[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 40 (Friday, April 12, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2623-S2627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am once again before the Senate because 
of the situation regarding the ANWR amendment which will be presented 
to the Senate next week. We are not on the energy bill now. I have 
spoken briefly twice this week on energy and its relationship to the 
possible development of the 1.5 million acres on the Arctic Plain. We 
call it the 1002 area. Some people call it ANWR.
  ANWR is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. During the period I was 
in the Interior Department in the sixties, the Arctic National Wildlife 
Range was created. That range was 9 million acres. It specifically 
provided that oil and gas leasing under stipulations to protect the 
fish and wildlife could proceed in that 9 million acres.
  The area that is now within the 1002 area was a portion of that 9 
million acres. I have a chart to show that. It is a very interesting 
history. In the original area of the 9 million acres, there is the 
coastal plain of the 1002 area which is an area set aside by an 
amendment offered by Senators Jackson and Tsongas. I will talk about 
that later. It is 1.5 million acres. The remainder of that original 
Arctic wildlife range is now totally wilderness.
  In 1980, there was an addition to the wildlife area in the Arctic. It 
is refuge, but it is not wilderness. So there are now, because of the 
act of 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, 19 
million acres in this Arctic area. It is, in fact, the Arctic wildlife 
refuge. The part that is not refuge yet is the 1002 area which is 
specifically, because of the Jackson-Tsongas amendment, available for 
oil and gas leasing following that basic act.
  I have to confess to the Senate and to anyone who might be interested 
in watching this presentation, I have not been sleeping well lately. I 
have spent almost 34 years in the Senate, and I remember only one other 
night that I did not sleep, and that was with regard to the time 
recently when a very great and dear friend of mine passed away, and I 
was chiding myself because I had not seen enough of him and found I did 
not sleep.

  Since I have been back from the trip to the Asian regions of the 
Pacific with my great friend, Senator Inouye, during the last recess, I 
have been trying to concentrate on the subject of the possible oil and 
gas development in Alaska, not only the oil potential of the 1002 area 
but also the Alaska natural gas pipeline.
  At the time that oil was discovered in 1968 in the great Prudhoe Bay 
area, which is on State lands and did not require Federal permission to 
start oil was discovered there in enormous quantities. At the time of 
the discovery, the wells came in somewhere around 500,000 to 1 million 
barrels a day.
  The great environmental organizations--I call them the radical 
environmental organizations--opposed the building of the Alaska oil 
pipeline. As a matter of fact, that pipeline was delayed for over 4 
years by litigation brought by these radical groups trying to prove 
everything from we were going to kill the caribou to we were going to 
destroy the area. They have alleged since that time that this area 
which we call the 1002 area is wilderness.
  Wilderness is a word of art in our State because we have more 
wilderness in our State than all the rest of the United States put 
together. This area that was set up in the fifties by the Secretary of 
the Interior and then approved by President Eisenhower was originally 
set up at the request of the Fairbanks Women's Garden Club. Fairbanks 
was my first home in Alaska, and that area was set aside in response to 
their request that there be some area designated in which the interests 
of the fish and wildlife of the Arctic area would be protected, but 
they specifically--specifically--excepted from that protection the 
concept of oil and gas leasing subject to consideration of stipulations 
that would, in fact, be required to protect fish and wildlife should 
there be oil and gas development.
  Prudhoe Bay is in the area of State lands, and this is Federal land. 
As the President realized at the time we obtained statehood, we 
obtained the right to select lands. All other States of the Union had 
the right on public lands to take sections 16 and 36 out of every

