madam Chair?
    I think we are going to have a vote, two votes at noon, and 
there are several of our colleagues who have been here. I would 
like them--I know our Lieutenant Governor here has been over 
time. I hope that we can get a short summation here----
    The Chairman. We----
    Senator Cantwell. ----so that we can move on.
    Mr. Mallott. Sure.
    I disagree that it is ironic. I think it is a national 
interest. It is in Alaska's interest. It is in the world's 
interest that we allow this kind of development to take place, 
that it has the most minimal impact that we can see and that it 
allows us to be responsive to a climate change future that we 
must address.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Lieutenant Governor.
    Senator Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    This hearing is in the context of the Republican tax and 
budget plan singling out this Committee to come up with $1 
billion of revenue savings over the next decade.
    The Committee has until November 13th to come up with this 
amount. So this hearing is all a piece to support the 
Republican budget and tax proposal that cuts $1.5 trillion from 
Medicare and Medicaid and imposes massive reductions in funds 
for education and affordable housing, among other things, all 
to benefit huge corporations and the wealthy. So we therefore 
should resist the urge to compartmentalize what we are doing in 
this Committee as disconnected from a larger picture. The 
larger picture being the Republican tax and budget plan.
    So here we are. The decades-long debate over the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge is a highly controversial issue that 
has come to represent a fight between protecting pristine 
ecosystems and continuing our reliance on fossil fuels. And we 
should not be considering whether to exploit national treasures 
like the Arctic Refuge to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
    Instead, we should be discussing how to raise royalties 
from companies already drilling and mining on public lands so 
that taxpayers get a fair deal, reduce overly generous revenue 
sharing payments from offshore oil drilling and limit the 
ability of companies to flare natural gas so that resources 
from public lands are not wasted.
    I want to ask Mr. Sheehan a question. Does the Trump 
Administration support drilling in ANWR?
    Mr. Sheehan. Yes, they do.
    Senator Hirono. Okay.
    Is that why there is an August 11 memo from U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Acting Director James Kurth instructing the agency's 
Alaska Regional Director to update a rule that had to do with 
exploratory drilling between 1984 and 1986 and lifting these 
calendar constraints so that more applications can be submitted 
to approve drilling? That is where we are heading, right? In 
spite of the fact that it is Congress that gets to make the 
ultimate decision as to whether or not drilling is appropriate 
in ANWR.
    Mr. Sheehan. Thank you, Senator.
    First of all, the document you referred to and those 
surrounding documents were not any part of a rule that's been 
publicly released yet, but I will say this. If in fact this 
body of Congress wants to contemplate the development of oil 
and gas in the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge, it should be done with the best science, the most 
current science available and that involves probably the most 
current level of exploration using the most modern 
technologies.
    That original research that was done, was done in the early 
1980s and that was----
    Senator Hirono. Mr. Sheehan, do you think this Committee 
can come up with all of that by November 13th?
    Mr. Sheehan. I don't believe that, in my opinion, this 
Committee has asked to have all that research work done. I 
believe that should the body of Congress pass it, we want to 
make a best-informed decision to our public of what and where 
and when that could look like and to industry who may be 
interested in pursuing bidding on that one.
    Senator Hirono. We agree with that. That is why I am really 
glad that Senator King raised some very specific questions to 
you which you could not answer.
    It really has to do with--you know what, Mr. Lieutenant 
Governor, you said that we should proceed in a way that has the 
most minimal impact. And, of course, that is the crux of the 
debate as to what kind of impact drilling in ANWR will have. 
There are people on one side of the debate that say this is 
going to have a terribly detrimental impact on the environment 
and, as so eloquently put by Mr. Alexander, that it would 
impact their way of life.
    By the way, Mr. Alexander, I'm really glad that you came 
and testified because I believe that as Native peoples you 
share certain common perspectives as the Native Hawaiians do 
and that is a very strong, spiritual, economic, if you want to 
economize it, connection to the land. I think it is really 
important to the Gwich'in Tribe, which covers a very large part 
of the area that we are talking about, as well in Canada. I am 
really grateful for your testimony.
    That is why the debate has continued because there has been 
a huge discussion as to how minimal the impact of drilling 
would be, and there are those who believe that it will not, 
indeed, be minimal.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
    Senator Sanders.
    Senator Sanders. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    Madam Chair, my guess is that historians in years to come 
will look back at hearings like this and they will ask, what 
were they thinking about? What world were they living in? Why 
didn't they see what was going on all around them?
    All over this planet today we are seeing nations, including 
our own, ravaged by the impact of climate change. And 
meanwhile, while climate change is doing horrendous damage to 
peoples all over the world, we have hearings like this that 
talk about more oil exploration, more dependency on fossil 
fuels when the evidence is overwhelming that this country 
should lead the world in transforming our energy system away 
from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energies.
    And it is especially surprising that in a beautiful state 
like Alaska, which has been hit so hard by climate change, that 
you are not leading the world, leading this country in telling 
us the damage that has been done and the need to move away from 
fossil fuel.
    Right now, according to NASA, the first six months of 2017 
were almost a full degree hotter than any year since records 
started being kept in 1880. This is unbelievable. The duration 
and strength of hurricanes--and I just came back from Puerto 
Rico--have increased by 50 percent. 2017 is already one of the 
worst wildfire seasons on record.
    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that 
the average global sea levels have already risen by about three 
millimeters annually since the early 1990s and coastal cities 
all over our country and the world are in danger of being 
flooded. And here we are talking about more dependency on 
fossil fuels. More destruction of the planet. What world are we 
living in? What are you going to say to your children and your 
grandchildren?
    Meanwhile, there is a revolution taking place in 
sustainable energy. We are seeing the price of solar and wind 
plummeting. We are seeing massive corporate investments, not in 
oil, not in gas, by the way, but in sustainable energy. The 
solar sector today employs more people than Apple, Google and 
Facebook combined.
    So I have a simple question. I do understand, Mr. Sheehan, 
that your boss, the President, told us during the campaign that 
climate change was a hoax. Right? It was a hoax. Briefly, Mr. 
Sheehan, is climate change a hoax or is it real?
    Mr. Sheehan. No, Senator Sanders, certainly I believe that 
climate change is real. I believe we can see it from areas from 
Alaska to many other areas.
    But what I do believe is that as we look at these 
alternative forms of energy that are coming online, and you 
don't have to look far around this country to see new wind 
energy and solar operations popping up all over the place, but 
they still represent a very small part of the energy in this 
country.
    Senator Sanders. That is right. That is right.
    But my question to you is why is the Trump Administration 
not recognizing that reality, investing heavily in trying to 
move us in that direction rather than encouraging more oil and 
gas exploration?
    Mr. Sheehan. I think they are encouraging those other 
energy sources but I think that they're also trying to be 
forward looking to say, what do we need ten years from now for 
oil in this country?
    Senator Sanders. You think that the Trump Administration is 
encouraging, is investing, is urging us forward in wind and 
solar? Is that what you are saying for the record?
    Mr. Sheehan. I haven't seen a back-stepping in those 
particular sorts of energy mechanisms, so----
    Senator Sanders. Really?
    Well then, I think you should examine what your 
Administration is doing.
    Let me ask the Lieutenant Governor, very briefly, that at a 
time when your state, perhaps--and it's a beautiful state. My 
God, it is the last natural wilderness that we have. Don't you 
think that Alaska should be leading our country in terms of 
transforming our energy system away from the products that have 
caused the problems that are impacting your state?
    Mr. Mallott. Absolutely. We feel it every single day. We 
know it.
    We have investment in alternative energy. We need to 
continue to do so. There were references to wind power. If you 
look at wind power and other alternative forms of energy, we 
are making those investments. We need to make more, but we also 
know that we cannot flip a switch, and that's not a pun, and 
turn off our reliance on----
    Senator Sanders. But we will never flip that switch as long 
we continue investing in oil and gas.
    Let me ask one last question, Madam Chair, if I may?
    Let me ask Mr. Alexander----
    The Chairman. Senator Sanders, you are out of time. We do 
have one more panel, and we do have votes coming up at noon.
    Senator Cantwell. Let him just finish. We went three 
minutes over on two of our colleagues over here. Let him just 
ask the question.
    The Chairman. If it is a quick question.
    Senator Sanders. It is a quick question.
    The Chairman. Quick question.
    Senator Sanders. I have just one, Mr. Alexander, to 
summarize briefly the impact that this drilling will have on 
his people's way of life.
    Mr. Alexander. Senator Sanders, we believe that drilling in 
``lizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit'' will devastate us as a 
people. And it will absolutely devastate us as a people because 
you're talking about 80 percent of the diet of the Gwich'in 
people being vadzaih, that Porcupine Caribou herd.
    And so, our connection to that is so strong that you're 
talking about just an absolute change in the way we live as 
people and, you know, what about the next generation? Will they 
ever even have the opportunity to learn how to hunt caribou and 
to respect it? I don't know. And I'm hoping that you here today 
will protect that.
    Senator Sanders. Good. Thank you very much.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Sanders.
    Senator Manchin.
    Senator Manchin. Madam Chairman, thank you.
    I want to thank all of you for being here and you can see 
this is quite divisive, if you will, but the bottom line is we 
live in the real world. We do not live in a fantasy world and 
we cannot pick and choose what we would rather have. Really, we 
are a country that depends on almost 20 billion barrels of oil 
a day. Those are the facts. And we imported oil from 70 
countries last year. That is a fact.
    I come from the State of West Virginia and it is a state 
that believes, really, in an all-in energy policy. It never 
hesitated once when this country needed the coal that made the 
steel that built the guns and ships that did everything for 
this country. You know, our people work and work hard. They 
will continue to.
    Governor Walker, I thank you for being here. Lieutenant 
Governor Mallott, I want you to know you are not the only 
Democrat here that believes in an all-in energy policy and 
supports ANWR and doing it in a responsible way.
    I also know that I voted against the budget because I 
thought the budget was just a gimmick to get to a budget 
reconciliation which took all of us out of the process. 
Democrats cannot participate, have not participated in the 
budget process right now for overall tax reform which the 
country needs.
    But with that being said, I also realize that there is 
going to be more fossil used in the world than ever before. All 
we can do is find different technologies and different 
abilities to use it until we find a technology or a new 
industry that will provide a cleaner energy, if it is going to 
be fusion or some other form, in the near future.
    But right now, the world is using more coal and we are 
using more oil. I look at the dependency that we have, and when 
you start looking at the security of our nation, the less 
dependent that we are on foreign oil, the better we are 
strategically and the stronger we are as a nation.
    I also noticed that Point Thomson, for the last three 
years, the Coastal Plain has already been exporting and is in 
development. I think that is being done in an environmentally 
sound way, a balance between the environment and the economy up 
there. It is within the same ecosystem as 1002.
    I understand, Mr. Alexander, and everyone, depending on 
what side you are on, there has to be a balance here. I don't 
know why we cannot find that balance, why it is always either 
one side or the other, why we are divided as a nation, why we 
are divided as a people. It always comes down to what side are 
you on? I have had people ask me, so, what are your politics? I 
said, you ought to ask what is my purpose of being in the 
process, the political process. You should care less whether we 
are Democrats or Republicans.
    I want a country that is strong, and a country can only be 
strong if we are energy independent. That is a fact of life. 
And if you want to set the technology standards of the rest of 
the world, you better develop them right here.
    For the last eight years under the previous Administration, 
we never developed or basically spent anything on research 
trying to find better ways of using coal and oil and natural 
gas in a much cleaner way. With that being said, people say 
they want all renewables. I said, fine. Tell me what five hours 
of the day you want your energy. Tell me what five hours of the 
day you want your refrigerator or your heat or your air 
conditioner to work because that is really what you are going 
to get. And I think, Mr. Sheehan, you related to that.
    But if you could briefly, Mr. Mallott, speak on--do you 
believe there is a balance, I mean, I don't think that you all 
will be representing the great State of Alaska thinking you are 
encroaching and changing the lives of your citizens there. Or 
have you just basically thrown caution to the wind?
    Mr. Mallott. We need balance.
    First let me say very quickly, I'm a Tlingit Indian. And 
when people ask me to be brief, I'm doing my damnedest.
    [Laughter.]
    But we need balance. We need to build a future in which 
renewable energy sustains our children. It is an absolute high 
priority that Alaska recognizes its responsibility for and 
will, at every juncture possible, take----
    Senator Manchin. Is Alaska developing clean energy with 
renewables the way you all are----
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Manchin. ----the way you are extracting----
    Mr. Mallott. Yes.
    Senator Manchin. ----basically, the resources of----
    Mr. Mallott. We have a long way to go.
    Senator Manchin. Okay.
    Mr. Mallott. We have invested and continue to invest in 
alternative energy as a high priority.
    Senator Manchin. Mr. Alexander, is there a balance to be 
found here where we can preserve the way of life of your 
wonderful people but also have energy independence, if we can, 
and use the resources that we have? Do you think that is 
possible?
    Mr. Alexander. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Manchin. Have you made overtures toward that, that 
you are trying to find the balance and it has been rejected?
    Mr. Alexander. Senator, what I would say is this, is why is 
the balance being put on the back of my people?
    Senator Manchin. Okay. I am just saying----
    Mr. Alexander. And I'm answering your question, Senator----
    Senator Manchin. Sure.
    Mr. Alexander. ----why is the balance being put on the back 
of my people? Because if you take a look at the North Slope 
there is plenty of other places to drill as has been mentioned 
earlier, plenty of other places. So that's the balance. You 
have NPR-A you can drill in. We don't need to drill in the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
    Senator Manchin. Can I ask a real quick question then, for 
the Lieutenant Governor there? Have you all looked at different 
areas to support trying to find that balance but protecting 
their rights?
    Mr. Mallott. Absolutely.
    And with a pipeline, the reality being three-quarters empty 
with all of the existing areas of exploration and development 
and more coming on with recent discoveries, we still are a long 
way from being responsive to current national energy needs and 
we need to continue to find the ability to achieve national 
security, safety in energy, and we need the access to the 1002 
Coastal Plain in order to achieve that.
    Senator Manchin. Let me just say that my time is up and 
thank you, Madam Chairman.
    Those of us who come from extraction states have done the 
heavy lifting. West Virginia has been heavy lifting for a long, 
long time and we continue. Our way of life, also, has been 
infringed upon. We think we can do things better but also find 
a balance. And all we are asking for is some tolerance here. We 
try to find alternatives so that we can respect your people and 
your way of life and also balance the energy that we need to 
keep this country strong. I think that is a responsibility.
    There is nobody in West Virginia that wants to drink dirty 
water or breathe dirty air, the same as Alaska.
    So if anyone thinks from the public leaders, and all of you 
are supporting doing more, as far as an energy resource, energy 
production in the most scientific way or the most advanced way 
that you possibly can.
    I know the footprints as far as horizontal drilling. We 
have reduced the footprint in West Virginia. We have been 
blessed with a lot of shale gas, and it is unbelievable. We 
know we can do it much better, much cleaner, much more 
environmentally friendly.
    I would urge all of you to try to find that pathway 
forward, try to find that balance.
    Thank you, Madam Chairman.
    The Chairman. Senator Manchin, thank you.
    I appreciate the focus on balance. That is what we try to 
do around here.
    I spent a lot of time last night reading everyone's written 
testimony, and I was struck by a comment that you had included, 
Lieutenant Governor, in saying just these words: ``We have 
achieved this balance. It is time to permit the exploration and 
development. The state has demonstrated that wildlife and 
environmental protection can be achieved through 50 years of 
development and progress on the North Slope.''
    I think it is important to remember that what we are 
seeking to do in the 1002 is not something that has not been 
done in the North Slope. We have 40 years plus of a track 
record up there, 40 years of ensuring that the caribou continue 
to move through, that the polar bear are protected, that the 
snow geese are protected, that the mitigation that we talk 
about has been addressed.
    At the same time we have been leading, not only the country 
but the world, when it comes to our innovation and our 
pioneering with microgrids. I talk about it a lot here in this 
Committee.
    So much to be proud of there from Alaska's perspective, and 
I know that each of you, as you have provided testimony here 
today, have contributed to this conversation in a very 
important and a substantive way.
    Our votes have started. We have two of them.
    It would be my intention to thank this panel. Thank you for 
your time. This is a long time to be sitting and fielding 
questions, so we appreciate that.
    We will take a recess, and it is my intention that we will 
resume the hearing at 12:30 with the second panel.
    Again, thank you to each of you.
    The rest can all take a stretch break, and we will be back 
at 12:30.
    [RECESS]
    The Chairman. Welcome back, everyone. I am sorry for the 
extra ten-minute delay, but we have finished at least this 
tranche of voting and hopefully we will have an opportunity to 
get through this last panel with an opportunity for questions 
and conclude the hearing before we have another round of votes. 
That is the hope here.
    This second panel is perhaps more of our technical panel. 
We have several witnesses present to help answer questions 
about modern development on the North Slope and what it might 
look like in the future.
    Joining us today is Mr. Aaron Schutt. Aaron is the 
President and CEO of Doyon, Limited. Thank you for being here. 
You also brought your son with you which is a great educational 
opportunity for him, and we appreciate you both being here.
    Lois Epstein is with us. Lois has been before the Committee 
before. We welcome her back. She is the Arctic Program Director 
for the Wilderness Society.
    Following Ms. Epstein, we will have Mr. Richard Glenn, also 
a frequent flyer here to the Energy Committee. He is the 
Executive Vice President for Land and Natural Resources with 
the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. It is good to have you 
back, Richard.
    Pat Pourchot is known to many Alaskans and many here in 
Washington, DC. He is the former Special Assistant for Alaska 
Affairs at the Department of the Interior during the previous 
Administration. Welcome back, Pat.
    Last on our panel is Dr. Matthew Cronin. He is a biologist. 
He is a former research professor at the University of Alaska, 
Fairbanks. Some of us know him as ``the caribou man,'' but 
certainly one that is well-versed in the biology of many of 
these issues that we have been discussing.
    So thank you all for traveling the distance to be here 
today. Thank you, not only for your contributions for the 
hearing, but also for the good work that you do in your 
respective areas.
    Aaron, if you would like to lead the panel off with your 
comments. Again, please try to stick to five minutes if you 
can. Your full statements will be incorporated as part of the 
record, and then we will have an opportunity for questions.
    Welcome.

