[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 127 (Wednesday, September 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9846-S9851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY SECURITY
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a reality
that our Nation is at war. I think we all agree that never before have
we been so blatantly or cowardly attacked as a consequence of this new
form of terrorism, commercial airplanes having been used as weapons of
terrorism. As we propose to prosecute this war, we need to make certain
our Nation, our people, and our economy are prepared and ready for the
battles to come.
I rise today to discuss one part of how America should work to ensure
one portion, and that is our energy security. The reality is that
America is dependent today on foreign sources for 57 percent of the oil
we consume. Further, we are importing most of this oil from unstable
foreign regimes. It is no secret to any Member of this body. I have
stood on the floor many times to remind my colleagues that we are
currently importing a million barrels a day from Iraq, while, at the
same time, the inconsistency of the manner that we are enforcing a no-
fly zone; namely, an area blockade, putting the lives of America's men
and women at risk in enforcing this no-fly zone. We are funding Saddam
Hussein at the time when we consider him a great risk and potentially
associated with alleged funding of terrorists.
After the tragic and horrifying events of September 11, it is
patently obvious that we must now prepare for war, and it is equally
obvious that the tools of war are driven by one source of energy, and
that is oil. The aircraft, the helicopter, the gunships, and the
destroyers do not run on natural gas. They do not run on solar or hot
air. In peacetime alone, our military uses more than 300,000 barrels of
oil each day. I remind my colleagues that oil must be refined. I can
only imagine how that number will rise in the coming weeks, the coming
months. Hopefully not the coming years.
It should also be obvious that the country cannot depend on unstable
regimes such as Iraq to meet our energy needs without compromising our
national security. I have the greatest respect for our friends
throughout the world, especially those in this hemisphere, especially
my friends in Canada. However, it only makes sense for America to take
steps to put its own energy house in order. We need to conserve our
energy, improve our energy efficiency, but we also need to produce
[[Page S9847]]
as much energy as we can domestically so we can lessen our dependence
on foreign sources.
I come today in response to comments by Canada's Environmental
Minister, Mr. David Anderson. I will read from an article that appeared
in Reuters news service yesterday. I ask unanimous consent it be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Canada Urges Against Hasty U.S. Move on Arctic Oil
(By David Ljunggren)
Ottawa.--Canada urged the United States yesterday not to
take a ``hasty and ill-considered'' decision to start
drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge, something which
Ottawa implacably opposes.
Canada has long objected to U.S. plans to drill in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), saying it would ruin
the calving ground of the Porcupine caribou herd upon which
native Gwich'in Indians in both Alaska and Canada depend.
But Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe is threatening to add
language this week to a multibillion-dollar defense-spending
bill to allow drilling in ANWR as a way to secure future U.S.
oil supplies.
``It's particularly important at times when you have a
crisis on your hands to make sure you don't make hasty and
ill-considered decisions,'' Canadian Environment Minister
David Anderson told Reuters.
``It's also very important at times like this, when energy
security is a major issue, that you consider all factors and
not go ahead without the normal analysis and the thought that
would go into such a decision,'' he said in an interview.
Canada, which says both countries should provide permanent
protection for the wildlife populations that straddle the
border, has already slapped a development ban on areas
frequented by the Porcupine herd.
``We still believe (drilling) to be the wrong decision, we
do not believe the American security situation in any way
justifies a change in that position,'' said Anderson.
Canadian Energy Minister Ralph Goodale last week said there
are plenty of other energy sources in North America that
could be developed before ANWR needed to be touched. These
included the vast tar sands of Alberta, which are believed to
be richer that the entire reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Supporters of opening the refuge say U.S. oil supplies from
the Middle East are at risk and the Alaska wilderness
reserves are needed to make up any possible shortfall.
``That is in our view a highly questionable approach. This
should be based on long-term strategic considerations--none
of this oil, if it were drilled, is going to come on flow for
a number of years,'' Anderson told Reuters.
He said there was no evidence of a shortfall in supplies
from the Middle East and pointed to an almost 15 percent fall
in the price of crude oil yesterday as supply fears eased.
Anderson was speaking from the western city of Winnipeg,
Manitoba, after briefing provincial ministers on the
international efforts to combat global warming.
Delegates from around 180 countries failed in July to agree
to changes to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of
the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. They are due
to try again next month in Marrakesh, Morocco, and Anderson
said he expected that meeting to go ahead.
``Our hope is that the civilized world will be able to deal
with the issue of terrorism and still maintain its values in
a number of areas,'' he said.
``We have a large number of global issues, including global
warming, which cannot simply be ignored. . . . We have long-
term interests as nations and they continue even though we
clearly have a major short-to-medium-term problem--I'm
talking years now--on terrorism.''