[[Page S2624]]

township. They selected those lands as they were surveyed.
  With an area such as Alaska, which is one-fifth the size of all the 
United States, 20 percent of all the lands of the United States and 
half of the Federal lands are in the State of Alaska. We determined we 
could not wait for surveying and asked Congress, and did receive, the 
right to select lands which were then to be surveyed out--not the whole 
State to be surveyed but our selection to be surveyed out.
  Subsequently, our native people received in 1971 the right to, again, 
select lands to satisfy their settlement of the Alaska Native land 
claims in the Settlement Act of 1971 of some 40 million acres outright, 
and additional areas were represented by their traditional burial 
grounds and traditional lands. So it adds up to about 45 million acres 
that the Alaska Natives selected.
  We are in the process now of trying to relate all of this to the 
American public so they will ask their Senators to support what we want 
to do, and that is to open this 1002 area now--as it was committed to 
us in 1980 would be done--to oil and gas exploration and development.
  To get this all into context, this chart shows our State of Alaska 
imposed upon the United States using the same scale. Normally, when one 
looks at the State of Alaska at the top of the North American maps, 
they see Alaska just a little place up at the top where people think 
that has to be a small place.
  Actually, it goes from the east coast to almost the west coast and 
almost from Duluth down into the middle of Texas. It is a concept of 
space that most people do not realize, almost three times the size of 
Texas. My old friend, Senator Tower from Texas, used to say he was 
afraid we might iron the place out and it would be as big as the whole 
country because there are a lot of mountains up there.
  This is a route of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline which was the subject of 
action by the Senate in 1968. This is the ANWR outline with the 1002 
area in green, and the area we seek to develop is right up there. Two 
thousand acres out of the 1.5 million acres will be developed according 
to the bill passed by the House authorizing us to proceed with oil and 
gas exploration in ANWR.
  The problem I have been talking about all week is we face a different 
circumstance than we did in 1973 when we sought to get the oil and gas 
pipeline completed. It had been, as I said, subject to litigation for a 
series of years and we determined we had to get legislative 
authorization to proceed. My great and good friend and mentor, Senator 
Jackson of Washington, was the chairman of the Senate Interior and 
Indian Affairs Committee, and he was the author of the Right of Way Act 
to amend the rights of way provisions to cross Federal lands for 
utilities and pipelines. We encouraged him to include a provision to 
authorize the construction of the oil and gas pipeline, and to permit 
its immediate initiation. During that period of time, as a matter of 
fact, Senator Jackson sent out a letter--and I will have that put on 
everyone's desk on Monday. It was signed by himself and Senator 
Hatfield--urging that the views expressed by these extreme radical 
environmentalists be ignored because of the great necessity to have 
that oil because it was a matter of national security.
  This is a poster of General Eisenhower back during World War II where 
he called attention to the Petroleum Industry War Council. There were 
some people leaving their work in the oilfields and enlisting in the 
Army, and General Eisenhower, to his great credit, sent this message:

       Your work is vital to victory . . . Our ships . . . Our 
     planes . . . Our tanks must have oil.

  He was then the supreme commander of our expeditionary force and he 
said, ``Stick to your job. Oil is ammunition.''
  We are at war again, and the same radical environmentalists are now 
opposing us moving out into another area of Alaska to explore for oil 
and gas. It is within this 1002 area.
  In 1980, I had long and serious discussions with two great Senators. 
This is the photo taken of Senator Jackson, Senator Tsongas, and 
myself, standing outside in the hall, discussing the amendment that had 
been agreed to, that I agreed to support, that my colleague opposed, in 
order to settle the dispute over the Alaskan National Interest 
Conservation Lands Act. That 1002 provision was authored by these two 
Senators.
  As I said last week, God would that they would still be alive. We 
would not be having these arguments because they were men of their 
word. They gave us their commitment. My State, my colleague and I, had 
opposed the Alaskan National Interest Conservation Lands Act because of 
the original provisions in the House bill that would have prohibited 
oil and gas development in the 1002 area. They crafted the amendment 
that gave us the chance to proceed to develop oil and gas in that area, 
provided there was an environmental impact statement filed, approved by 
the Secretary of Interior and the President which then had to be 
approved by Congress, which then had the job of authorizing proceeding 
with oil and gas development in that area.