           STATEMENT OF AARON SCHUTT, PRESIDENT AND 
            CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DOYON, LIMITED

    Mr. Schutt. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, members of the 
Committee. Do'eent'aa? It's a very great opportunity to be here 
to testify today.
    I am the President and Chief Executive Officer of Doyon, 
Limited. I am Koyukon Athabascan, a Tanana Tribal Member, and a 
Doyon shareholder.
    Doyon is one of the 13 Native Regional Corporations 
established by Congress under the terms of the Alaska Native 
Claims Settlement Act and the southern portion of the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge lies within our region. Doyon supports 
the opening of the ANWR Coastal Plain to oil and gas 
development if it can be shown to be consistent with the 
protection of the Porcupine Caribou herd.
    The Gwich'in people, many of whom are Doyon shareholders, 
some here today, rely on that herd for subsistence and cultural 
survival. And we encourage the United States Government to 
offer the Gwich'in a role in co-management of the Porcupine 
Caribou herd, whether or not it opens ANWR to oil and gas 
development.
    Today, I want to focus my testimony on one of our wholly 
owned subsidiaries that operates in the oil and gas industry, 
it's Doyon Drilling. We operate on the North Slope with eight 
of the most unique and advanced rigs in the industry, and 
they're designed especially for the Arctic. Doyon Drilling has 
led the industry in innovation and adoption of new technology 
over its 40 years of existence. We're proud of that leadership 
role as it fits within our corporate value of a commitment to 
employee safety and sound environmental practices.
    When Congress last debated opening ANWR to oil and gas 
development in 2005, supporters made many arguments about the 
use of new technology and how it would minimize the impact on 
ANWR. Since then, a lot of these claims have borne out in the 
industry, and we're going to share some of them today.
    A couple are directional, extended reach, multi-lateral 
drilling techniques that have been developed and perfected in 
that timeframe. Those techniques allow wells to be drilled in 
all directions from a well pad, kind of like spokes on a 
bicycle wheel.
    Directional drilling has been around since the 1970s but at 
that time it did not allow the reach that we can now. And so, 
you could drill a couple square miles around a pad. And I've 
got a figure here that's been shown before in the hearing 
today.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
        
    You can see a couple, three square miles using technology 
from the 1970s. And fast forward to the one on the far right, a 
12-acre pad where a drill rig can reach out and cover 125 
square miles. That means that you can space pads in modern 
development up to 10 miles apart and that there's little to no 
surface impact between those pads. That's a fairly dramatic 
shift in technology in that time period.
    And I'd like to say that the impact of those technological 
changes are not theoretical. I've got another graphic coming up 
here.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
        
    Doyon's Rig 142 just recently completed a penta-lateral 
well in the Kuparuk field on Alaska's North Slope. That's five 
production wells drilled from a single surface wellbore. Each 
of those penta-lateral wells is now producing from different 
reservoir sands through three different fault blocks. The total 
drill length of the five wells is over 39,000 feet; 28,000 feet 
of that, I understand, is in the production zone.
    If Doyon's client had developed these same resources 20 
years ago, it likely would have required probably three drill 
pads and multiple wells on each of those pads to access the 
same resources we were able to access from a single surface 
location.
    Doyon is currently building an extended reach drilling 
rig--also referenced earlier in the hearing, it's Rig 26--that 
will be able to reach out even further. That's the 35,000 
horizontal feet that was mentioned by several people earlier 
today. And that's the capability that allows us to reach out 
for the full 125 square miles from a single surface well pad.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
       