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Canada's Environmental Minister, Mr. Anderson, this
week urged America not to make hasty and ill-considered decisions to
allow oil exploration in a tiny part of the Arctic coastal plain in
Alaska just because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, which claimed more than 6,000 American lives.
First, I am a friend of Canada. We are neighbors. We are separated
from the contiguous States by Canada. I serve on the U.S.-Canada
Interparliamentary Conference. I have been chairman of that committee,
and I have there a number of friends and associates. I have the highest
regard for our relationship with Canada, which is a very unique
relationship, very friendly, and one based on healthy competition. For
Mr. Anderson to make such a statement, given Canada's current energy
policy, is truly the height of hypocrisy.
Let me address this in a series of charts. First, Canada has worked
to tap energy from its own Northwest Territories, which, frankly, they
have every right to do, and I support. But a good portion of that
activity is going on within the migratory range of the Porcupine
caribou.
Let me show the division of Alaska and Canada. This map shows the
Canadian activity on the Canadian side of the Northwest Territories and
recognition of significant offshore activities, as well as onshore
activities. This is the general manner in which the Porcupine caribou
go across the border. Dempster Highway goes through this area. I show
this because it gives folks a bit of geography for the area and a
description of what we are talking about.
This is proposed ANWR, and the 1002 area, and the effort to address
the authorization by Congress to open 1.5 million acres for
exploration. The Canadian activity is in a much broader area. It is, of
course, appropriate that Canada makes its own decisions. They certainly
have every right to do it. I point out a good portion of the activity
is going on within the migratory range of the Porcupine caribou herd
and is something our Canadian friends do not want to acknowledge. This
is the same herd that occasionally in the last 2 years was on the
Alaskan side. Canada claims it wants to protect them, and so do we. But
they suggest it be done by preventing oil development in the 1002
region.
Here are the facts associated with the Canadian activity. Canada
first drilled 86 wells, exploration wells, in an area finding nothing.
This was in the Norman Wells area and they chose to make a park out of
it. I admire and appreciate that. It is a small area and if they made a
park out of it after they pretty well exhausted the prospects of
finding oil and gas, and I am perfectly willing to make a park out of
ANWR after we make a significant determination that there was oil and
gas to address the security needs of this country, if that was the will
of Congress.
In any event, in the 1970s and 1980s there were 89 wells drilled in
this area, including 2 in the exact area that the Nation made into what
we call the Ivvavik National Park. That was only after they were dry
holes.
Canada built--and I want to show this on another map--the Dempster
Highway. This is not a very vivid map. Here again is Alaska, here is
Canada, and here is the Dempster Highway, which runs right through the
migratory route of the Porcupine caribou. So you see this highway goes
right through the range. They did this to facilitate oil-drilling
equipment moving into the region and to provide access, which is
certainly reasonable.
In the past 3 years, Canada has moved to markedly expand its own oil
and gas development in the migratory route of the caribou. As a matter
of fact, in 1999 and 2000, Canada, according to a series of articles in
the Vancouver Sun newspaper, offered six onshore lease areas for oil
and gas exploration in the area. I ask unanimous consent the articles
from the Vancouver Sun be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Vancouver Sun, June 11, 2001]
Drilling for Oil on Gwich'in Land
(By Stephen Hume)
Tsiigehtchic, N.W.T.--Grace Blake pauses in mid-sentence
and looks out the window of the Gwich'in Cultural and Social
Institute where she's the acting executive director.
Her gaze swings past the white spire of the Roman Catholic
Church, past the cemetery's white crosses buried in white
snowdrifts and slips over the frozen white confluence of the
Mackenzie and Arctic Red Rivers reaching for something beyond
what is visible to me.
Despite a bleached, blinding intensity to the exterior
landscape that seeps into the emotional landscape the two of
us occupy, the moment seems as still as frosted glass,
brittle--and it prompts a sudden memory from 30 years before.
``Look for what's whiter than white,'' the old Gwich'in
hunter told me then, teaching me not far from here how to
pick-off winter plumaged ptarmigan with the lovely little
Browning .22 that I still have packed away in its case
somewhere.
``Find a patch of snow that's whiter than the snow--then
look for the black dot. That's the eye looking at you. Shoot
there, won't spoil the meat.''
Tsiigehtchic has always been a point of convergence for the
old values, a place where people can still feel profound
spiritual connections to the land and anguish at the
dislocations of modernity, a place where to be a hunter is
not considered backward, but someone to be respected.
The reverence shows in the photographs of elders adorning
the walls where Grace supervises the recording of stories and
legends and research into the cultural heritage of people
whose ancestors might have been among the first peoples to
arrive in North America--
[[Page S9848]]
maybe 12,000 years ago, maybe 30,000. The archaeology of the
Old Crow flats isn't as precise as historians might like, but
it was a long, long time before this, anyway.
