[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 2 (Friday, January 5, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E13-E14]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE INTRODUCTION OF THE UDALL-EISENHOWER ARCTIC WILDERNESS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 4, 2007

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act 
honors two great American visionaries by designating the coastal plain 
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness in their names and 
giving permanent protection to this great unspoiled wild place. 
Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower began the bipartisan legacy 
of fighting to protect this majestic area for future generations of 
Americans when he set aside the core of the Refuge in 1960. Twenty 
years later, in 1980, Democratic Representative Morris Udall succeeded 
in doubling the size of the Refuge, protecting even more of this 
untrammeled wilderness from oil drilling.
  President Eisenhower and Morris Udall had the vision to protect a 
remote but very special piece of pristine wilderness. I am proud to 
introduce legislation today along with Representative Jim Ramstad of 
Minnesota that would complete the job they began by giving permanent 
protection to the coastal plain of the Refuge.
  I am also proud to introduce this legislation under the bill number 
H.R. 39, a bill number with important historical significance in the 
effort to preserve the land within the Arctic Refuge. H.R. 39 was the 
bill number given to Mo Udall's Alaska Natural Interest Lands 
Conservation Act that became law in 1980, expanding the area President 
Eisenhower had set aside and renaming it as the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. Representative Udall later began introducing his 
legislation to designate the coastal plain of the Refuge as wilderness 
under that same bill number. This bill number offers an important 
reminder of the history of this special place.
  The coastal plain is the biological heart of the Refuge and is 
central to the survival of many unique species of animals including 
caribou, polar bears, musk oxen, wolves, and over 160 species of birds. 
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls the coastal plain the ``center 
for wildlife activity'' in the Refuge. If we were to allow drilling in 
the Refuge it would irreparably disrupt this important ecosystem and 
one of our last great wild places will be forever scared and destroyed.
  In this last year, we have seen so-called ``environmentally-gentle'' 
oil drilling exposed once and for all as the myth that it is. On March 
2, 2006, BP workers discovered a quarter-inch hole in a pipeline on 
Alaska's North Slope that had leaked 267,000 gallons of oil onto the 
arctic tundra. That recent spill was the largest in the history of the 
North Slope. Subsequent spills led to the discovery that BP had grossly 
mismanaged and severely neglected its pipelines and North Slope oil 
drilling operations, which had previously been touted by drilling 
proponents as the best and most technologically advanced in the world. 
The reality is that drilling for oil is a dirty business and opening 
the Arctic Refuge to drilling would forever ruin this untouched special 
place.

  Moreover, if we were to allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge, the 
crown jewel of the Wildlife Refuge System, it would represent a 
colossal shift in the policy and precedent governing our wildlife 
refuges. Prying open the Arctic Refuge for drilling would set a 
dangerous precedent that would allow the oil companies to select any of 
the other 544 as the next target for oil drilling.
  The Bush administration has argued that we have no choice--that we 
are so dependent on oil that we must start defiling our wildlife refuge 
system to keep feeding our oil addiction. That is wrong. We have a 
choice, a better choice, and it is about time that we enact real 
changes in our energy policy by focusing on conservation rather than 
seeking to drill for a few short months worth of oil in this pristine 
refuge.
  The United States consumes 25 percent of the world's oil but controls 
only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We cannot drill our way out 
of our dependence on foreign oil but we can choose to harness our 
technologic genius to do something real about our dependence on oil.
  Two-thirds of the oil we consume everyday in the U.S. goes into the 
gas tanks of our cars, trucks and SUVs. From an energy standpoint, 
drilling in the Refuge is completely unnecessary. If our cars, trucks 
and SUVs traveled just 3 miles more per gallon today, we would save 
more oil than drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would 
produce at its peak levels of production. But more than that, if we 
increased fuel economy standards to 40 miles per gallon over 10 years, 
we would save more oil within 15 years than we would be able to get out 
of the Arctic Refuge over its entire 40-50 year production life.
  The oil fields on the North Slope already annually produce more air 
pollution and greenhouse gases than the municipality of Washington, 
D.C. and the Arctic is showing the strains of global warming.
  Just this last month, the Bush Interior Department proposed listing 
the Polar Bear as an ``endangered species'' because global warming 
appears to be so drastically affecting its habitat--particularly the 
summer ice floes needed to hunt--that the bears are drowning far from 
shore when the floating ice melts. Last week scientists confirmed that 
a giant ice shelf--the Ayles Ice Shelf--snapped off of its land anchor 
just 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic. This is 
a feature of the Arctic landscape that is thousands of years old. The 
remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first 
discovered in 1906.
  Our addiction to oil is real and enduring and still largely 
untreated. Drilling in the refuge would amount to a declaration that we 
remain in denial about this addiction, its impact on our planet and our 
obligation to future generations.
  If Congress were to ever turn the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge 
into an industrial footprint by allowing oil drilling, the impact on

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the land and the wildlife would be permanent but the hoped-for energy 
benefits only temporary. There are some places in our world that are so 
rare and so special, that we have a responsibility to protect them. The 
Arctic Refuge is one of those places. As Mo Udall said, ``In our 
lifetime, we have few opportunities to shape the very Earth on which 
our descendants will live their lives. In each generation, we have 
carved up more and more of our once-great natural heritage. There ought 
to be a few places left in the world the way the Almighty made them.'' 
The Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act would ensure that the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge is never carved up by the big oil companies 
but is instead forever protected for future Americans.

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