    For perspective of those here in the room, Rig 26 will be 
able to drill from here on Capitol Hill and hit a target the 
size of certainly this room at the National Harbor Resort and 
Convention Center on the Potomac River that's six and a half 
miles away.
    Rig 26 is being developed to allow our client to develop 
known, but currently untapped, oil resources from existing 
surface infrastructure. In other words, our client won't have 
to build new pads, roads, or pipelines on the surface to 
produce known oil reserves.
    And the changes in the technology have allowed smaller well 
pads on the North Slope and they're up to 70 percent smaller 
and there are 70 to 80 percent fewer pads since Prudhoe Bay was 
developed in the 1970s.
    And so, what that looks like is a 19,000-acre footprint 
goes down to just a few hundred acres to develop the Alpine 
Field on the Western side.
    Finally, this has also been referenced. The impact of 
exploration on the environment is very minimal. The difference 
between exploration and production, you can see here, a 
location in the NPR-A with our Rig 141. And then we've got the 
summer version of the same location. Senator Sullivan mentioned 
this before where there's almost no lasting surface impact from 
exploration.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
       
    I wanted to close my testimony here by saying how important 
oil and gas is to the economy of the state and to our company. 
We obviously have a large presence in the Alaska oil and gas 
economy. It was developed because it was the available economy 
to us as an ANCSA corporation in the 1970s with the development 
of Prudhoe Bay.
    We're very proud that we employ hundreds of our Alaska 
Native shareholders and we do it in an environmentally safe way 
and the protection of our employees is paramount, but to also 
provide income to our shareholders. A single drill rig, for 
example, could have a salary impact of $4 million for our 
Alaska Native shareholders per year on those rigs. Those 
numbers are not theoretical either. That's the reality we've 
had for many years times the number of rigs we have working.
    So in short, Madam Chairwoman, we're very proud to be here 
today. We're supportive of opening ANWR, but only if we can 
assure ourselves of the protection of the Porcupine Caribou 
herd, as I mentioned earlier in my testimony.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Schutt follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
    
    The Chairman. Mr. Schutt, thank you very much, and we 
appreciate the visuals as well.
    Let's next go to Ms. Epstein. Welcome.

   STATEMENT OF LOIS N. EPSTEIN, ENGINEER AND ARCTIC PROGRAM 
                DIRECTOR, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

    Ms. Epstein. Thank you very much, Chairman Murkowski and 
also, though she's not here, to Ranking Member Cantwell, 
Senator King and other members of the Committee, for inviting 
me to testify at this important hearing on a critical, national 
public lands issue.
    My name is Lois Epstein, and I am the Arctic Program 
Director for The Wilderness Society and my home is in 
Anchorage. Our organization's scientists began working in this 
region of the Arctic in the 1930s and, as an Alaska-licensed 
engineer, I am proud to be part of that legacy.
    The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a vast wilderness 
landscape of tundra plains, boreal forests, dramatic mountain 
peaks, and coastal lagoons along the nation's wildest northern 
edge. There is no other place like it in America.
    For thousands of years the area has been home to Gwich'in 
and Inupiat communities and has sustained them. It provides 
vital habitat for more than 45 species of mammals including one 
of Alaska's largest caribou herds, polar and grizzly bears, 
wolves, Dall sheep and over 160 species of birds who migrate 
from the Refuge to breed there from all 50 states.
    The Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of our nation's 
National Wildlife Refuge System. The 1.5-million-acre Coastal 
Plain is widely recognized as the biological heart of the 
Refuge. The Coastal Plain is as important to our nation's 
natural heritage as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon where we 
don't choose to drill.
    Now, contrast this pristine wild place with oil and gas 
exploration and production which is complicated and messy and a 
lot has not changed over the years to make it less so. Even the 
most well-financed operators have blowouts and spills.
    Just this year BP had a production well blowout due to 
thawing permafrost, and international well kill specialists had 
to fly in to prevent a safety disaster. This week the state is 
looking at all wells with similar designs because they are 
concerned for the potential for additional blowouts.
    In 2012, Rexall had an exploratory well blowout on the 
North Slope that spewed roughly 42,000 gallons of drilling 
muds. It took a month to plug that well because frigid 
temperatures prevented work on many days.
    According to the state's spill database which I looked at 
this week, there have been 121 crude oil spills on the North 
Slope during the past five years, or approximately two per 
month. A 2010 state study showed almost five spills each year 
on the North Slope over a thousand gallons, and I think it's 
important to recognize they're not all small spills.
    Oil development infrastructure would sprawl over vast parts 
of the Coastal Plain and not be confined to 2,000 acres, as 
some have said. The 2,000-acre calculation does not include 
roads, gravel mines or pipelines, except for the limited places 
where their support posts touch the ground.
    There also would be year-round air pollution and noise from 
generators, trucks, aircraft and processing facilities, long-
distance pipelines and gravel roads that could deter some 
caribou from crossing and cost them energy and wastes from 
drilling operations and living quarters that require disposal.
    Directional or extended reach drilling, which is not a new 
technology, will have these same impacts. Directional drilling 
reduces only one concern and that is pad size. Roads and 
airstrips are still needed, pipelines are still required and 
pollution, industrial noise, and toxic spills are still 
inevitable.
    Because of higher costs due to longer wells, directional 
drilling may or may not be used by industry for exploratory 
drilling. As discussed at the May 10, 2011, hearing in this 
Committee, oil companies actually prefer not to use directional 
drilling for exploratory wells because doing so provides less 
technical information about subsurface conditions.
    Directional drilling rhetoric is, in some respects, a 
Trojan horse for access to the entire Arctic Refuge Coastal 
Plain for oil production. Neither the 2,000-acre provision nor 
directional drilling would prevent the entire Coastal Plain 
from becoming industrialized.
    And Arctic Refuge drilling is not needed. Trans-Alaska oil 
pipeline flow is up six percent during the past three years and 
the Alaska Department of Natural Resources expects the 
pipeline's throughput to continue increasing through the late 
2020s. And I have a figure--Figure 2 in my testimony shows 
that.
    Significant new discoveries not on federally-protected 
lands, including in the National Petroleum Reserve, will 
increase production and this new technology that we've heard 
about is also very useful in existing oil fields to increase 
production.
    Notably, drilling in the Arctic Refuge is not necessary to 
ensure that the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline remains viable for 
decades.
    The most recent CBO report on Arctic Refuge leasing was 
issued with limited documentation in February 2012. The report 
estimates $5 billion in bonus bids for Coastal Plain leases 
split between the state and federal governments. Crude oil 
prices were approximately twice as high in 2012 as they are 
now, making Arctic Refuge drilling significantly less 
attractive today and for the foreseeable future. It is highly 
unlikely revenue and bonus bids on Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain 
leases will come anywhere close to CBO's or other's estimates. 
Since 2000, the average North Slope onshore bid has been just 
$34 an acre.
    In summary, conclusion of Arctic--inclusion of the Arctic 
Refuge in the budget is less about meeting revenue targets and 
more about approving a controversial, problematic measure to 
open the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain to oil development without 
the possibility of a filibuster. It would be a black mark for 
Alaska and this Congress with future generations to 
industrialize and essentially destroy such a unique place.
    Thank you for this opportunity to discuss this unique and 
important region. I am happy to answer your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Epstein follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Epstein.
    Mr. Glenn, welcome.

  STATEMENT OF RICHARD K. GLENN, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT FOR 
 LANDS AND NATURAL RESOURCES, ARCTIC SLOPE REGIONAL CORPORATION

    Mr. Glenn. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Committee members. 
I'm happy to see that the other half of the Arctic Coalition of 
America is here. So thank you for staying for the hearing, 
Senator King.
    My name is Richard Glenn. I'm the Vice President of Lands 
for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC). It's an 
Alaska Native Corporation created by Congress in 1971. It's 
headquartered on the North Slope and it includes villages such 
that extend from the west to the east in the Arctic region of 
Alaska from Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright, Atqasuk, 
Utqiagvik, Nuiqsut, Kaktovik, and Anaktuvuk Pass. North Slope 
village residents there have always depended upon subsistence 
resources from the land, the rivers, and the ocean.
    I'm a tribal member. Mr. Schutt is a tribal member. Matthew 
Rexford who spoke before me is a tribal member. Our Lieutenant 
Governor is a tribal member, and I was particularly stung by 
the Ranking Member's comments that said she didn't see tribal 
members. Maybe she just didn't find enough tribal members that 
agree with her position. I hope that you hear from all of the 
tribal members of the State of Alaska, the majority of whom 
support safe, responsible exploration and development in ANWR.
    I'm also not here to debate the sacredness of the land on 
either side of the Brooks Range, the north or the south. For 
us, all the lands are sacred. They contain the bones of our 
ancestors. And I'm not talking about ancient people. I'm 
talking about people in living memory. We didn't start burying 
our dead until around the 1920s. So my great grandparents were 
the first generation of folks who were buried right after the 
flu epidemics swept through the region. Before those days the 
tradition was to leave the residence, however temporary it was, 
where the person died. So ancient sod houses, up until the 
early 1900s carry the bones of our people. And some of my 
ancestors' bones, my grandmother's, my grandfather's 
grandmother, are in Prudhoe Bay. Others are scattered along the 
Coastal Plain from the Canadian border to Point Hope.
    Our people are named after the places. The places are named 
after the people. Some of it is state land, some of it is 
federal land, some of it is native-owned land, but it's all 
equally sacred.
    Yet, we depend on that land for development. We depend upon 
that land for food. And I don't wish to trivialize anyone's 
dependence on the resources because ours is equally as 
important.
    ASRC, as a corporation, owns a piece of this heritage, 
92,000 acres of land on the Coastal Plain of ANWR, along with 
Matthew Rexford's Village Corporation, the Kaktovik Inupiat 
Corporation. These lands hold resource potential for oil and 
gas development.
    I'm a geologist by training. I help drill and develop 
natural resources on the North Slope. I know the practices 
related to drilling, and I've seen the evolution over the past 
50 years and 30 or so years of my own professional life from 
really simple drilling, cementing, and production to the ornate 
and efficient diagrams that you've seen here on the posters 
that Mr. Schutt presented so effectively. The reduced footprint 
is real. Hundreds of square miles drained by tens of acres of 
development.
    Senator King asked how many wells are we talking about? How 
much surface impact? We have real world answers to those 
questions. They're here at the table. They're here in the 
audience.
    In the west end of today's exploration on the Colville 
River Delta and just to the west, where the Native folks from 
another village 100 miles from Kaktovik also own some resource 
potential. Five hundred wells have been drilled down to depths 
around 8-9,000 feet and radiating outward as far as five or six 
miles.
    On these 500 wells, production wells, injector wells, 
they're done from four basic, central facilities for drilling, 
covering maybe 300 acres of land. So now we're talking real 
world examples, real world numbers of wells for at its peak 
hundreds of thousands of barrels per day in production. That's 
the kind of development that we envision moving into the 
Coastal Plain of ANWR.
    This is a cartoon. This diagram shows dramatic 
exaggerations. If you'd follow the scale of this map, the dots 
themselves are two miles across each. The well symbols 
themselves are three miles high. The pipelines, if they're 
shown, as they've shown on this map, that pipeline, it would be 
a quarter mile wide. This is not realistic. If you want to see 
realistic development, look at realistic numbers, go to the 
areas of modern exploration and development.
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
   