The first time I was here, I visited sights where the
ancient habitation patterns were being uncovered by scholars
from the south even as a new way of life swept over the
Mackenzie delta. I've come back here to renew my acquaintance
with the place on the eve of another petroleum boom, although
this time the development may be transformed by the new North
as much as it transforms life for the people who live here.
More than a quarter of a century ago, when Grace was a
beautiful young woman with her eight children still in her
future, Tsiigehtchic represented an oasis of intelligent calm
in the petroleum boom that swept over the vast delta of the
Mackenzie River.
Back then the bush rang with the explosions of crews
shooting seismic surveys. Drill rigs punched more than 250
wells through the permafrost and charted the outline of a
Canadian elephant, the nation's second largest reservoir of
conventional oil and natural gas--perhaps 1.5 billion barrels
of crude and another 10 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Bush planes and corporate Learjets came and went in such
numbers that the airport at Inuvik, a town freshly cut from
the raw, red banks of the Mackenzie, recorded aircraft
movements on a scale with Chicago and Dallas. The town of Old
Crow, just across the border in the northern Yukon,
population 300, inherited an air strip capable of handling
big multi-engine jets.
Up the winter ice highway at Tuktoyaktuk, where the
inhabitants still carry the names of American whalers and
Scottish traders who arrived under sail, the town was a
frenzy of marine activity. There were drilling ships,
resupply barges and new islands were even being built out in
the shallows of the Beaufort Sea so that rigs could drill
without fear of ice floes.
Through the airport lounges came a steady stream of oil
workers: geologists still sunburnt from work in the African
deserts; helicopter pilots from Vietnam wearing long-billed
hats and mirrored sunglasses; toolpushes fresh from
Indonesia; consultants with clipboards, bureaucrats with
briefcases and seismic crews toting sleeping bags rated for
60 below zero.
The old hunter, now long dead, had laughed at the spectacle
as he restrung a pair of long, wide-bodied snowshoes for his
nephew: ``My great-great-granddad met Alexander Mackenzie. He
went. These roughnecks, they'll go. You'll go. But us, we're
not gonna go. We'll be here as long as this river.''
And he was right. As abruptly as the oil boomers had come,
they left. I left. Businesses withered. Towns that had seemed
frantic fell into a Rip Van Winkle-like lassitude and the
vastness of the Arctic closed over another example of human
vanity.
Now, with an energy-hungry America once again eyeing the
North as a potential source for its long-term needs, the
delta quivers with an eerie sense of anticipation as
somewhere over the horizon the second coming of the oil rush
and planning for the pipelines required to carry the rich
resources south gather momentum.
Inuvik Mayor Peter Clerkson says he expects the number of
active rigs in the Mackenzie delta will quadruple next year
and double again in 2003.
``This won't slow down for the next three to four years,''
he says. ``If the pipeline decision goes ahead it will
project out a long way. That pipeline is very important for
long-term sustained growth. We've had booms before. We need
long-term growth.''
He's optimistic because of aboriginal involvement, not in
spite of it.
Perhaps there's a signal here for British Columbia, where
land claims settlements are stalled, uncertainty stunts
investment potential and Premier Gordon Campbell is
contemplating what promises to be a divisive referendum on
the issue, however bland the final question.
Yet in the Northwest Territories, generous land settlements
have had an enormously positive impact on natives and
nonnatives alike, the mayor says.
``You've got land settlements, the aboriginal groups are in
charge and the Inuvialuit have basically gone out and joint-
ventured with everyone. It's a much different game. It really
changes things. It's not only because they are aboriginal,
it's because they are local. This is their home. The money
stays in this economy.''
Over at the Gwich'in Tribal Council, newly-returned
executive assistant Lawrence Norbert, born 42 years ago in
Tsiigehtchic, says he's been ``grinning from ear-to-ear since
I got back.''
``It's much different doing business with governments and
corporations now,'' he says. ``It's like there's a new
sheriff in town and they realize that the old way of doing
business is over for good. That's the up-side. We all know
where we stand now.''
As he and other aboriginals wait, the new drill rigs are
ready to rumble north. These units are equipped with special
design features that enable crews to work in the harsh winter
environment--captured engine heat is recirculated to keep
roughnecks' feet warm in temperatures cold enough to freeze
exposed flesh in minutes, for example.
The rigs can require 80 or more trucks to move their
components and cost up to $50 million each to construct. That
was the price tag on each of three just built in Edmonton by
Akita Drilling Ltd. and bound north for next winter's
exploration season.
As with northern Alberta and northeastern B.C., the
financial stakes are mind-boggling.
