Mr. President, Alaska is big enough for caribou, polar bears and oil rigs. Really.
How big is Alaska? So big that you could fit more than two Texases in it. You could fit New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia and Ohio in it and still have some room. If you measure the state from the tip of the Aleutians over to its easternmost reach Alaska is as wide as the Lower 48.
About 750,000 people live in Alaska. This is by far the lowest population density in the nation. If you've flown across the Lower 48 and marveled at just how vast and empty of people this country is, Alaska is almost infinitely more empty, vast, wild. Alaska has about 57 million acres of designated wilderness, including the 18 million acre Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. That's more than half of all the wilderness in the United States of America (California is a distant second with 15 million wilderness acres).
So today President Obama announced that he wants to expand Alaska's wilderness by 12 million acres. And in so doing he wants to block off areas with known oil reserves from ever being drilled for oil. (You can read the Dept. of Interior's release here.) He also wants to impose severe restrictions on drilling in Alaska's Arctic waters as well as in the National Petroleum Reserve.
Alaska's politicians have expressed their outrage at Obama's move, warning of dire economic consequences in a state that depends on oil jobs and revenues. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called it "a one, two, three, kick to the gut of Alaska's economy."
The president's real message could not be more clear: He is vehemently against the long-term strategic energy security of the United States. Not only is he stonewalling the Keystone XL pipeline that would tie our energy infrastructure in with Canada's, but now he also wants to starve the Trans-Alaska Pipeline of oil. This pipeline is a highly strategic oil artery connecting Prudhoe Bay and Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve to the rest of the country. Without sufficient oil supply to keep it operating (about 500,000 barrels per day), the pipeline would have to be shut down and dismantled.
It's an astonishingly cynical move from a president who just a couple of weeks ago in his State of the Union address touted his support for investments in infrastructure.
There was a time when the Trans-Alaska pipeline was considered to be one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the nation. Over 35 years it has moved some 16 billion barrels of oil. And it could well move that much again if oil companies were allowed to drill fields on the North Slope thought to contain well in excess of 15 billion barrels of oil. We're not talking risky offshore venture in iceberg-strewn seas, but rather low-risk onshore drilling into conventional reservoirs. If there's any "easy oil" left untapped in the world it's in Alaska. But without the pipeline it's not going anywhere.
The thought of dismantling such a strategic treasure would be pure comedy to any other world leader. But Saudi Arabia, where the president and his vast entourage paid homage to the new King Salman today, must absolutely loves the idea of the world's biggest oil customer eschewing pipeline connections to two of the biggest concentrations of oil in North America.
Every barrel we don't pipe in from Alaska or Canada is a barrel that we have to bring in by tanker from the other side of the world.
As for the argument that Alaska needs more wilderness and the polar bears and caribou need protecting? Don't buy it. They've got all the land they need. And as for this proposal to open up the waters off the Eastern seaboard to drilling -- that is nothing more than a cynical bait-and-switch. The New York Times says it is another instance of Obama's pragmatic strategy of dealing with the energy industry by balancing a win with a loss. But this isn't much of a win. There's no existing oil infrastructure off the coast of Virginia. No pipelines. No existing production or services. No oil and gas culture in the coastal cities like there is in Louisiana and Texas and Alaska. No understanding by the populous that drilling offshore is commonplace and can be done safely and responsibly.
“This administration is determined to shut down oil and gas production in Alaska’s federal areas – and this offshore plan is yet another example of their short-sighted thinking,” said Sen. Murkowski, in a statement today. “Forgive me for remaining skeptical about this administration’s commitment to our energy security. I look forward to working with the next administration to ensure that Americans have access to abundant and affordable energy.”
When bought from Russia in 1867, the U.S. federal government owned all 375 million acres of the Alaska Territory. So far, according to the Alaska Depatment of Natural Resources, about 100 million acres of it has been handed over to the state and about 44 million acres to native tribes. The federal government still owns about 220 million acres, of which about 120 million acres is conserved for fish and wildlife and another 100 million acres managed for timber production, mining and recreation. A couple million acres left over is designated to military bases, the National Petroleum Reserve and something called U.S. Postal Service lands.
Less than 1% of Alaska is in private hands.
God bless the caribou and polar bears and wolverine and lynx and whales and every other creature in Alaska. But there is plenty of room for them in Alaska to cohabitate with a handful of oil rigs. And if they do feel boxed in, there's always the Yukon, right over the border.