   And yet, one thing we learned in production is production 
declines. It starts at a peak and begins a decline. And the 
lion in the room on Alaska production is Prudhoe Bay. The 
Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River oil fields were super giant oil 
fields and we're on the shoulders of their decline and the new 
discoveries, as significant as they are and as thankful as I am 
that they have been discovered, they can't match the slope of 
the decline. They only change its slope. It's still a decline.
    Meanwhile, 92,000 acres and the million or so acres of the 
Coastal Plain of ANWR, set aside just for its energy potential, 
lies fallow and we can't even test their potential unless 
Congress acts.
    We think that the Alaska Native landowners of Kaktovik and 
the folks from the Arctic Slope region cannot realize their 
right to economic self-determination if Congress fails to lift 
the prohibition on safe and responsible exploration and 
development of the Coastal Plain. So Congress needs to act.
    My organization was an agreement made between Congress and 
the tribes of Alaska. We didn't ask for it. In fact, we fought 
against it, but we're living with the results. And so, in our 
region we have a braided relationship of municipalities, 
tribes, and ANCSA corporations. We're all welded together, 
braided together, like a rope. So you can't separate tribe from 
corporation and you can't separate our mother's languages from 
the language of discourse we're using here today. I could speak 
in the language of my mother and it would be gibberish to you 
and, frankly, disrespectful to everybody.
    The only indigenous people that should be listened to the 
loudest are the folks from Kaktovik. And today's hearing to me 
shows there's a lack of attention paid to them. Listen to what 
they're saying. They need an economy. They need development in 
their area. They want to have the freedom to do what the rest 
of the country seemingly takes for granted. We're talking about 
reliable power and water and schools and the ability to use 
sanitation that keeps their kids healthy. I strongly recommend 
that the Committee look at the testimony of the folks from the 
village of Kaktovik.
    If you look at the tribal folks from throughout Alaska, we 
don't agree 100 percent, but the majority do agree. We believe 
that wildlife and development can coexist. They already do 
today. In fact, we're collaring caribou that are calving in the 
area of current development around Prudhoe Bay and the Kuparuk 
River. This is the Central Arctic Caribou herd.
    The Alaska Fish and Game, U.S. BLM, and North Slope Borough 
Wildlife biologists are collaring caribou that are calving in 
the area of infrastructure and then migrating South to Arctic 
Village to be hunted by our Gwich'in neighbors to the south. So 
we already are hunting caribou who are calving in areas of 
development. I've had the honor of taking some of you on tours 
of North Slope development. We see caribou there underneath 
pipelines, sometimes underneath facilities like man camps and 
hotels. And when they're trying to get away from summer 
mosquitos, caribou will go anywhere. They'll be laying down 
right on the tundra next to the buses that are taking the 
codels through the area. The caribou aren't afraid.
    The Chairman. Richard, we are going to have to ask you to 
wrap up.
    Mr. Glenn. The caribou aren't afraid because they're not 
being hunted. They're not being hunted there. So the wildlife 
and infrastructure can coexist.
    We speak in favor of a safe and expeditious opening of the 
1002 Area. It will be good for our region, our state, and our 
country.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Glenn follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Thank you, and hopefully we will have an 
opportunity to ask more so that you can continue.
    Pat--Mr. Pourchot, welcome.

  STATEMENT OF PAT POURCHOT, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE 
    SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR FOR ALASKA AFFAIRS, ANCHORAGE

    Mr. Pourchot. Chairman Murkowski, Members of the Committee, 
thank you for the privilege to testify today on the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge.
    Today I am testifying as a retired public servant and a 
private citizen. My past ``lives'' over 45 years in Alaska have 
included serving in the Alaska State Legislature, as 
Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, 
work for the Alaska Federation of Natives and Audubon Alaska, 
and most recently, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the 
Interior for Alaska Affairs. I would confess from the onset 
that I have worked for politicians and organizations that have 
favored drilling in the Arctic Refuge and for those that have 
opposed exploration and development. Since my participation as 
a Congressional staffer in the passage of the Alaska National 
Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA, 40 years ago, I 
have witnessed the decades of debate on the issue of permitting 
oil and gas leasing and development in the Refuge.
    As an Alaskan, I appreciate the economic benefits that 
might accrue from oil development in the Refuge. But I have 
come to the conclusion that the last piece of America's Arctic 
is more appropriately left as wilderness as a far more valuable 
legacy for future generations.
    I have had the opportunity to hike the mountains and float 
wild rivers in the Refuge, to observe herds of caribou on the 
Coastal Plain, witness dozens of polar bear on the Beaufort Sea 
coast and fly over thousands of snow geese gathering on the 
Coastal Plain of the Refuge. There can be no denying that the 
Arctic Refuge is one of the most special and spectacular places 
on the planet.
    America's Arctic Coastal Plain stretches over 600 miles 
from the Canadian border westward to the Chukchi Sea. Most of 
this area is available for oil and gas development. In the 
Central Arctic, oil development on state lands surrounding 
Prudhoe Bay sprawls for over 100 miles along the Beaufort Sea 
coast. Further west, leasing and development are proceeding in 
the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. And now 
it is proposed to explore and develop the last remaining part 
of the Arctic Coastal Plain, our national heritage.
    Some argue that the 1.5 million acres of Coastal Plain 
proposed for development in the Refuge represents only a small 
fraction of the Refuge and development would not significantly 
impact the overall Refuge, but the narrow Coastal Plain is the 
biological and ecological ``heart'' of the Refuge. The Coastal 
Plain is an integral component of the Refuge's ecosystem and 
provides key habitat for calving and migrating caribou, 
waterfowl, nesting shorebirds, and denning sites for polar 
bear.
    The resources report called for in section 1002 of ANILCA, 
issued in 1987, found that the ``1002 Area is the most 
biologically productive part of the Arctic Refuge for wildlife 
and is the center of wildlife activity.''
    And why are we proposing to develop the last remaining part 
of the Arctic Coastal Plain? Are we at war and need more oil 
for our nation's security? Have we run out of oil, gas, and 
gasoline for our homes and cars? Do we really think that 
leasing revenues will significantly help our federal and state 
budgets? The answer is clearly no, to all these questions. And 
the answer should be no to the question of allowing oil and gas 
development in the Refuge.
    I was greatly moved by the documentary, ``The National 
Parks: America's Best Idea.'' In the late 1950s a dedicated 
group of Fairbanks residents, including the Fairbanks Garden 
Club, had a ``best idea'' to protect wild public lands spanning 
the Brooks Range in the northeast corner of Alaska. In 1960 the 
nine-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Range was created 
under a land order by Secretary of the Interior Seaton for the 
purpose of ``preserving unique wildlife, wilderness, and 
recreational values.'' This ``great idea'' was renewed in 1980 
with the passage of ANILCA in which the Range was expanded and 
renamed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Its purposes were 
laid out in statute ``to conserve fish and wildlife populations 
and habitats in their natural diversity.''
    Ken Burns' documentary vividly demonstrates how the heroes 
of our nation's history are those who had the foresight to 
protect and defend America's cultural and natural treasures for 
the benefit and enjoyment of future generations. Those folks of 
Fairbanks helped protect something of preeminent value to the 
nation, a generation ago, for those of us today. Conversely, 
history and our children will not honor those that would deface 
one of America's most treasured landscapes. The Arctic Refuge 
should be the very last place we allow oil development.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pourchot follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Thank you, Pat.
    Dr. Cronin, welcome to the Committee.

   STATEMENT OF DR. MATTHEW A. CRONIN, BIOLOGIST AND FORMER 
   RESEARCH PROFESSOR, ANIMAL GENETICS, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA 
                           FAIRBANKS

    Dr. Cronin. Thank you, Senator Murkowski, Senator King and 
Committee for allowing me to testify. I'm Matt Cronin, and I'm 
a biologist. And today I'll speak mostly about caribou and oil 
fields and the science.
    The science is large. The literature on the science is very 
large, and I'll provide a brief summary here orally and in my 
written testimony there's many citations to scientific papers.
    This summer I was lucky enough to watch Senator King at the 
symposium on the impacts of an ice diminishing Arctic. I 
watched it online. Senator Murkowski, you gave comments at the 
symposium. And Senator King said something very insightful to 
me as a scientist. He said, ``We can't make good policy without 
good data.'' And then he said, ``Give us the science in a way 
we can understand it and absorb,'' and that nothing could be 
more important. So I understand that as non-scientists you need 
scientists to tell you things in a way you can understand. 
There's two problems. One is the science. The literature is 
very large. And the other is separating the actual data and 
science from interpretation. And that's our job as scientists 
is to clearly differentiate those.
    I feel it's my duty to inform all of Congress and all the 
American people of the science and then policy will come from 
that. Science doesn't make policy, it informs policy. And that 
was a major point of Senator King's comments at that symposium 
that I really appreciated.
    With regard to caribou in the oil fields, there's many 
references in my written testimony and within the references, 
many references.
    I'll hit on a few key points. First, there is impacts to 
individuals and then there's impacts to populations, an 
important concept with regard to the North Slope caribou herds. 
Herds are not the same as populations, as we typically speak 
about them in biology. Herds you define by calving areas. The 
population, all four North Slope herds, to some extent, are the 
same population. There's immigration between them. There's 
overlap on winter ranges. So the herd censuses are good in 
terms of quantifying the numbers of animals calving in the 
area, but the population is much more dynamic and affected by 
many factors.
    The studies have shown some level of displacement of 
calving cows from roads, but it's not unequivocal. In the case 
of those studies, 44 percent of the calves observed were within 
the first four kilometers of the roads which was the area 
claimed to be displacement. And then a replicate study showed 
most of the calves, the higher density, was within the first 
kilometer. The point is the literature is not clear cut. Calves 
don't always avoid oil field infrastructure, the cows having 
the calves. In the summer, the caribou use the oil fields quite 
extensively, as Mr. Glenn said. They go up on the pads and 
under pipelines for insect relief. The caribou herds themselves 
are quite dynamic. If you look at the charts in my written 
testimony which are the graphs of the populations, the Central 
Arctic, the Porcupine, Teshekpuk, and Western Arctic herds, 
you'll see dramatic variation over time. And natural 
populations in general, and caribou in particular, have very 
large population fluctuations naturally due to many things, 
winter conditions, predation, and immigration and emigration, 
as I mentioned.
    So the biology is complex and the literature is large. The 
Alaska Department of Fish and Game stated in a newsletter last 
year, ``The impact of oil infrastructure on the Central Arctic 
herd is also being considered in a recent decline, but is not 
thought to be contributing to the decline since the herd grew 
substantially during peak oil development.''
    Several of the papers that I co-authored address this point 
up through the early 2000s and it's important to look at the 
original literature and the references therein.
    I believe that the status of caribou in the North Slope oil 
fields has been good. They continue to use the oil field areas 
as habitat. The herd has grown substantially since the oil 
fields were developed.
    As the oil fields were developed, new technologies and 
insights resulted in the much smaller area of development and 
mitigation measures such as elevating pipelines, separating 
pipelines from roads, have been implemented that have helped a 
lot with passage through the oil fields.
    I think oil and gas development in the 1002 Area can be 
done with limited impacts by using proven mitigation measures. 
I believe it can be done with minimum impacts to caribou as 
long as mitigation measures are implemented.
    One, of course, because calving is a main concern, is very 
simple. You simply limit activities during the calving period. 
You limit traffic. You limit aircraft. You limit noise and you 
get local knowledge to help you manage in the local area.
    I've also done research on polar bears and other Arctic 
animals that I'd be happy to provide information if anyone is 
interested. And feel free to ask questions.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Cronin follows:]
    