N.W.T. Finance Minister Joe Handley says it's estimated
that if all reserves in the Arctic are fully developed, they
will be worth $400 billion with royalties of $76 billion
flowing to Canada, another $11 billion to the N.W.T. and
billions more to the First Nations on whose treaty lands the
development will occur.
Even more than in northern Alberta, the term
``Kuwaitification'' sidles into conversations about the
future implications. The entire population of N.W.T. would
leave empty seats around the end zones if it were to meet in
B.C. Place. And although the North's aboriginal population of
21,000 forms the majority, in total it's smaller than
Langley's.
The corollary is that when the new oil rush reaches its
zenith, the entire weight of it is likely to descend upon the
inhabitants of Tsiigehtchic. The village has the misfortune
to sit in an oil patch so rich that crude seeps out of the
river banks to stain the river. And the first rig into the
delta in a decade has already been drilling a few kilometres
away.
So this remote village of just over 170, as far north from
Vancouver as Mexico is south--this is where I decide to begin
the Arctic leg of my energy odyssey, talking about the
looming future with Grace, who is old enough to remember the
last big boom and wise enough, after an 11-year term as
chief, to worry about the next one.
I find her on a Saturday morning at the back door to her
log cabin, the ground freshly splattered with the bright
crimson but already-frozen blood of a caribou from the
immense Porcupine Herd that migrates between here and its
calving grounds in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge where U.S.
President George W. Bush wants to begin exploring for oil.
She'll talk, she agrees, but she won't invite me in. It's
an act of hospitality.
``I was skinning this animal last night,'' she says.
``Goodness, I've got hair all over everything in there.'' And
she leads the unexpected visitor down to the institute
offices, instead, to talk about how things have changed--and
not changed--with respect to petroleum development.
Almost 30 years ago, northern aboriginal communities
presented an opposition to the building of pipelines to carry
northern oil and gas down the Mackenzie Valley that was so
eloquent and united in purpose that a commission on the
matter headed by Tom Berger called for a 10-year moratorium
on development.
With no way of transporting the resource to markets in the
south, further exploration guttered out just about when world
markets entered a period of oil glut. Prices fell. The boom
ended.
Today, northern aboriginal leaders, including the Gwich'in,
are receptive rather than hostile, Grace says.
``People are pretty open to development now, but they want
control. They don't want anybody to disturb certain selected
lands that they consider a priority. They want control,
that's their only stipulation and this time around, people
need to listen to us in the communities.''
Last time, she says, what happened in other northern
communities provided a textbook example for what to avoid
this time--but she wonders if anybody really took note.
``Do they even know? Do they care about the potential loss
of a way of life for our people? Why haven't we studied the
social impacts on Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk and Aklavik so we can
learn what to avoid? How do we protect our way of life? We
don't want to lose our way--that's all we are saying. We are
the last people living on the Porcupine caribou herd. We
don't want to lose that.
``The Berger Report lays out everything the people want, so
we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Do it right, that's what
people are saying. Do it, but just do it right--meaning we
are the inhabitants of this country and we deserve to be
respected. And not just our leaders, the common folk.''
That's a view I'll hear corroborated by Fred Carmichael,
chair of the Gwich'in Tribal Council in Inuvik, who says the
sea-change in attitudes has a simple basis: the affirmation
of aboriginal title through land claims and the opportunity
to take equity positions in any development.
In fact, northern aboriginal leaders have hammered out a
tentative deal with energy companies to acquire as much as
one-third ownership of a proposed $3-billion pipeline down
the Mackenzie Valley to hook up with North America's supply
grid in Alberta.
``The difference is that back then, we weren't the
landlords. Now we are the landlords and that's a big
difference. At the time of the Berger hearings, we wanted a
10-year moratorium while we got ready. We just weren't ready
then. Well, we got our 10 years and now we are ready.''
One of those who's preparing to reap the bonanza is Paul
Voudrach, a renewable resource officer at Tuktoyaktuk.
He and his wife Norma are in the process of buying out the
nonnative owners of the Tuk Inn, a 16-room hotel and coffee
shop, so that he can qualify for the preferential bookings
that will come the way of a registered Inuvialuit under
agreements hammered out during land claims.
Paul endured the last boom.
``What came with it was a lot of social problems,'' he
says. ``We had a huge amount of money coming in and people
who didn't know how to handle it. But our leaders are
knowledgeable about these things now. They
[[Page S9849]]
felt the impact last time. This time I think it will be
something that will benefit the community.''
Yet there's something grim about the atmosphere. Norma's
face is tight and nine-year-old Trish is inside despite the
fact that the town's annual jamboree is on.
Paul's son, John, he tells me, was killed the week before
on the ice highway from Invuik. The 25-year-old was helping
his boss at a local transport company bring a new pickup
truck back from Edmonston when it collided with one of their
own loaded gravel trucks hauling to one of the oil camps.
