[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 13, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 ANAKTUVUK PASS LAND EXCHANGE AND WILDERNESS REDESIGNATION ACT OF 1994

                                 ______


                             HON. DON YOUNG

                               of alaska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 13, 1994

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to introduce the 
Anaktuvuk Pass Land Exchange and Wilderness Redesignation Act of 1994. 
When enacted, this legislation will ratify an agreement to settle a 
longstanding and difficult dispute between the National Park Service 
and Alaska Native landowners over the use of all-terrain vehicles--or 
ATV's--for access for subsistence purposes in Gates of the Arctic 
National Park and Preserve.
  The residents of Anaktuvuk Pass and the National Park Service have 
had a longstanding dispute over the use by village residents of certain 
ATV's for subsistence purposes on national park and wilderness lands 
adjacent to the village. In an effort to resolve this conflict, Arctic 
Slope Regional Corporation--the regional corporation established by the 
Inupiat Eskimo people of Alaska's North Slope under the provisions of 
the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act [ANCSA], Nunamiut Corporation--
the Anaktuvuk Pass ANCSA Village Corporation--the city of Anaktuvuk 
Pass and the National Park Service have entered into an innovative 
agreement both guaranteeing dispersed ATV access on specific tracts of 
park land and limiting development of Native land in the area. The 
agreement will limit the types of ATV's allowed and will also lead to 
enhanced recreational opportunities by improving public access across 
Native lands.
  The village of Anaktuvuk Pass is located on the North Slope of Alaska 
in the remote Brooks Mountain Range, completely within the boundary of 
and surrounded by the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. 
Village residents have long relied upon the use of ATV's for summer 
access to subsistence resources, primarily caribou, on certain of these 
nearby park, and park wilderness lands. As there are no rivers near the 
community for motorboat access to park lands, ATV's provide the primary 
means by which to reach and transport game in the summer. The only 
alternative to ATV use is to walk. Snowmobiles are the primary mode of 
transportation for subsistence activity in the winter.
  With the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation 
Act [ANILCA] in 1980, Congress expressly reserved the rights of rural 
Alaska residents to continued, reasonable access to subsistence 
resources on public lands, by providing in section 811(a) of the act 
that, ``rural residents engaged in subsistence uses shall have 
reasonable access to subsistence resources on public lands.'' Section 
811(b) of ANILCA provides further that ``the Secretary shall permit on 
the public lands appropriate use for subsistence purposes of 
snowmobiles, motorboats, and other means of surface transportation 
traditionally employed for such purposes by local residents, subject to 
reasonable regulation.'' The National Park Service and the Native 
landowners disagree about whether ATV's are ``other means of surface 
transportation traditionally employed'' for subsistence purposes in 
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. But there is no dispute 
that ATV's are necessary for the summertime subsistence activities of 
the residents of Anaktuvuk Pass.

  Following several years of discussions, the Native landowners and the 
National Park Service have reached an agreement which will finally 
resolved the ATV controversy on the public lands surrounding Anaktuvuk 
Pass. In April 1992, the Park Service issued a final legislative 
environmental impact statement embracing the proposed agreement, and in 
November 1992, the Secretary of the Interior endorsed the agreement in 
a Record of Decision. The parties executed the agreement on December 
17, 1992.
  The parties have since executed two technical amendments to the 
original agreement.
  The agreement involves an exchange of land and interests in lands 
between the Native landowners and the Park Service. Specifically, the 
Federal Government will convey in fee approximately 30,642 acres of 
park land to Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and Nunamiut 
Corporation. On the Federal land conveyed to the Native corporations, 
the National Park Service will reserve surface and subsurface access 
and development rights as well as broad public access easements. In 
addition, certain nonwilderness areas of federally owned park land will 
be opened up to dispersed ATV use. In return, the Native landowners 
will convey to the Federal Government approximately 38,840 acres in fee 
for inclusion in both the national park and national wilderness 
systems. Native landowners will also convey to the Park Service 
additional surface and subsurface development rights on 86,307 acres as 
well as a series of conservation, scenic, and public access easements 
on other Native-owned lands within the boundaries of Gates of the 
Arctic National Park and Preserve. Finally, the city of Anaktuvuk Pass 
will convey a city lot to the National Park Service for administrative 
purposes.
  Congressional ratification of this agreement will be required in 
order to remove 73,993 acres of Federal land from the National 
Wilderness Preservation System, as well as to designate approximately 
56,825 acres of other park and presently Native-owned lands as new 
National Wilderness. If ratified by Congress, the agreement will 
expressly authorize dispersed ATV use on certain lands within the park 
boundary. Without congressional approval, the agreement will become 
null and void, and none of the conveyances or creation of easements 
proposed by the agreement will occur.
  It is intended that this agreement will resolve the longstanding 
dispute over subsistence use of ATV's only on public lands in and 
around Anaktuvuk Pass. It is important to note that neither this 
agreement nor the accompanying Federal legislation will diminish, or 
otherwise affect in any way, anyone's rights and privileges to access 
public lands in Alaska for subsistence purposes. This agreement does 
not confirm or deny that ATV access to public lands for subsistence use 
is a statutorily protected traditional access right under ANILCA, and 
consequently, this agreement does not purport to resolve this issue.

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