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    The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Cronin.
    Thank you to each of you for your testimony here this 
afternoon. We will now have an opportunity for some questions.
    It was stated by my Ranking Member at the outset of the 
Committee that in her view things have not changed, not much 
has changed. And you know, I think some of the arguments 
against ANWR, that is true. Those arguments are still the same 
that many of us recall from a long time ago.
    But what I have heard today is a recognition that we really 
have seen change in the seven years since this Committee has 
last considered the prospect for the 1002 Area. The technology, 
as Mr. Schutt outlined, has changed considerably.
    But I also think that the data, the science, the research 
that has been collected over the 40-some-odd years that we have 
been operating up North can better inform us. And you mentioned 
mitigation, Dr. Cronin, you mentioned those technologies. Mr. 
Glenn, you speak of the caribou and the fact that the caribou 
are around the camps. They are on the roads. They are not 
deterred by manmade activities. Now we recognize that that is 
not while they are calving. That is clearly a more sensitive 
time.
    But I would like a little more discussion here, just in 
terms of how we are utilizing the science that we have 
collected to be better stewards of the wildlife, the infrared 
that is being used to detect polar bears in a den and how we 
are avoiding contact or disturbance and again, some of the 
other mitigation measures.
    The proposal was made that perhaps there might be some form 
of co-management of caribou if we are to move forward with the 
1002 Area. I would like to open up that discussion, if I may. 
Let's start off with you, Richard.
    Mr. Glenn. Thank you for the question, Senator Murkowski.
    As Dr. Cronin stated, the issue of timing comes out 
strongest and the exploration, of course, of the Coastal Plain, 
would happen in the winter which is not a calving season. And 
so, there's already----
    The Chairman. Before you move on, I think it is important 
for colleagues to understand when we talk about exploration in 
Alaska in the wintertime, it is not because we like to be out 
in the cold and the dark.
    Mr. Glenn. Right.
    The Chairman. It is because we are required to do 
exploration during this period. If you might address that as 
well.
    Mr. Glenn. The Navy began exploring for oil and gas on the 
North Slope in the 1940s and they discovered very quickly that 
the summertime which is when a lot of exploration happens in 
warmer climates, is not the time to try to move about on the 
tundra because everything you do that needs heavy equipment 
gouges itself into the thawed-out surface.
    And so, over a few short years of learning the hard way, 
the industry tailored its practices to operate in the winter 
when the ground is frozen so that even if there was no snow 
cover and no ice road, for example, the tundra kind of protects 
itself by being in a frozen state. That's just the general 
paradigm of exploration the way that it exists today.
    Flash forward to today. In addition to those hard lessons 
learned, they developed ways to explore with seismic and 
drilling on ice roads and ice pads that further insulate the 
surface from the harmful effects of summertime disturbance of 
the tundra. So the calendar already dictates that the machinery 
is going to be around when the animals are less likely to be 
there.
    Now my upbringing is from the central part of the Arctic 
Slope where sometimes caribou are around year-round. I've 
hunted--in fact, those of us who live from Fairbanks northward, 
we're caribou connoisseurs. We know when the marrow changes 
flavor. We know when the fur is the best. We can tell the 
difference between pregnant and non-pregnant cows, for example. 
And calving is a special time. And if you're a caribou hunter 
you know that a mother caribou that's already carrying a calf 
inside her, she wants to lay down. And she'll lay down anywhere 
as long as she's not being threatened by something. And it's 
the pregnant caribou that shows the least, I don't know. Dr. 
Cronin might know better than me, but I've hunted a lot of 
caribou and when they run away from you, the pregnant cows are 
the ones that still stay laying on the ground or for some 
reason run away and come back. And so, the nature of a caribou 
carrying her calf is different than regular caribou behavior. 
All of that is this May/June timeframe when all of the 
exploration tools should be out of the theater.
    Once development happens, if development happens, the 
facilities and the pipelines are constructed to minimize their 
effects. The pipelines are elevated so caribou can walk 
unimpeded underneath the pipelines. And the facilities are 
concentrated under small, focused pads. There's a lot of stuff 
happening on one piece of gravel, and the caribou are free to 
do whatever they need to do on the undisturbed tundra that 
surrounds the pads.
    The Chairman. Thank you. I am over my time.
    Let's go to Senator King.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Dr. Cronin, it is intimidating that you cite my own words. 
Literally, scores of people watched that presentation online.
    [Laughter.]
    So let me go back to some of the questions that I asked 
before and, Mr. Schutt, maybe you can answer this. I think I 
have discerned the answer. It is not 2,000 contiguous acres, is 
that correct? It is 2,000 acres made up of lots of little 
pieces.
    Mr. Schutt. It would certainly not be 2,000 contiguous 
acres.
    Senator King. So, the drilling is not limited to one 2,000-
acre square in this large area?
    Mr. Schutt. I have to say I've never seen the geology. It's 
not publicly available to people like me. But the size of oil 
fields is many thousands of acres or hundreds of thousands of 
acres, if you're talking about billions of barrels of potential 
oil and to recovery that there would certainly be several small 
pads, maybe one or two medium-sized pads. We're talking 10-acre 
drill sites or 12-acre drill sites and maybe a few central 
drill pads that are a couple hundred acres that have the----
    Senator King. But there would have to be, I presume, to get 
the oil out, there would have to be pipelines, right, from each 
pad, each drill site?
    Mr. Schutt. For sure you have to have a way to transport 
from the drill sites to some central location.
    Senator King. And the way to transport is a pipeline.
    Mr. Schutt. Yes, sir.
    Senator King. That would be easier to say than a way to 
transport.
    So we are talking about a pipeline. In terms of the 2,000 
acres we are only talking about the feed of the pipeline. Is 
that correct, not the shadow of the pipeline that is above the 
ground?
    Mr. Schutt. I don't know that part, but I heard that for 
the first time today.
    Senator King. And how many wells would you be talking about 
in an area like this? Someone mentioned 500 wells. Is that--
what are we talking about here?
    My calculation was a couple thousand to get out ten billion 
barrels over ten years.
    Any----
    Mr. Schutt. I'm not the right person to answer that.
    Senator King. Do you know what the production is of that, 
of your well, 1H-102, the one you had the chart on?
    Mr. Schutt. That well was finished in the last month, so I 
don't have production data. It's not my well either, it's our 
client's well. We drilled it for them.
    Senator King. So give me a production for a typical well 
that you have in service.
    Mr. Schutt. Again, we drill a lot of wells for our clients, 
and I'm not the one to ask. There's a huge range. Some of the 
wells we drill are not production wells. They're injectors or 
other types of wells.
    Senator King. Well, you see what I am trying to get at here 
is how many wells are we talking about in this space? Is it 10, 
100, 1,000, 2,000?
    Mr. Schutt. It would be hundreds over time to develop a 
billion-barrel field, if that's what's there. If it's much 
smaller, it could be 50 wells.
    Senator King. Okay.
    I would point out, Mr. Glenn, you characterized this as a 
cartoon. This shows 50 wells, and I don't take much from the 
size of the little well thing, but that only shows 50 wells.
    If we are talking about 100 or 500, you are talking about a 
lot more dots on this map. Is that correct?
    [The information referred to follows:]
    
