OPINION: From the Publisher: ANWAR decision need to be made one way or another at long last

February 17th 2:56 pm | Jason Evans    

It looks like the discussions of opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil development are coming back again. This has been discussed since the mid '70s. ANWR is a section of Alaska on the Northeast coast that comprises 19 million acres of land. Everyone is debating the development of section 10-02, which contains 1.5 million acres.

It was estimated by the Office of Management and Budget that the lease sales would bring in $4 to $6 billion to developers, and royalties and taxes would bring more than $200 billion to the state and federal governments.

This week, on a few Alaska legislators' Facebook accounts, there were open letters to Alaskans to call or write members of Congress in the U.S. House Representatives urging them to support the development of oil in section 10-02.

There have been several times in the last 40 years when it looked like ANWR could be open to development. In 1986, a report by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that all of the coastal plain within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened for oil and gas development. Then, in 1989, it looked like a bill would pass the U.S. Senate. It was about to come up for a vote when the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred and ultimately stopped the bill. Seven year later in 1996, a bill did pass the Republican majority of the House and Senate to allow drilling in ANWR and was vetoed by President Clinton. There was a further threat that President Clinton would sign legislation that declared the Arctic Refuge a U.S. National Monument at the end of his presidency, which would have permanently closed the area off to development. Clinton did sign legislation declaring several refuge monuments, but ANWR was not one of them, leaving the debate open to continue.

President George W. Bush pushed for the opening of ANWR through his presidency. In 2002 and in 2005 the U.S. House of Representatives passed bills that would have allowed it, but they were turned down in the Senate. In 2005, Sen. Ted Steven attached a rider to a defense bill that would have allowed drilling ANWR, but a group of Democratic senators filibustered the bill and the section had to be removed.

It amazes me that Alaska has so many resources in our backyards that have such importance to the rest of our country, and even our world, yet, we cannot decide if we should develop them. On these important issues, we have little say whether we can move forward with one development, or even if we should stop another one. We must lobby politicians thousands of miles away to either promote development, or ask them to prevent it. We as a state need to actively develop a process that allows our voices to be hear and maybe the rest of the county will listen.