``We were just sitting here waiting for him to come home.
We heard that he was stranded at Eagle Plains (on the
Dempster Highway) waiting for the road to open after a storm.
then we heard he had been in an accident and had been
killed.''
It's a reminder for everyone in the community, he says,
that the kind of boom that's coming will be tempered with
things that nobody expects, good and bad, half a dozen of one
to six of the other when it comes to benefits and problems.
``What just happened to us, it opens your eyes. You think
there's going to be a tomorrow but there isn't. One minute
you are here, the next you are not. All your plans don't mean
anything. At least people here are a bit more aware now that
when the oil company comes with a job, that job can disappear
pretty fast.''
Maria Canton, filling-in as editor at The Drum newspaper in
Inuvik while she waits to take up a new post at the Calgary
Herald, is equally cautious.
``The streets are lined with shiny new pickup trucks that
belong to workers from the south,'' she says. ``There are
crews driving up and down the street all day long, all night
long. The bars fill up.
``I guess you'd have to say that when they are here it's
good for the economy. They have lots of money and they don't
mind spending it. You have to remember that to them this is
just a camp. They don't think of it as home. They don't seem
to grasp that people actually live here all the time and have
no plans to leave. But when the job is done, they're gone and
Inuvik is left to clean up everything that comes after.''
One who's determined that this time things will be
different is Nellie Cournoyea, the tough, former leader of
the N.W.T. government who now directs the Inuvialuit Regional
Development Corporation, the powerful business entity born of
the treaty agreement with Canada.
Outside her office, a poster confronts every visitor:
``Piiguqhaililugit uqauhiqput. Uqaqta Inuvialuktun uvlutaq.--
Do not forget our language. Let's talk Inuvialuktun every
day.''
``I always look at the up-side,'' Nellie says of the coming
boom. ``A lot of people talk about social problems--we
already have social problems. We just have to learn to deal
with social problems as they arise. Jobs and income are a
wonderful antidote to problems with self-esteem.
``We have a lot of working age people and they have to go
to work. The socialist system (of welfare) is not a good
system to follow. We've always been supportive of
development--but we've always wanted to be meaningful
participants.'' It's when I ask Grace about this coming
transition from traditional hunting and fishing to a wage
economy, the sacrifice of a life governed by the rhythms of
the seasons for one governed by a clock, that her gaze
wanders off into the white landscape.
And now the silence in the room is deepening like the snow
drifting up around the log cabins, snow that has already
filled the canoes, piled up on the tarps over stacked
firewood, smoothed all the indentations out of the landscape
like God's giant eraser applied to all sharp edges.
I wonder to myself where her gaze has gone.
Perhaps over the bluffs and up the river to Teetchikgoghan,
``bunch of creeks piled up in one place,'' where she was born
in the bush almost half a century ago.
Perhaps she is remembering those summers as a little girl
growing up in the care of her grandparents, Louis and
Caroline Cardinal, playing beside the river, a force of
nature that only someone born to it can fully understand,
the kind of presence that T.S. Eliot described as a
strong, brown god, coiled for release, never the same from
one moment to the next and yet containing everything
changeless and eternal.
Grace told me earlier how she'd go back there in her
imagination to escape the pain and loneliness of residential
school, where ``every little thing that I knew about myself
was just torn right out of me and I used to pee my pants
right where I sat, I was so frightened.''
So she'd go inside herself, back to that camp where she was
left to roam the shore and hillsides.
``My grandmother raised me as an Indian woman,'' she'd
said. ``The moment I went out into the world, as you call it,
I was supposed to erase all those experiences. It was like my
life wasn't my own.''
So I ask about the changes that now seem inevitable, the
end of a hunting economy and its replacement with market
labour and she slips away from the conversation, disappearing
into some deep introspection.
And begins to weep without sound, great, round, sudden
tears rolling down her face.
``Why I'm crying today is because my eldest son committed
suicide in January,'' she finally says.
`` `Mum, I'm just tired,' he said. `I'm just tired of
everything. I'm tired of mad, sad faces. Nobody speaks
respectfully.' He just saw everything so clearly and it blew
his mind.
``He was the father of five little children and he didn't
have a steady income. His dad taught him how to trap and how
to hunt and how to fish. Then he listened when they talked
about jobs. He got his heavy equipment licence and left the
bush. But they only wanted him when they needed him, not when
he needed work. He couldn't go back to the bush and he
couldn't support his family,'' she says. ``We don't have a
big bank account like you--we have our own bank account. Our
bank account is the land, the animals, the fish in the
rivers. You can't just come and empty out our bank account
without asking us.''