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    Mr. Schutt. Senator King, we can drill 50 wells from a 10-
acre drill pad.
    Senator King. Okay, so you are considering a multiple, the 
chart, that you are calling those separate wells? Is that 
correct?
    Mr. Schutt. I'm not----
    Senator King. You are saying each line is a separate well, 
that those--I am just trying to understand this.
    Mr. Schutt. Which chart?
    Senator King. You have one drill pad. The picture you put 
up of the--you said you can do ten laterals.
    Mr. Schutt. That was a penta-lateral well.
    Senator King. Right, which is five.
    Mr. Schutt. Which means there are five production wellbores 
off of one single surface location.
    Senator King. Right.
    Mr. Schutt. Each single well off of the surface.
    Senator King. So each one of those you would call a well 
even though there is only one surface?
    Mr. Schutt. That's correct.
    Senator King. Five.
    Mr. Schutt. Technically for those in the industry, those 
are five wells. Yes, sir.
    Senator King. Well, I think it is important as we work 
through this to try to understand if we are talking about ten 
billion barrels over some period of time, what is the period of 
time and what does that imply in terms of the number of wells 
and how many penta-laterals are there? I am trying to determine 
what we are really talking about here on the face of the Earth. 
And that is what I am searching for. I think you answered my 
question. The calving period is the spring or the summer?
    Dr. Cronin. Yes, sir. The end of May and first few weeks of 
June.
    Senator King. Another question, I guess Mr. Schutt, you are 
the guy to try to answer this.
    Is there anything special about this 1002 Area in terms of 
oil and gas? There is this--I looked on the map that Senator 
Sullivan gave us and there is this huge area that is set aside 
for oil and gas drilling, much larger than this area. Do we 
have indications that this is an extraordinarily rich area that 
we are talking about, this part of ANWR?
    Mr. Schutt. Senator, I'm probably not the expert you need 
on that question. Although, certainly the outcrops of the 
sandstone reservoirs that are producing at Prudhoe Bay and the 
source rocks that caused the oil to be at Prudhoe Bay are 
similar or the same.
    Senator King. What I am getting at is we are talking about 
a special area here that has been set aside for a long time, 
and we are saying we need to drill here. And what I am trying 
to determine is, is this area particularly productive or could 
we not drill in some of the other areas that are literally 
called the oil and gas drilling area?
    Mr. Schutt. I'm going to start with a slight aside, 
Senator.
    Senator King. Yes.
    Mr. Schutt. I've heard people refer to a special area which 
I do not want to minimize at all, but many areas of Alaska are 
special. Those of us who grew up in different parts of Alaska 
call our own section of Alaska, God's Country, without 
minimizing the fact that all of Alaska is God's Country.
    Senator King. You are incorrect on that. My town in Maine 
is truly God's Country.
    [Laughter.]
    I know exactly--I take your point though, thank you.
    Mr. Schutt. With regard to the question about oil 
prospectivity, there is a difference between what the USGS says 
about the NPR-A and the likely fields you might find there 
through exploration and the scale of what might be available in 
the 1002 Area and they're orders of magnitude different.
    Senator King. I think that is important for us to know. 
Thank you.
    Dr. Cronin. Yeah, Senator King, I was just going to add 
that I think USGS would be a good source for very specific 
information on the resources that they predict either in the 
1002 or the NPR-A.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Senator Cantwell.
    Senator Cantwell. I am going to defer to my colleague who 
has been here waiting.
    The Chairman. Okay. Alright.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
    The Chairman. We will next turn to Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    Let me just follow up on the line of questioning from 
Senator King, because I am now getting a little confused.
    So if I understand this correctly, section 1002 we are 
looking at is opening up the Coastal Plain for drilling and 
that is 1.57 million acres. Is that true? So I am--and that is 
yes? Your understanding? Yes. So I am confused as to where the 
2,000 acre limitation comes from. I think this is referring to 
a House Energy bill, H.R. 6, which is not before us, and so I 
am not sure what all of that means. But I do want to get a 
better understanding if we are talking about drilling in 1.57 
million acres, which is the Coastal Plain. I do want to get a 
better understanding of how many pads we are talking about. How 
many drill pads?
    And I think, from my perspective, it would help to have a 
better understanding in the NPR-A. How many drill pads are 
there right now and how many more potentially can you--how much 
more drilling can occur there at the NPR-A and why isn't that 
occurring instead of opening up the Coastal Plain? And I will 
open that up to whomever we want to start with, please.
    Ms. Epstein. Thank you for the question, Senator.
    I work both on the NPR-A as well as the Arctic Refuge. And 
in the NPR-A, historically, there have been both high numbers 
in terms of how much likely oil and lower numbers more 
recently.
    But now there is a reassessment going on and there have 
been some new discoveries. That's why I made the point that, in 
fact, the slope of the oil going through the Trans-Alaska 
pipeline is going up. There are new discoveries and there are 
new ways of getting into existing reserves that are increasing, 
which is good. It's good for Alaska. I'm an Alaskan. I think 
that's good. Drill in less sensitive areas as you both are 
referring to.
    USGS is looking at the NPR-A right now, and there's a lot 
of activity around that in terms of coming up with a new 
estimate which may actually show quite a bit. There's not much 
data for the Arctic Refuge right now.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    There is potential still to--we are waiting for the data 
for the NPR-A to make that determination.
    How many drill pads are there now?
    Ms. Epstein. There's the CD-5 one and there--Conoco 
Phillips is working on Greater Mooses Tooth, a new project and 
then they have a new discovery that's just beginning the 
permitting process in the Willow Area, but it could be quite 
large. They're trying to delineate that.
    And one more very quick point. We had quite a bit of 
discussion about balance on the last panel and the fact that 
the North Slope is a large landscape and the points you're 
making about drilling in the NPR-A, we think that really does 
represent balance. That's where some areas are open for 
development. Some areas are not because they are quite 
sensitive. Certainly, there's a lot going on in the state lands 
right now and that's also considered by us and others, less 
sensitive. And that's fully appropriate.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    And then just to get a better understanding--and thank you 
for the graphs because that helps really, kind of, put it in 
perspective, what we are talking about.
    If I understood correctly, each pad has the potential of 
having more than one drill hole or whatever you want to call 
it, right? And then from that drill hole comes the various 
wells and there could be more, four to five or six wells from 
just one borehole. Is that correct?
    Mr. Schutt. You're asking very technical questions, and I 
don't have any technical----
    Senator Cortez Masto. I am just going off your graphs. So 
that is what it looked like to me.
    Mr. Schutt. That's one.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    And so, each drill pad--and so, you talk about the size of 
your drill pads and over the course of time with new 
technology, they decreased in their footprint. And it looks 
like from 65 acres now to potentially 12 acres.
    So how many of those boreholes could potentially come from 
a 12-acre pad? And if you don't--you may not technically be 
able to answer that, and I will figure out another way to get 
that answered. I am just curious if you know.
    Mr. Schutt. I sound like a lawyer here, but it depends, but 
you can assume from a 12-acre pad that dozens of surface 
boreholes can be drilled and then, if appropriate, multi-
laterals out of those that would count as additional wells.
    So, you know, somewhere between 10 and 100, depending on 
the appropriateness of the design, just as a rough ballpark.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
    Please go ahead if you have any comments.
    Mr. Glenn. Thank you. You gave half of the answer that I 
was going to give, but also it probably helps to put in 
perspective the order of events.
    If the Coastal Plain is open to exploration, seismic 
exploration starts and it comes and it goes away. And then 
targets are established. And then exploration drilling occurs 
on ice pads, and the rules about drilling exploration wells are 
to plug and abandon it when you're done, cut the casing below 
the surface so it disappears when you're done with exploration.
    In the event of discovery, then you move into the paradigm 
that you're talking about with pads on the ground and radiating 
outward from the reservoir as discussed by Aaron.
    So there's things that have to happen. Exploration should 
occur everywhere and then we should make reasonable decisions 
about development when it happens. So there are two different 
aspects to drilling, exploration then development.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
    Thank you very much. I notice my time is up, I appreciate 
that, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I am going to go back to this chart again because while it 
may be just, you know, effectively it is just an illustration. 
But having some experience with development in the Permian 
Basin and the San Juan Basin, and having seen the development 
around Prudhoe Bay, I would just note for my colleagues that 
with, at least the ungulates that I am familiar with, like mule 
deer and antelope, it is not the well pads that typically are 
the substantial part of the disturbance and which can impede 
the movement of wildlife. It is everything that comes with 
those well pads: it's the roads, it's the gravel mines, it's 
the electrical transmission, it's the pipelines. And the more 
linear barriers you put in the face of any sort of migration, 
the less likely that migration is to occur.
    So rather than look at an illustration, I would just 
suggest, maybe, all of us or our staff can do a little search 
on Google Earth and go look at what Prudhoe Bay looks like, 
having flown over that because, you know, it is not the well 
pads that got my attention. It is all those other linear 
obstacles to migration.
    I have a question for Ms. Epstein. One of my frustrations 
with this process is that we are doing this through budget 
reconciliation and in the context of a budget bill, rather than 
a regular legislative process. I assume we are doing that 
because it would be difficult, if not impossible, to pass this 
as stand-alone legislation and get 60 votes for it.
    But one of the requirements of that budget process is that 
we produce $1 billion of new revenue over the next two years. A 
new report out this week casts some serious doubt on whether 
that is realistic.
    Can you walk us through some numbers and talk about what 
would be necessary, in particular, in terms of reasonable bonus 
bids because that is the most likely income to come in, in the 
first ten years, and whether or not we could hit that target or 
not, or what a realistic estimate might be?
    Ms. Epstein. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
    I would say that I share your frustration about the speed 
of this process and the inability to get all the information 
that decision-makers need, the Senate needs, to make a 
responsible decision.
    Just as an example, I have--my colleague, a senior 
ecologist, has quite a number of responses to Dr. Cronin's 
testimony that I think would be very beneficial and we will 
submit that to the Committee. And that would be important so 
that you would have a full picture of the actual nature of the 
caribou development and relationship, as well as polar bears.
    Senator Heinrich. You have to add that to the record.
    Ms. Epstein. Yes, thank you. In terms of directly answering 
your question, I can partly answer.
    With the price of oil being what it is now, in the $50 a 
barrel range, Alaska is not terribly attractive in new areas to 
oil companies and, at the same time, we have lots of shale oil 
development in the Lower 48 that is more inexpensive. So the 
idea that they would pay extra and go for bonus bids to be sure 
they had a piece of this very controversial area that a lot of 
companies would actually even shy away from is unlikely.
    I just participated in a National Academy of Sciences oil-
related committee on Thursday and Friday and I talked to some 
of my industry colleagues about the Arctic Refuge. And one 
comment I heard was that if this was likely to be as 
productive, you know, there would have been a lot more 
activity, more wells previously.
    Senator Heinrich. My calculations are that it would have to 
be a little over $1,300 an acre in terms of bonus bids which is 
about six times that historical average.
    Ms. Epstein. Right.
    Senator Heinrich. I don't have a ton of time left. I guess 
I will just end with this.
    I guess we have to come up with $1 billion, but we produce 
a lot of oil and gas in the State of New Mexico. There are some 
places we will never, ever drill: the Valle Vidal or the Bosque 
del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I think we need to be 
careful about what doors we are opening today because we will 
not be able to undo this once a substantial reserve is found.
    And to find that $1 billion, I would never advocate mining 
for uranium in the Grand Canyon or doing geothermal resources 
in Yellowstone, and having been to the Refuge, it is a wildlife 
refuge. That is why it is called the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge. It is not a petroleum reserve and we should remember 
that.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Chairwoman Murkowski and 
Ranking Member Cantwell, for convening this very important 
conversation.
    I also want to thank our witnesses who traveled far to join 
us for today's hearing.
    One of my priorities in the Senate is working to expand 
economic opportunity for working families in Illinois and 
across the nation. I know that every state faces unique 
challenges when it comes to supporting existing industries and 
creating new jobs, and I recognize how important the oil 
industry has been to the Chairwoman's home State of Alaska.
    However, when it comes to dramatically expanding oil 
extraction operations in areas like the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge, I have serious questions concerning the 
potential for catastrophic incidents that could inflict 
irreparable harm. If the tragedy of Deepwater Horizon should 
teach us anything, it is that difficult and tough questions 
must be addressed before approving any massive expansion of 
drilling operations. For when we are discussing oil extraction 
at the scale and vision in this Republican budget, it is not a 
matter of if an oil spill will occur, but rather a matter of 
when and how bad will it be.
    We have heard a lot about advances in directionally 
drilling today. Setting aside the engineering jargon, Ms. 
Epstein can you explain in plain English if it is more 
dangerous to drill in the Arctic and why?
    Ms. Epstein. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
    The Arctic is remote. There aren't a lot of additional 
resources if there are problems. Those have to be brought in, 
flown in. That has happened when we've had a blowout. Just this 
last spring, BP, a well resource company, had something 
unexpected happen, the permafrost around an old well, so you 
think that they knew what was going on was fine. And that 
resulted, not in an enormous oil spill, but quite a serious 
safety situation which is of concern to operators and their 
employees. Absolutely.
    So we have had situations where it is frigid and cold, and 
you can't work then. So you need a lot of very specific Arctic 
expertise. It is, very much, an area where you need to know 
what you're doing.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
    I understand that the State of Alaska completed a report in 
November 2010 which reviewed over 6,000 North Slope spills from 
1995 to 2009. Analysis of this report indicates there was an 
oil spill of 1,000 gallons of oil or more nearly every two 
months from 1995 to 2009.
    Ms. Epstein, when the oil spills and we have to clean it 
up, again, is the oil spill cleanup more challenging in the 
Arctic compared with drilling on land elsewhere? And if oil 
spilled in the area of debate today, what would the effects of 
that spill be?
    Ms. Epstein. Thank you for that question.
    It would depend a bit about the time of year. If you had an 
oil spill in winter and it landed just on frozen tundra you 
might be able to clean it up quickly. If you had a spill that 
ended up in a waterway, however, and flowed into the, say the 
Colville River and onward into the Beaufort Sea--tremendous 
impacts to the ecosystem. These are fragile areas. The water is 
only flowing some of the year so that's when all the biology, 
all the activities take place. It would be quite damaging.
    Senator Duckworth. Is there new legislation we could 
consider that would make drilling in the Arctic safer and less 
prone to spills?
    Ms. Epstein. The best we could do is tweak it.
    We're going to have spills. We're going to have--it's a 
complicated industry, hard to be on top of everything all the 
time. At the same time, companies are trying to minimize costs. 
So it's very tough. We can't prevent spills. There's no 
evidence that--I don't think you'd find anyone from the 
industry that said, that can say we will stop all spills.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
    Mr. Alexander, I just want to start off by saying that the 
Alaskan First Peoples are some of the--have served our United 