  It was 1980 that we received that commitment. At the time of that 
commitment, we thought this would proceed in a year or two. As a matter 
of fact, the first environmental impact statement was made during the 
first Reagan administration. President Reagan asked Congress to approve 
it. Congress did not act. Then they ordered another environmental 
impact statement, and the President asked Congress to approve it. It 
did not. Subsequently, during the Clinton administration, Congress 
initiated two acts, primarily at my request, to approve an 
environmental impact statement and direct the administration to 
commence oil and gas leasing activity in this area. President Clinton 
vetoed those bills.
  So we are now, 21 or 22 years later, based on the act of 1980, still 
trying to see that the commitment made to Alaska, as part of the 
condition for withdrawing almost 100 million acres of Alaska--which, 
incidentally, came ahead of the State selections, ahead of the Native 
selections. The only concession we could get out of the whole situation 
that made any sense was the 1002 area, which we knew was our future.
  I was just home to Alaska twice in the last 2 weeks, and I have to 
report that my State is in dire trouble. Our timber mills have been 
closed down. Our pulp mills are closed down. All our major mines are 
closed down. There is no wildcat oil and gas activity in our State at 
all. Even the number of cruise ships that come to Alaska has been 
limited now by action of the Federal Government.
  Our future is still in resources. Half of the coal of the United 
States is in Alaska. None of it can be reached because of an act of 
Congress. That act of Congress provided that in order to have the right 
to develop the coal of Alaska, an operator would have to restore the 
natural contour. Well, that coal is found in areas of ice lenses and 
extreme cover of ice and water. Obviously, when coal is strip-mined, 
there is a hole. The original contour cannot be restored.
  That provision was added to a bill one day, over my great objection, 
and has prevented the development of any new coal mines in Alaska since 
that time.
  Our oil is in the Arctic. It is not only in our State. We have the 
one in Canada, too. If we look at the map of the Arctic of the world, 
that is where most of the oil is, up near the Arctic Circle and above 
the Arctic Circle. We have the vast areas where oil in tremendous 
quantities has been found.
  We believe within the area covered by 1002--I did not mention that 
was a 7-year fight; from 1973 to 1980 we fought to try to preserve the 
right to develop this area. But this is a historic oil and gas activity 
in the Canadian area.
  This is adjacent to us. Our wells are in the Prudhoe Bay area, very 
few of them. These are the Canadian oil wells all over in this area, 
including the area of the Porcupine caribou herd. The Porcupine caribou 
herd is a Canadian herd. It is not an Alaskan herd. It comes into 
Alaska once a year, most of the time, and comes up during the calving 
period. It is not during the mating period but the calving period. The 
calves have been dropped up in this area, not in the 1002 area but in 
the area along the plain. There have been sometimes when they have gone 
into the 1002 area and there have also been times in recent years they 
have not come at all. One of the reasons for that is the path the 
caribou wanders

[[Page S2625]]

through Canada. In Canada, caribou is not a game animal; it is a 
domestic animal. They can harvest as many as they want. These caribou 
can be harvested in Canada. The numbers are going down, no question, 
but not because of interference on our slope.