She gestures to the windown and the rig that everyone knows
is there but can't see. There are still beaver to trap, she
says, but there are no muskrats. It could be a natural cycle
but maybe it's a bigger thing, maybe it's because the lakes
are dying. The development boom is coming and there have been
no baseline studies of traditional environmental knowledge
done, she says. None. And that arrogance, that assumption
that the experts know best, shows the real relationship
between her world and the corporate world.
``We are the first and the last people of this frontier,''
she says. ``People are supposed to be valued. Human beings
have the highest value. But we see that it's not like that.
This corporate guy told us they will encourage kids to stay
in school--if they don't go to school they won't hire them.
That is the most foolish thing I have heard. You don't
encourage people by telling them they aren't good enough.
Our culture is not like that. We don't push people out of
the way--we take them in, we make a place for everybody,
not just the best.''
I thought then about the boom that's necessary to feed the
American superpower and her point about its structural
disregard for the genius of her culture, these amazing people
who learned to survive in the sparse boreal forest with not
much more than a string of animal sinew and their creative
imaginations.
This time, will things really be different as the
politicians and executives promise?
Or is there a deeper truth in the cry of grief from women
like Norma Voudrach and Grace Blake, already, in their own
ways, bearing the quickening burden of change?
``My son was the first suicide in this community. The first
ever. It's not the people, it's the system that makes us like
this,'' Grace says. ``When things start to move too fast and
people don't feel in control of their lives, that's when they
turn to drugs and alcohol. And suicide is the final act of
control, isn't it?
``We're being made to participate in our own destruction.
What happened to my son happens to everyone, can't you
understand that? When you are destroying us you are
destroying yourselves.''
Outside, a glossy black raven flopped in the snow, pecking
at the caribou blood turned to ice on her doorstep and I
found that my questions for Grace about the coming oil boom
and what benefits it might bring to her community had all
dried up.
____
[From the Vancouver Sun, June 11, 2001]
Massive Herd Remains Soul of Native Band: Debate Rages Over the
Environmental Costs of Drilling in Refuge
(By Stephen Hume)
Old Crow, Yukon.--The pilot, the reporter, even the two
biologists sent to do the aerial count 30 years ago, all fell
into that profound silence that accompanies the total failure
of words.
What could be said? As far as the eye could see, the tundra
below rippled and undulated with more than 160,000 caribou.
The Porcupine herd on the move covered more than 60 square
kilometres, one of the natural wonders of the world.
It may be decades since I watched that herd in awestruck
silence but today it is no less crucial to the survival of
Gwich'in tribal culture here in Old Crow, a remote village
770 kilometres north of Whitehorse and 112 kilometres north
of the Arctic Circle.
The 300 people who live here, accessible only by air or by
canoe from Alaska when there's open water, represent one of
the last true hunting societies on Earth.
People here depend upon the Porcupine herd for sustenance,
so not surprisingly, it's here, where the herd winters each
year in the trees that edge the Mackenzie River delta and the
northern Yukon, that an American debate over whether or not
there's to be drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic Wildlife
Refuge is watched with intense interest.
There's been an effort to join forces with the Old Crow
Gwich'in to lobby the U.S. senators not to open the Arctic
Wildlife Refuge,'' says Grace Blake, former chief in
Tsiigehtchic, a village in the Northwest Territories that
also relies on the herd. ``It's not a big movement yet, just
pockets of people. We need to educate the Americans about how
important this is to us.''
As one of the last near-pristine and contiguous wilderness
regions in the United States, the more than eight million
hectares of the AWR encompass the complete migratory routes
and summer calving grounds of the Porcupine herd.
Each year the caribou, identifiable by the stark
silhouettes of the antlers on mature bulls, make one of the
most remarkable journeys on the planet. Sustained only by a
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winter diet of sparse lichens, they swim freezing rivers,
climb snowy mountain ranges and cross the blackfly- and
mosquito-infested tundra on the way to the coastal plain
where cold winds sweeping in from the Arctic Ocean's pack ice
keep the blood-sucking insects away from newborn calves.
Then, when they've fattened up on succulent new vegetation,
they retrace their route to the winter shelter of the boreal
forest before temperatures plunge below freezing and wind
chills render the open country uninhabitable to all but the
snowshoe hare, the muskox, the wolverine and the barrenground
wolf. Fifteen years ago, when then-U.S. president Ronald
Reagan expressed sympathy for an oil industry lobby that
sought access to the region which lies adjacent to the Yukon
border, the Gwich'in allied themselves with the powerful U.S.
environmental lobby to successfully block development.
Now, with consumers complaining about gasoline prices and a
former Texas oilman in the White House in the form of George
W. Bush, the prodevelopment lobby which has been biding its
time in Alaska and the Lower 48 states has reemerged with a
vengeance.