States military at rates per capita far greater than so many of 
our other population and with extreme courage and dedication 
and just want to thank all of the representatives of the First 
Peoples here today for that.
    Mr. Alexander, is your community alone in its concerns or 
are your fears shared by other tribes? Can you please remind us 
what the stakes are if your people can no longer depend on 
caribou and subsistence hunting?
    The Chairman. Senator?
    Senator Duckworth. Oh, I am sorry.
    The Chairman. Mr. Alexander was part of the first panel.
    Senator Duckworth. Oh, sorry.
    The Chairman. He is not with us. Perhaps you can ask that 
question of him after the hearing, but I apologize for that.
    Senator Duckworth. No worries. Thank you.
    With that, I yield back. I only have 16 seconds anyway.
    Thank you.
    The Chairman. Let's go to Senator Cantwell.
    Senator Cantwell. I would yield to Senator Franken.
    The Chairman. Senator Franken.
    Senator Franken. Thank you to the Ranking Member and the 
Chair.
    Dr. Cronin, in your research looking at caribou populations 
you found that they were not significantly impacted by the 
presence of an oil field road, is that correct?
    Dr. Cronin. Yes.
    Senator Franken. Thank you.
    For this research did you ever receive any funding from oil 
companies?
    Dr. Cronin. Yes.
    Senator Franken. Okay.
    Do you think receiving funding from oil companies could 
bias the outcomes of your research?
    Dr. Cronin. No, sir.
    Senator Franken. Did you ever consider that the same oil 
companies that funded your research would use your work as 
justification for drilling and that might have been a 
motivation of theirs?
    Dr. Cronin. Well, first of all, the data we used in--
probably the paper you're talking about is a 2004 paper with 
Noel as the Senior Author. We used the Alaska State Department 
of Fish and Game data in addition to the data collected by our 
group.
    The oil industry funded studies, sometimes as a requirement 
for permits or for stipulations for operating after the permits 
were granted, and they wanted to get pre- and post-development 
data in some cases or in other words, in other cases, just 
post-development to, in this case, look at the distribution of 
caribou.
    So whether it was used to justify future drilling, it was 
always done with the intent of publishing in peer-reviewed 
scientific literature, which we did, and all the references 
that I gave in my written testimony are such.
    Senator Franken. Okay, well the manuscript says it was 
developed with support from Exxon Mobil and BP Exploration. Is 
that right?
    Dr. Cronin. Well, depending which paper, sure.
    Senator Franken. Okay.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Epstein, could you talk about why this Refuge was 
preserved in the first place? What are the distinguishing 
factors that make the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain different 
from other areas on the Arctic Coastal Plain, and why does that 
matter?
    Ms. Epstein. Yes, thank you, Senator Franken.
    One important characteristic is the Coastal Plain there is 
very narrow compared to further West where the Prudhoe Bay 
field is and that means that the area that the caribou go to 
birth their calves is smaller. There aren't alternatives and 
they go there because they receive insect relief and they also 
are able to avoid predators. They can see them coming, in other 
words. Beyond that, it is an intact ecosystem with the full 
range of species. It's a national treasure in a lot of ways 
that many refer to as America's Serengeti.
    I, myself, was there just once, not related to work. I was 
there recreationally, and I did see enormous numbers of caribou 
and really felt that I saw one of the world's great migrations 
happening that I felt very privileged to see. And there are few 
special places like that in the world. It was quite beautiful. 
I included a personal photo in my testimony.
    Thank you.
    Senator Franken. Well, you are right. The Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge is home to many unique plant and animal 
species, including critical habitat for the polar bear which is 
listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and, of 
course, for the Porcupine Caribou that is essential, as we 
heard from the last panel, to the Gwich'in people.
    Mr. Pourchot, as climate change continues to affect Alaska, 
how important will pristine areas like the Arctic Refuge be to 
wildlife and to indigenous people?
    Mr. Pourchot. Thank you, Senator.
    I think we heard from the other panel that climate change 
is very real and very dramatic in the further you move north, 
particularly on the North Slope of Alaska.
    And I think, again, other panelists have described climate 
change impacts on many things, of human life and wildlife. And 
I think that in the areas that Ms. Epstein has described for 
the Coastal Plain is, for example, a very finite calving area. 
The effects of climate change on that, you know, could be 
substantial.
    And I think the answer, if there is one to your question, 
is really, we don't really know. And I think that's one of the 
issues surrounding this debate is in the absence of knowing 
things as science or fact or what the impacts may be. I think 
that argues for a cautionary approach.
    Senator Franken. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Cantwell.
    Senator Cantwell. Well, Mr. Pourchot, I definitely agree. I 
find the debate that we have had so far interesting just 
because when I think of Alaska, I think of its great beauty 
and, you know, I think of John Muir and his exploration of the 
glaciers at Glacier Bay that made it popular and what it is 
today. Yet those glaciers are receding. I don't know if anybody 
is ready to put up a sign saying cruise ships don't bother 
anymore because I am pretty sure Alaska still wants them to 
come, but yet, that is what we are continuing to threaten here 
by continuing to proceed.
    You are undermining not only this wildlife refuge, but you 
are undermining a very important way of life that is even 
larger than just the wildlife refuge. To me, I hold that dear 
but then again, those are very important elements of the 
northwest economy. Just because I represent the State of 
Washington I guarantee you, Patty Murray and I do not get to 
decide what happens at Mount Rainier National Park just because 
it is in our state. We do not get to decide that. And so, when 
federal land is designated, yes, we have a lot of discussion 
with a lot of locals, but no, you do not get to make the 
decision just because you represent that state.
    So I wanted to ask you, there has been so much discussion 
about whether this wildlife refuge, in its purpose that it was 
created for, can coexist with oil development on the Refuge. 
Can it, yes or no?
    Mr. Pourchot. I would answer no and, as I said in my 
testimony, when you look at the purposes in statute that 
establish the Refuge that included wildlife in their natural 
diversity, that references to wilderness. Similar, the 
Executive Order establishing the range, the predecessor of the 
Refuge in 1960, talks about those same sorts of values in 
outstanding resources.
    When you look at the 1987 report that was authorized by 
Congress for the 1002 Area, very emphatic references to 
wilderness resources, to wildlife resources. Those were also 
brought out in the more recent Comprehensive Conservation Plan, 
CCP, that was just completed for the Refuge in 2015 after four 
years of effort to look at the new science, look at management 
options, look at the purposes of the Refuge and the Refuge 
Administration Act and they reiterated again it was very 
important those natural resources, particularly wildlife and 
wilderness, that were really exemplified by the Refuge. And 
that recommendation which, it was interesting that Deputy 
Director Sheehan did not mention, was for recommendation for 
wilderness designation for the Coastal Plain of the Refuge.
    Senator Cantwell. Yes, a nice way to say about his 
testimony was that he was very selective.
    But we have sent a letter to the Secretary and this should 
be clear. We should just get a yes or no answer from him about 
the purposes.
    You gave me one today and the answer is no, and I think 
that is what any scientist would tell you.
    So what I object to, besides the sham process that we have 
been going through here to hurry this through with 51 votes, is 
that it just ought to be clear. If people want to open the 
Arctic Wildlife Refuge, you should just admit you are going to 
destroy the wildlife refuge.
    You can't sit here and tell our colleagues and try to deny 
it by stacking a hearing and not giving us information and not 
having the scientists, that somehow that is not the case, 
because it is.
    So you can decide you don't want the Refuge. I disagree. I 
think it is one of the most unbelievable things that we have on 
Planet Earth, not just in the United States, on Planet Earth. 
It is that intact. And what we are going to learn from it and 
continue to preserve from our heritage and our past and the 
wildlife that is there is just unbelievable.
    People spend thousands of dollars to go to the Serengeti in 
Africa to look at it. Did anybody in Alaska ever think that in 
the near future, as the Arctic ice continues to melt that there 
wouldn't be people who would want to come up and visit it in a 
more recreational environment? To me, it is well worth 
preserving.
    So we will see what happens when the Secretary answers our 
letter, but you can't have both and that is what scientists are 
going to tell us. And so people should just choose if they want 
to drill or they want to destroy, drill and destroy.
    I would preserve because, as I've said before, I guarantee 
you we are all going to be gone in the future and it is going 
to be whether this great pristine place continues to give the 
next generation such a great, unbelievable look at what has 
existed on our planet before.
    And I agree with the Gwich'in people that it is spiritual. 
It is spiritual, and we should preserve it.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chairman. Well, we clearly disagree that this is an 
either/or proposition. It absolutely is not.
    And for those of us who call Alaska home, to suggest that 
we would despoil our environment for short-term gain, I think, 
is offensive. As an Alaskan, I am offended by that.
    I respect every Alaskan's opinion. I respect the fact that 
there are those who come from a different homeland than I 
might, being born down in the southeast, but I respect their 
views and opinions.
    I think we recognize that as Alaskans we have options and 
our options, I think it would be at the beginning of the day 
and the end of the day, we all want to get to the same place, 
that we have an economy that will allow us to stay in the most 
amazing place. And whether your home is Utqiagvik or Kaktovik 
or Ketchikan, we want to be able to remain there, but you have 
to have the ability to stay there. And when you live in a cold 
place, you need to be able to have the means to keep warm.
    I think about Matthew Rexford's family and the generations 
that came before him, just one generation prior, it was a life 
and a lifestyle that was pretty harsh and pretty difficult and 
literally trying to find firewood that would come down the 
river to keep the family home warm.
    And so, again, as we think about the choices that we have 
as Alaskans, we have always been in this place. We have always 
been in a place where we are resource rich with a small 
population. Our costs are high. But the effort to make sure 
that we can continue to remain in this amazing place has to be 
one where we work to find the balance, where we ensure that we 
have the level of food security.
    If you are from Fort Yukon or Kaktovik, you are going to 
rely on the caribou or the whale and probably will for 
generations to come, as long as we care for the land and the 
waters. And this is our challenge. This is our charge.
    I do not think any one of us wishes to be the one that says 
that we allowed rape, pillage, and ruin on our land for short-
term gain. That is not what this is about.
    I think people forget that for 40 years now, 40 plus years, 
we have been exploring. We have been producing. We have been 
giving revenue and jobs and opportunity to Alaskans and to the 
country. And we have done so in a way that everybody still 
wants to come to Alaska. Those cruise ships and people want to 
come to Alaska. So if we have ignored our environment, that 
certainly is not apparent.
    And so, we do require the highest standards, I believe, in 
the country; I believe, in the world. And we do that for good 
reason because when the exploration winter period is over we do 
not want to see the tracks on the tundra if the winter trail 
led to a place that was not going to be productive.
    We are making sure that we are using our smarts and our 
intelligence and all that we have to develop the technologies 
that make some of these questions hard to answer. How can you 
predict how many pads we are going to need?
    Forty years ago, the pad in Prudhoe was pretty significant 
and remains today; but nobody, nobody is talking about building 
another Prudhoe because we believe that even with Prudhoe-like 
resources, our technology will allow us to access this in a way 
that is more consistent with our respect for the environment. 
To be able to shrink that footprint, to be able to do so much 
more with a smaller area and to recognize what that delivers to 
us. So we do not know how many pads. We are not sure how many 
wells necessarily because the technology is evolving every 
single day.
    To look, Aaron, at the diagram and to hear your testimony 
that you have one series of wells that is just in production 
now, one month ago, but knowing that by 2020, what you will be 
able to access will be so much more than what you have been, 
what you have put in place today, this is where the technology 
is taking us.
    We talk about the shale revolution here in the Lower 48 and 
what that has done to allow us a level of energy independence 
that we never thought possible. It is not because that resource 
just materialized overnight in places where it was not, it was 
always there but we just use our smarts and our technology to 
allow us to access it better and more efficiently. That is what 
we are doing. That is what we are proving out in Alaska.
    And Senator Heinrich challenged us all. Go to Google Earth 
and take a look at Prudhoe Bay. Yes, Prudhoe Bay is up there. 
It is still a 65-acre pad. It is. But that is technology from 
40 years ago. That is what it looked like 40 years ago. That is 
like telling you to stick with the same phone we were using 40 
years ago and compare it to what we are using today.
    The statement was made that nothing has changed with the 
ANWR debate, and I disagree so, so, so strongly with that. The 
technology has changed. Our ability to access and understand 
the science and the data and the research that we know and the 
effort that we are making, led by Alaskans who care to not only 
protect the environment, but to protect the animals, the 
wildlife, the waterfowl.
    Richard, your family has been up on the North Slope for 
generations and on your mother's side for hundreds, if not 
thousands of years. I bet you still feel awe and wonderment 
when you see those caribou come through, thousands at a time. 
It is amazing. It is magical, and it is spiritual. And our 
challenge, our challenge, is to allow that to continue, not 
only for the benefit of the caribou, but for the people who 
live there. I just feel like so much of this discussion has 
taken place in the absence of those who live there.
    And so, I was actually going to ask more questions, but I 
think we have probably taken as much time as was important to 
lay the record down here today. I do hope that colleagues 
recognize this is not an effort to do some secret maneuver in a 
back room. If that were the case, we would not have had a 
public hearing for five hours, televised, for all the world to 
see. If that were the case, we would not have an open markup, 
like we will. None has been scheduled yet, but we will have 
that. And we will have an opportunity to weigh in as lawmakers 
on whether or not we should keep that commitment, the 
commitment that the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor 
reminded us of, that commitment that when this 1002 Area, when 
this Area was specifically set aside for the opportunity to 
pursue exploration and development of our oil and gas 
potential, provided that certain conditions were met and the 
Congress approves.
    Well, we have gone through this battle many times, as 
Congressman Young reminded us, 12 times. I believe that we are 
at that place that the Lieutenant Governor has reminded us, 
that we are at that place where we have met that balance in 
that our technology is allowing us to do things that were once 
just unimaginable. You could not even imagine being able to 
drill down here at the center of the Capitol and be able to 
reach an area out by the National Harbor. This is not drilling 
rhetoric as has been suggested. This is not theoretical. This 
is actual application. We are making it happen.
    I think that is what our colleagues need to appreciate and 
to recognize is that change has happened for the better 
allowing us to be able to be more responsible as we access our 
resources, but to do so in a way that allows not only for the 
jobs and opportunity for Alaskans but to address the national 
security issues that Senator Sullivan has raised, to address 
the environmental concerns, to address our energy security 
needs, and to do so in a manner that allows us, as the United 
States, to lead, not only leading with access to a resource 
that we want, but leading in a way that allows for our 
innovation, our really pioneering in an area, is recognized.
    So I thank those of you who have joined us. I want to 
acknowledge you, Governor Walker, for remaining through the 
duration of this hearing. And the Lieutenant Governor, I think, 
making sure that this conversation is heard loud and heard 
clearly, enables us, as Alaskans, to speak with even greater 
voice and greater clarity.
    So I thank you for your time.
    With that, ladies and gentlemen, we stand adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