  To the contrary, the central caribou herd--around the land of the 
pipeline--has increased in size and is almost four to five times in 
number as before. The western caribou herd is not migrating anymore and 
is out toward Wainwright, AK. This map shows the withdrawal areas I 
mentioned. The areas are in the withdrawal land before the State of 
Alaska was granted statehood and before the Natives got their land. 
These lands were set aside in 1980 by an act of Congress. One of the 
conditions in our favor was that we can explore that little area up 
there in the 1002 area.
  The western herd of caribou is out here. They could not migrate 
anymore. The central caribou herd has increased enormously, so has the 
western. It is the Porcupine herd that is reduced in numbers, but there 
is no oil and gas activity now that has caused that. We keep hearing we 
caused that, but there is no oil and gas activity there. That is caused 
by hunting and by predators. We now do not have any control over the 
wolves. Those caribou travel thousands of miles to go to the Arctic 
area to drop their calves. They are, most of them, pregnant female 
caribou and are easily killed by wolves. The same people who are trying 
to prohibit us from oil and gas activity bring on the problems of 
trying to find some way to reduce the predators that are killing the 
Porcupine herd.
  In my time in the Senate, I have taken literally 100 Senators to the 
North Slope to show them this area. Those are the caribou that do come 
to the oil and gas area. This is the central caribou herd. I don't care 
if it is winter or summer, you will find them there. In fact, when we 
finished the oil pipeline, the university developed a new type of cover 
for the tundra, and it happens to be a very great favorite of the 
caribou. We have the oil industry replant that whole area with the new 
vegetation. It is tremendous food for them.
  In passing, it is not just caribou that like the pipeline. The 
pipeline is like a paved highway. Did you know oil coming from the 
ground in Alaska is hot? If you go near the pipeline, you are walking 
on a nice, warm sidewalk. The bears like it. We have great fondness for 
our wildlife. Alaskans go out of their way to make sure industrial 
activity does not harm our fish and wildlife.
  Returning to the 1980 act, if you want my history lesson for the day, 
when I was assistant leader, I sat here night after night and listened 
to the history lessons, as I call them, of the distinguished President 
pro tempore, Senator Byrd, chairman of our committee. I wish God had 
given me the prodigious memory he has. I don't have that kind of 
memory, but I like history lessons and I am trying to give one now.
  In 1978, a year I was up for reelection, we had this act before us, 
the Alaska National and Lands Conservation Act. In 1978, just before 
the election, that bill had been brought out of conference and I had 
agreed to support it. My colleague was opposed to it. At the very last 
minute, Senator Gravel objected to that bill proceeding until the bill 
itself was read. An adjournment resolution had already been entered so, 
in effect, that request killed the bill.
  Following that, I might add, I went back home to try to start getting 
ready again for consideration of this bill, and riding with my wife and 
five other people in a chartered jet we crashed going into Anchorage. 
My wife Ann was killed and all the passengers, other than myself and 
one other passenger, were killed. Those people killed were the head of 
what we called the Citizens for Management of Alaska Land. We were 
trying to raise funds to, once again, present our position to the 
Congress in the period of 1979 and 1980.

  By 1980 we had developed this bill after long arguments and meetings 
with my great friends, Senator Jackson and Senator Tsongas. Senator 
Jackson was chairman at the time. Section 1002, the Jackson-Tsongas 
amendment started with:

       The purpose of this section is to provide for a 
     comprehensive and continuing inventory and assessment of the 
     fish and wildlife resources of the coastal plain of the 
     Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; an analysis of the impacts 
     of oil and gas exploration, development, and production, and 
     to authorize exploratory activity within the coastal plain in 
     a manner that avoids significant adverse effects on the fish 
     and wildlife and other resources.

  Those conditions were met. Two environmental impacts were followed. 
There was a period of seismic activity that went on in the 1980s. We 
all know the largest reservoir that could contain oil or gas on the 
North American continent is beneath the 1002 area. There is no question 
about that. That is a scientific fact.
  When we get to the period of time when we try to look at this 
development, we are often told you can proceed without this. This is, 
again, now moving over to the Prudhoe Bay oilfields, not just one but 
several now. This is Kuparuk, further to the west, Prudhoe Bay, and the 
Sourdough Oil field, a small field adjacent to ANWR. We have within the 
1002 area the village of Kaktovik. They have lands that belong to the 
Natives, but by order of the administration at the time they got the 
title to those lands, they were prohibited from drilling on the lands. 
They said they had to wait until the Congress authorized drilling on 
the Coastal Plain. So if we pass this bill, they, too, will have the 
right to proceed to determine their own rights.
  The oil pipeline goes now from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay. This is the 
Wainwright area, which is the area of the caribou of the western herd. 
This is the size of ANWR. It is equal, the refuge itself, to South 
Carolina. We are not talking about a small piece of land. But the 
proposed development area in this 1002 area, 1.5 million acres, of 
2,000 acres is 3.13 square miles from a State that has 565,000 square 
miles.
  We are at wit's end. That is why this Senator is losing some sleep. 
That 2,000 acres is roughly the size of Dulles Airport. That is what 
this bill limits us to use. We cannot use more than 2,000 acres of the 
1.5 million acres set aside in the Oil and Gas Exploration Act. It is 
not wilderness.
  I will discuss later the newspapers that keep talking about the 
wilderness area of ANWR. They are talking about the wilderness area of 
ANWR where there is no oil and gas activity proposed at all. None at 
all. I believe one of the great problems we have is to try to deal with 
the subject without a full explanation. The difficulty that I have 
right now is in trying to orient myself to the bill. We will file an 
amendment next week--there has been a lot of gossip about this so I 
might as well get down to talking about it on the record.