Taking point for the development lobby is Arctic Power,
ostensibly a grassroots citizens group which favors oil and
gas exploration in the protected area. It's an organization
which has hired professional lobbyists in Washington, D.C.,
and was recently granted almost $2 million in funds by the
Alaska state legislature to do more of the same.
Rallying on the other side are organizations like the
Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the
Audubon Society and nearly 500 leading U.S. and Canadian
scientists who have called on President Bush to stop trying
to change the law that prohibits oil extraction in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.
They include world-renowned naturalist George Schaller,
Edward O. Wilson, winner of the National Medal of Science and
two Pulitzer Prizes for books on biology, David Klein, a
noted Arctic scientist at the University of Alaska and 50
other Alaska scientists.
One major difference in the political jockeying this time
around is that the dispute has become an exercise in
political cyberwar.
Arctic Power has a sophisticated web site which purports to
explode the ``myths'' of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Their
opponents have launched their own information sites at which
they argue that the amount of oil available from drilling in
the refuge--which is the last five per cent of Alaska not
available to the resource industry--would meet less than two
per cent of U.S. annual needs even in its peak year of
production, which couldn't come before 2027.
Citizens are invited to register their opposition with an
e-mail petition.
Meanwhile, important as oil might be to the U.S. economy,
the fate of the Porcupine herd is just as important to the
social and economic fabric of the Gwich'in. And the First
Nation's fears for the fate of the herd are growing rapidly.
Numbers of Porcupine caribou have now declined by
approximately 20 per cent--to the present total of 129,000
animals--even without the added stress of additional oil
exploration activity in the herd's calving grounds on the
North Slope of Alaska.
And as an example of what development might mean in the
future, green opponents of drilling point to Prudhoe Bay,
less than 100 kilometres to the west. There, they argue,
2,500 square kilometres of fragile tundra has become a
sprawling industrial zone containing more than 2,400
kilometres of roads and pipelines, 1,400 producing wells and
three airports.
``The result is a landscape defaced by mountains of sewage
sludge, scrap metal, garbage and more than 60 contaminated
waste sites that contain--and often leak--acids, lead,
pesticides, solvents, diesel fuel, corrosives and other
toxics,'' says the NRDC.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Again, Canada has every right to develop its energy.
They are a formidable competitor to our own domestic production, and we
enjoy access to that market and want to encourage it. But I resent the
pot calling the kettle black, so to speak.
There is another chart that generally shows the extent of the
activity, again in a little more detail. Here is the Alaska side. This
is the Canadian Northwest Territories. This is the identification of
wells that have been drilled and off-shore activity. You can see, as it
moves through this area, the Porcupine caribou move through this area
and it has significant exposure. And the Dempster Highway runs from
Norman Wells on up to Inuvik.
The point I want to make is that as we look at the companies coming
in, Anderson exploration and Petro-Canada, we can identify the
companies that bought up the leases. Anderson alone has done nearly 600
square miles of 3-D seismic testing over the past three winters. Petro-
Canada has already drilled exploratory wells outside of Inuvik, where
Anderson now plans to drill in the Eagle Plain area. That is again
shown on this chart, in this general area. It is a very significant
area associated with the migratory path of the caribou.
Are these exploration plans ``hasty and ill-conceived''? I question
that because these are the words of Mr. Anderson, the Canadian
Environmental Minister. I am sure the answer would be no; in his
opinion they are not ill-conceived. That is their opinion and I do not
challenge that. But neither is America's plan to allow careful and
environmentally sensitive exploration in only 2000 acres, in the sense
of any permanent footprint occurring in the Alaska Arctic Coastal
Plain. That is less than .01 percent of Alaska's wildlife refuge, which
is much broader than that, containing about 17 million acres.
Mr. Anderson would say Canada's drilling is OK because it doesn't
disturb the caribou calving, but he didn't and doesn't mention that
Canada is drilling in the midst of the herd's mating area. He doesn't
mention that Canada is drilling in the calving area for its own herds.
He doesn't mention that Canada's action after building the Dempster
Highway has probably done more to harm the health of the Porcupine herd
than anything that America would ever consider.
Consider for a moment, again, this chart and what this highway has
done. It has provided access. There is nothing wrong with access. Here
is the Eagle Plains. Here is the highway. This is the migration route.
In the past decade, Canada reduced the previous 8-kilometer hunting
area on both sides of the Dempster Highway, dropping it to a 2-
kilometer zone. Thus, Canadian hunters who want access have now access
to shoot the Porcupine caribou after only a short stroll from the
shoulder of the Dempster Highway. The herd has fallen from 180,000
animals to its current 129,000. That drop certainly has not been caused
by any American activity.
