Where I stand—Mike O’Callaghan: Hellbent on destruction

Thursday, March 15, 2001 | 10:06 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

IT WAS President Dwight D. Eisenhower who signed the law protecting what we call the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Why have so many Republican power brokers representing Big Energy been determined over the years to rip away the protection provided by that popular two-term GOP president? Money. Big Money and Big Energy have provided the champagne to inebriate their expensive campaigns. Of course, some Democrats from oil- and gas-producing states have also been at the cork popping, but they have always been in the minority in that party.

Alaskans from all walks of life have benefited financially from the oil fields developed on the state's North Slope. Low taxes and annual government payments to residents have become the custom in the north. But no other single Alaskan has reaped the amount of dollars provided for their representatives in Congress. Now these same members of Congress, led by GOP Sen. Frank Murkowski, have convinced large numbers of Alaskans that drilling in the fragile ANWR will bring them even more money. They may be right, but who told them that they owned the area designated by Eisenhower?

Alaskans have no more right to claim ANWR than Nevadans and Californians have to claim ownership of beautiful Lake Tahoe. Both are gems that belong to all Americans, and the nearby states have the honor and responsibility to join the federal government in protecting them.

Murkowski's most recent energy bill seeks to destroy the gem of the Arctic. Wilderness Society President William H. Meadows calls the bill "the Exxon Valdez of energy plans." He went on to say, "It's big, it's out of date, and it's an accident waiting to happen. ... This 300-page bill reads like something cooked up over drinks at the Petroleum Club."

Americans should know better than to believe that ANWR drilling will only affect 2,000 acres. The amount of oil that can be economically recovered is so small that it won't make a blip on the energy screen if it starts to flow more than six years from now.

Several years ago I went to the Prudhoe Bay oil complex and then followed the pipeline down to Valdez. Everything there is hunky-dory if you listen to the drilling proponents. It sure is OK if a complex covering 1,000 square miles, an average of 400 oil spills a year and emissions of air pollutants equal to a large city meet your fancy.

Former Management and Budget Director Alice Rivlin in a letter to Murkowski several years ago wrote, "The refuge is the last protected fragment of Alaska's Arctic Slope, comprising a pristine, unique ecosystem that is home to hundreds of plant and animal species. It contains 18 major rivers and is home to 36 species and land mammals, nine marine mammal species and over 30 fish species. This area is also the most important calving area for the international porcupine caribou herd. Studies have shown, for example, that opening this area to oil and gas development would lead to serious threats to the caribou herd and to its habitat in the coastal plain. Those impacts would potentially violate a 1987 joint U.S.-Canada agreement to protect the porcupine caribou, its habitat and the native peoples who depend on the herd to live and maintain their cultural herita ge."

And who are these native people Rivlin refers to in her letter? They are the Gwich'in people who are among the oldest and most traditional native cultures in the world today. According to Fr. Robert J. Brooks of the Episcopal Church, "the Gwich'in have developed their life and culture for 10,000 years." Their very survival is in peril if former banker-turned-career politician Murkowski gets his way.