  Yes, this Senator has been talking to people involved in the steel 
business, to the steelworkers, to other labor unions, and I have been 
talking to a great community of this Nation, the Jewish community. All 
have an interest in the development of this area.
  I have also been talking to people who are concerned about the 
Alaskan natural gas line. I will be talking about that soon, too.
  I thank the Chair for his courtesy on this Friday afternoon. If I 
don't get this out of me, I won't sleep tonight either.
  One of the great problems we have been facing is the battles with the 
press, so let's start with that. Let's start with our own Washington 
paper. In the past, in 1987 and 1989, this newspaper argued in favor of 
proceeding with exploration on the Arctic coast. It said:

       . . . But that part of the Arctic coast is one of the 
     bleakest, most remote places on this continent, and there is 
     hardly any other place where drilling would have less impact 
     on the surrounding life. . . .
       . . . That oil could help ease the country's transition to 
     lower oil supplies and . . . reduce its dependence on 
     uncertain imports. Congress would be right to go ahead and, 
     with all the conditions and environmental precautions that 
     apply to Prudhoe Bay, see what's under the refuge's tundra. . 
     . .

  In 1989 it said:

       . . . But if less is to be produced here in the United 
     States, more will have to come from other countries. The 
     effect will be to move oil spills to other shores. As a 
     policy to protect the global environment, that's not very 
     helpful. . . .
       . . . The lesson that conventional wisdom seems to be 
     drawing--that the country should produce less and turn to 
     even greater imports--is exactly wrong.

  What do we see now? December 25, 2001--nice Christmas present for 
somebody:


[[Page S2626]]


       Gov. Bush has promised to make energy policy an early 
     priority of his administration. If he wants to push ahead 
     with opening the plain as part of that, he'll have to show 
     that he values conservation as well as finding new sources of 
     supply. He'll also have to make the case that in the long 
     run, the oil to be gained is worth the potential damage to 
     this unique, wild and biologically vital ecosystem. That 
     strikes us as a hard case to make.

  They made the case in 1987. They made the case in 1989. They are 
saying George Bush should make it now. Where is the consistency of the 
Washington Post? What has changed in the Washington Post? The 
management? They haven't changed any science. They haven't produced any 
science.
  Now, in February they said:

       Is there an energy crisis, and if so, what kind? What part 
     of the problem can the market take care of, and what must 
     Government do? What's the right goal when it comes to 
     dependence on overseas sources?
       America cannot drill its way out of ties to the world oil 
     market. There may be an emotional appeal to the notion of 
     American energy for the American consumer and a national 
     security argument for reducing the share that imports hold. 
     But the most generous estimates of potential production from 
     the Alaska refuge amount to only a fraction of current 
     imports.

  That is wrong. They belie the fact that Iraq is currently threatening 
to withhold exports to us--or really to the international food program 
that we buy from. In fact, our oil will produce as much as a 30 years' 
supply from Iraq.

  Today Iraq sends to every suicide bomber's family $25,000 in cash. If 
we can believe the reports we got yesterday, even the Saudis have a 
fund now to pay the costs of education and maintenance for the children 
of suicide bombers. From where is that money coming? It is coming from 
the United States.
  Had Congress listened to President Reagan, had President Clinton not 
vetoed the bill, we would be producing oil from that area now.
  At the height of the Persian Gulf war, 2.1 million barrels of oil a 
day came down from the Alaska oil pipeline. When I was home last week, 
it was 950,000 barrels. Meanwhile, we are now importing over 1 million 
barrels a day from Iraq--at least we were until he shut it off.
  There is no consistency in these national newspapers when they do 
this. Why should one generation act on the recommendation in 1987 and 
1989 and another one be told now that is all wrong? There ought to be 
some kind of integrity in the Washington Post.
  The New York Times--an interesting thing, if you follow this. I am 
not going to do it, follow the transition. When one of these papers 
changes its mind, the other one changes its mind. This is the New York 
Times. Then in 1987, 1988, 1989, the same thing.

       Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge . . . the most 
     promising untapped source of oil in North America.
       . . . A decade ago, precautions in the design and 
     construction of the 1,000-mile-long Alaska pipeline saved the 
     land from serious damage. If oil companies, government 
     agencies and environmentalists approach the development of 
     the refuge with comparable care, disaster should be 
     avoidable.

  In 1988 they say the same thing:

       . . . the total acreage affected by development represents 
     only a fraction of 1 percent of the North Slope wilderness.

  Again, they call it wilderness. It is not wilderness.

       . . . But it is hard to see why absolutely pristine 
     preservation of this remote wilderness should take precedence 
     over the nation's energy needs.

  That is the issue today. Should a small group of radical 
environmentalists block the United States from obtaining another source 
of oil to lead us toward total dependence on foreign sources? At the 
time of the oil embargo in the 1973 area, we imported about 35 percent 
of our oil. Today we are approaching 60 percent. Now they turn around 
on us, from having supported us through the whole series--1987, 1988, 
1989.
  New York Times, 1989:

       . . . Alaskan oil is too valuable to leave in the ground.
       . . . The single most promising source of oil in America 
     lies on the north coast of Alaska, a few hundred miles east 
     of the big fields at Prudhoe Bay.
       . . . Washington can't afford . . . to treat the accident 
     as a reason for fencing off what may be the last great 
     oilfield in the nation.

  Now they attack my colleague, saying he is wrong in his estimates. 
They are also saying:

       The country needs a rational energy strategy . . . but the 
     first step in that strategy should not be to start punching 
     holes in the Arctic Refuge.

  What happened to the New York Times? Change of management? Yes, 
another change of management. Maybe they hired one of the radical 
environmentalists, for all I know. But that is not a national newspaper 
that deserves any credibility. As far as I am concerned, I have written 
them off. How can you believe them one year and have them turn around 
and not tell you what they said before, in 1987, 1988, 1989, is wrong? 
They didn't even recognize in their own editorials that they had taken 
those positions so the new young people, reading their paper, don't 
know about that unless some of us call them to task.
  Where was the editorial board that was involved in 1987, 1988, and 
1989, when this editorial board of the New York Times took a 
diametrically opposite position? That is not a national paper anymore, 
as far as I am concerned. It is unworthy of credibility. Beyond that, I 
might have some long statements about them next week.
  Mr. President, I don't want to keep you too long, but I do want the 
world to know that, starting next week, we are going to be on this bill 
for a long time. When that bill goes in, I am told the leadership 
perseveres with their attitude--which was not Senator Mike Mansfield's 
attitude, it was not Senator Jackson's attitude.
  In 1973, there we had the oil pipeline amendment up--conscious of 
what President Eisenhower had said, conscious of the approach that all 
of us had taken up to that time, that oil and the availability of oil 
to this country is a matter of national security as well as economic 
security. The leadership now says we must have 60 votes--or we should 
not even bring up the amendment.
  I want leadership to know that I don't know that I have 60 votes, and 
neither does Senator Murkowski. We are going to bring up the amendment 
and we are going to debate it until we have 60 votes--until we have 60 
votes or unless they can get the votes to table our amendment. There is 
a possibility that could happen.
  But I want you to know that every steelworker in the country is going 
to know who denied them their legacy fund. Every coal worker who is 
going to fall short of the money on their funds under the act of 1992 
will know who did that to them.
  Every member of the Jewish community who now supports the development 
of ANWR is going to know who denied them what they need. Part of this 
law extends the right of Israel to receive a portion of the output of 
the Alaska oil pipeline in the event it is denied oil by its neighbors. 
Most people do not know that. Years ago that was enacted. It must be 
renewed now. Our amendment renews that.
  We support entirely the freedom of Israel. Our State insisted on 
sharing with Israel our oil as it came out of the pipeline if their oil 
was shut off. So did the people who buy our oil.
  The Senate ought to look to the groups who support an energy policy 
for America. We have American veterans, the American Legion, Veterans 
of Foreign Wars, AMVETS, Vietnam Veterans Institute.
  Catholic War Veterans, organized labor, the Seafarers International 
Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Maritime 
Laborers Union, the Operating Engineers Union, the Plumbers and 
Pipefitters Union, and the Carpenters, Joiners and Builders Trade, the 
Hispanic Union, the Latin American Latino Coalition, the United States-
Mexico Chamber of Commerce, Seniors Coalition, United Seniors 
Association, every major American Jewish organization, scientist 
organizations of America, Americans for a Safe Israel, American 
business communities, National Black Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Chamber 
of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and Alliance for 
Energy and Economic Growth. I could go on and on with this list of who 
supports this.
  (Mr. INOUYE assumed the chair.)
  I welcome the occupant of the chair, my great and long-time friend. 
As I said last night, we will not keep you long.
  We will have to put in orders, if ANWR produces oil, for 17 new 
double-hulled tankers. As a result of Exxon