The Canadian Environmental Minister, Mr. Anderson, in the past has
complained opening Alaska's Coastal Plain would be unfair to the
Gwich'in Indians of Canada and Alaska who oppose the development, but
they certainly do not oppose it any longer in Canada. Canadian
Gwitch'in members are clearly supporting oil and gas exploration,
probably now because they will have a financial benefit, certainly the
benefit of jobs and better housing, better social care, and better
medicine following the completion of their land claim settlement.
Let me share a quote:
The difference is that back then--
Meaning previous years before the land claims--
we weren't landlords. Now we are the landlords and that is a
big difference. . . . Now we are ready for development.
This was Fred Carmichael, the chairman of the Gwich'in Tribal Council
in Canada. This article, again, came from the Vancouver Sun, the quote
to which I am referring.
Could Mr. Anderson's opposition to Alaska's environmentally sensitive
oil development be caused by Canada's desire to have a ready market for
its Mackenzie Delta oil finds in America? I hope so. We would welcome
it.
But according to Canadian press, Inuvik Mayor Peter Clerkson
predicted oil drilling would quadruple in this area in the winter and
double again next winter. Again, this level of activity certainly
indicates that.
The Northwest Territory Finance Minister has just been quoted as
hoping oil finds will generate $400 billion for Canada, all money being
transferred to Canada, mostly from the pockets of American consumers as
we look to Canada for energy needs.
Call it what you will, it is healthy competition. Mr. Anderson, the
Environmental Minister, in his fears about American oil exploration,
ignores that the legislation currently pending to open the Arctic
Coastal Plain fully protects the environment and the Porcupine caribou,
and to all wildlife on Alaska's Coastal Plain. The House passed
language, as you know. The House did pass H.R. 4. That energy
legislation authorizes the opening of ANWR. It limits development to a
2,000-acre footprint out of the 19 million-acre refuge. That would
leave nearly 100 square miles of habitat between each oil-drilling pad,
more than enough for the caribou to pass through, given the new
advances in directional drilling, 3-D seismic.
So I think if we compare what Canada's footprint in the Canadian
Arctic is, and our own, the technology would speak for itself. Further,
we propose to
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limit development so there will be no disturbance to calving during the
June-July calving season. This is not about protecting the environment
and the caribou that live in it. Mr. Anderson's objection must be about
something else.
Look at the objections that opponents voice to exploring in ANWR. One
is that it is an insignificant amount of oil, not worth developing. If
it isn't, we will make a park out of it. But that is nonsense. The USGS
estimates Alaska's portion of the Coastal Plain--I would say the
occupant of the chair has been up there--the estimate is it contains
between 6 and 16 billion gallons of economically recoverable oil. If it
is 10 billion barrels alone, the average, it is equivalent to 30 years
of oil we would import from Saudi Arabia at the current rate, and 50
years equal to what we import currently from Iraq.
By the way, 16 billion barrels is 2.5 times the size of the published
estimate of the new Canadian reserves in the Mackenzie Delta area,
here. It is absurd to think that ANWR only represents a 6-month supply
of oil as some opponents say. That would assume that ANWR is this
country's only source of oil.
Some say it will take too long to get ANWR oil flowing. But it
certainly will take less time to produce than some of the potential
deposits in Canada. And if we are truly at war against terrorism, we
have the national will to develop Alaska oil quickly, while still
protecting the environment.
We built the Pentagon in 18 months, the Empire State Building in a
year and built the 1,800-mile Alaska Highway in 9 months. Oil could be
flowing out of ANWR quickly if we made a total commitment to make that
happen. I believe we could do this in 12 months instead of the five
years, some predict.
There are many other misstatements about Alaska's potential for oil
development. We will have time to discuss those in this body as we work
on a national energy policy that makes sense for America. That debate
must occur soon; we must give the President the tools he needs to
ensure our energy security. I know members on both sides of the aisle
are anxious to make this happen.
But I wanted to come and respond to the comments made by Canada's
environment minister, because they were horribly unbalanced in light of
Canada's oil drilling program in the migratory route of the Porcupine
caribou herd.
I encourage an opportunity to debate Mr. Anderson, and I stand behind
my assertion that, indeed, his comments don't reflect the reality nor
the true picture of what is going on in Canada.
Again, I have fondness for our Canadian friends and Canada itself. I
am not saying they are harming the environment in the least. I am
pointing out what they are doing. The Members of this body need to know
that as well.
I welcome additional oil production in North America, as long as it
is done in an environmentally sound manner. Again, I remind all of us
that we give very little thought to where our oil comes from as long as
we get it. We should do it right in North America, Canada, and Alaska,
as opposed to it coming from overseas, over which we have really no
control.
I find the objections to be unbalanced and grossly unfair since they
totally ignore the environmental issues involved in oil development in
the Arctic.
I also find the Environment Minister's statement just days after the
tragedy in New York and Washington not only untimely but unfortunate.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor. I wish my colleagues a good
day.
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