                      APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

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November 1, 2017


Dear Member of Congress:

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a part of God's creation 
that stands alone in its wilderness, ecological integrity, and 
beauty. This sacred landscape is also home of the Gwich'in, a 
Alaska native people who depend upon the Porcupine caribou herd 
for their daily subsistence. The possibility of oil exploration 
in the Refuge jeopardizes the ecological integrity of the 
Refuge and the way of life of the Gwich'in people.

The exploitation of fossil fuels in the Refuge will contribute 
to climate change and threaten the ten thousand year-old 
traditions that the Gwich'in people depend upon to survive. The 
faith community's decades long commitment to protecting the 
Arctic Refuge is inspired by our dedication to defending all of 
God's creation, including the fundamental rights of the 
Gwich'in people.

As members of the faith community, we ask you to grant the 
Arctic Refuge the strongest possible protection and keep 
drilling in the Arctic Refuge out of the budget process. It is 
our hope that you will join us in recognizing that such a 
precious gift deserves our best efforts at stewardship and 
preservation by doing all that you can to safeguard the 
renowned and sacred wilderness of the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge for current and future generations.

Sincerely,

Sister Janet Korn
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Mary Ann Binsack
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Deirdre Hetzler
Roman Catholic
Fairport, NY

Barbara Kozlowski
Sisters of Mercy
Buffalo, NY

Norine Truax, RSM
Sisters of Mercy
Buffalo, NY

M. Grimes
Sisters of Mercy
Hamburg, NY

Sister Mary Schimscheiner
Sisters of Mercy
Buffalo, NY

Sister Kathy Sisson
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Laurie Orman
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Mary Ellen Twist
Sisters of Mercy
Buffalo, NY

Sister Nancy Whitley, RSM
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Deacon William Coffey
Roman Catholic
Macedon, NY

Kathy Pease
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

William Irwin
Roman Catholic
Elmira, NY

Sister Nancy O'Brien
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sheila Geraghty
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Miriam Nugent
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Joan Sherry, RSM
Sisters of Mercy
Orchard Park, NY

Sister Margaret Deegan
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Susan Cain
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Sally Maloney
Sisters of Mercy
Buffalo, NY

Sister Lucetta Sercu
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Sister Marilyn Williams, RSM
Sisters of Mercy
Rochester, NY

Patricia Bell
Sisters of Mercy
Webster, NY

Sister Cristel Mejia
Sisters of Mercy
Buffalo, NY
  
  
  
November 1, 2017


Dear Member of Congress:

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a part of God's creation 
that stands alone in its wilderness, ecological integrity, and 
beauty. This sacred landscape is also home of the Gwich'in, a 
Alaska native people who depend upon the Porcupine caribou herd 
for their daily subsistence. The possibility of oil exploration 
in the Refuge jeopardizes the ecological integrity of the 
Refuge and the way of life of the Gwich'in people.

The exploitation of fossil fuels in the Refuge will contribute 
to climate change and threaten the ten thousand year-old 
traditions that the Gwich'in people depend upon to survive. The 
faith community's decades long commitment to protecting the 
Arctic Refuge is inspired by our dedication to defending all of 
God's creation, including the fundamental rights of the 
Gwich'in people.

As members of the faith community, we ask you to grant the 
Arctic Refuge the strongest possible protection and keep 
drilling in the Arctic Refuge out of the budget process. It is 
our hope that you will join us in recognizing that such a 
precious gift deserves our best efforts at stewardship and 
preservation by doing all that you can to safeguard the 
renowned and sacred wilderness of the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge for current and future generations.

Sincerely,

Sister Kathleen Ann, RSM
Sisters of Mercy
Erie, PA

Elsie Heaney
Daylesford Abbey
Paoli, PA

Sister Placidus McDonald
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Andrea Likovich
Sisters of St. Francis
Aston, PA

Sister Bridget McNamara
Sisters of St. Francis
Reading, PA

Sister Susan Fitzpatrick
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Rita Harasiuk
Institute of the Sisters
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Phyllis Thompson
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Maria Zamberlan
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Mary Felice Duska
Sisters of Mercy
Erie, PA

Sister Kathi Sweeney
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Malachy O'Neill
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Bonnie Heh
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Georgine Scarpino
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Natalie Rossi
Sisters of Mercy
Erie, PA

Sister Patricia Hespelein
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Marie Immacule Dana
Sisters of Mercy
Pittsburgh, PA

Sister Rita Panciera
Sisters of Mercy
Erie, PA

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