[[Page S2627]]

Valdez, we decreed in Congress--and the State industries agreed--that 
all new tankers to serve Alaska must be double-hulled. When this great 
area starts producing oil, 17 new double-hulled tankers will be built 
to carry the oil coming out of the Alaska pipeline.
  The current occupant of the chair didn't see this chart. I want to 
present it again for his benefit because the two of us served under 
that great general. This is what he said during World War II to our oil 
field workers: ``Stick to your job. Oil is ammunition.''
  If the leadership followed the precedent set by Mike Mansfield, who 
opposed the Alaska oil pipeline amendment when there was a tie vote--
they supported the one provision which accelerated the litigation and 
required immediate construction of the pipeline. Senator Mansfield 
would not permit a filibuster on the matter involving national 
security. Senator Jackson was chairman of the committee. And both of 
them voted against that oil pipeline amendment when it was a tie vote. 
They did not try to filibuster against that amendment. Had they done 
so, we undoubtedly would not have the oil pipeline today.
  If those two great leaders had opposed the one amendment that 
accelerated the construction of the pipeline, we would never have had 
an oil pipeline.
  I believe the situation today is an odd one. I am sad that leadership 
now perseveres in its statement to us that we must have 60 votes.
  I close out by saying Alaska Senators are going to try to persevere 
too. We are going to stay here and the Senate is going to stay here 
until we get 60 votes next week.

  I thank the President for his courtesy.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  (Mr. STEVENS assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, I wasn't prepared to present a lengthy 
argument in favor of or against it, but I must tell you that I support 
you fully, sir. I support your proposal on ANWR. I did so when the 
pipeline was proposed many years ago. I still recall that at that time 
the opponents of the pipeline predicted the caribou herd in Alaska 
would be decimated. I am a lover of animals. I was concerned. But today 
I am happy to tell you that instead of being decimated, the herd has 
increased tenfold. There are more caribou than we ever had in our 
lifetimes.
  The opposition to the use of ANWR at this time comes from many 
sources. These sources are my friends. As you may know, Mr. President, 
I have the privilege of serving at this moment as chairman of the 
Committee on Indian Affairs. I am concerned about the plight of the 
Native Americans. Yes, it is true that there is a tribe--a nation--in 
Alaska opposed to the use of ANWR for drilling of oil--one tribe. I am 
pleased to advise you, Mr. President, that the Federation of Alaskan 
Natives, representing all the other tribes, favors your measure. As 
chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, I feel almost compelled to 
support you if only on that basis.
  But there are other reasons for my support. The next reason was given 
to me just a few days ago when the dictator of Iraq stated: Why don't 
we use the oil weapon against the United States?
  As long as the present condition continues, we will be hostage to 
oil, we will be captives to oil. We may find ourselves, once again, 
going out into the desert to fight for oil, risking and sacrificing 
American lives. And as chairman of the Defense Appropriations 
Committee, I am not in favor of that, sir.
  So when the time comes, I will be answering ``aye'' on your measure.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished majority whip.

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