The Los Angeles Times
www.latimes.com

In Oil Politics, Alaska Is the 800-Pound Bear

By JANET HOOK
Tuesday, May 22, 2001

The state is so undeveloped, there are more caribou than people. It's so remote, Americans have to pass through another country to drive there. And it is so sparsely populated that the state has only one congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But Alaska's one House member and two senators speak loudly and carry very big sticks in Congress--especially when it comes to shaping energy and environmental policies that now are moving to center stage. Indeed, as President Bush's energy program heads to Capitol Hill, no state will wield more per capita clout than Alaska.

The state's junior senator, Frank H. Murkowski, is chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will write major elements of Bush's energy law. The senior senator, Ted Stevens, heads the Appropriations Committee, which holds the purse strings for the entire federal government, including the Energy Department. Alaska's sole House member, Don Young, is a powerful senior member of the committee that oversees policy concerning natural resources.

Alaskans also have infiltrated the White House. Two former Murkowski aides led the staff of Bush's energy task force, jokingly referring to themselves as the "Alaska jihad."

Ironically, the Alaska crowd faces its toughest fight in Congress over the energy policy plank that hits closest to home: Bush's call to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. The Alaska delegation--all Republicans--has been pushing this effort for years, to no avail.

But the delegation's clout gives the proposal life it would not otherwise have--and gives Bush a powerful cadre of allies committed to other elements of his hopes to increase domestic energy production.

"I'm proud of this president," Young said. "The energy sources are there. We just haven't had the will to develop them."

Constituency Counter to Mainstream U.S.

The Alaskans for years have been pursuing such policies as "lone riders," said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who has worked with Young on the House Resources Committee.

But with the energy problem now at the forefront of the congressional agenda, Miller added, "they are fortified. They have their hands on a lot of levers."

The Alaska delegation also represents a constituency whose views of energy and natural resource policy are, like the state itself, far removed from the rest of the nation.

A recent Los Angeles Times Poll found that, nationally, 55% disapproved of drilling in Alaska's Arctic refuge; in Alaska, 65% approved. Nationally, only 41% approved of Bush's handling of the environment; in Alaska, 55% approved of the job he's doing. In every region of the country except Alaska, a majority wanted to continue a ban on logging and road building in national forests; in Alaska, 58% disapproved of the ban.

"Those guys from Alaska are not mainstream people," said Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois, a moderate Republican who has qualms about oil and gas exploration in the Alaska wilds. "But they don't represent mainstream people."

Alaska's idiosyncratic interests in energy policy and its environmental consequences are a reminder of one distinctive characteristic of the impending debate on those issues: The exchange concerning energy policy will be driven in part by lawmakers' distinctive regional interests, which often are not strictly partisan.

As enthusiastically as Alaskans back oil and gas exploration, so too will representatives of oil-patch states like Texas and Oklahoma. West Virginians cheer coal development. In Illinois, people will seek relief from their states' extraordinarily high gas prices. And Californians will see everything through the prism of the Golden State's unparalleled energy crisis.

An Oversize Presence in Debate

No one region will dominate the debate. But Alaska will have an outsize presence on the front lines as Congress deals will some of the Bush plan's most controversial elements, such as expansion of nuclear power and opening public lands to energy exploration.

Murkowski, as energy committee chairman, will oversee drafting the comprehensive bill that would implement provisions related to these goals. The measure is scheduled to come before the Senate next month.

Even before Bush's energy report, Murkowski, 68, was pushing key elements of the White House agenda. In February, he introduced his own energy bill that included oil drilling in the Arctic refuge, tax incentives for alternative energy development and other measures to increase domestic energy production. Murkowski also is well positioned to push tax policy elements of the Bush energy plan, as a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee. (He previously has shown his clout on that panel by slipping into bills such Alaska-friendly tax breaks as a cut in the airline ticket tax for flights to roadless destinations; he currently is seeking deductions for Eskimo whaling captains.)

Stevens, 77, wields extensive influence over federal spending as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, which this summer will set funding levels for the Energy Department, including clean-coal development initiatives. (For all the focus on Alaskan oil, Stevens noted, the state also is home to half the coal in North America.)

Young, 67, who was forced by a term-limit rule to end his six-year tenure as chairman of the Resources Committee, remains vice chairman of the panel. The committee will have a hand in determining the fate of Bush's proposal to open public lands to more energy exploration and development.

Each of the Alaskans has vast experience on Capitol Hill--Stevens took office in 1968, Young in 1973 and Murkowski in 1981. And throughout their tenures, each has been a trusted ally for the oil and gas, mining and timber industries that are so important to Alaska's economy.

As much as half of the state's economic output each year flows from energy-related industries. The 1967 discovery of oil on Alaska's North Slope and the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline have been defining experiences for the state--and for individual bank balances. Every man, woman and child in Alaska receives a dividend check--worth almost $2,000 last year--from a state oil revenue fund.

"We live resource development," Stevens said.

Arctic Refuge Seen as Economic Treasure

So while environmentalists--including some Republicans--resist drilling in the Arctic refuge because they believe it would tarnish a national wilderness treasure, many Alaskans see it as an economic treasure trove for their state and the rest of the country. And they are far less romantic about its aesthetic appeal.

"This is not a pristine site," Young said of the barren coastal stretch of tundra. "It is the least hospitable area left in America."

The Alaska delegation is legendary for its relentlessness in promoting the state's parochial interests. When the White House released its energy report Thursday, Murkowski held two news conferences. One addressed the national issues raised by the plan, but the other focused on drilling in the Arctic refuge. Murkowski told reporters: "I wanted to just give you the North Pole version."

In the process of pursuing their state's interests, the three congressional Alaskans have shown little reluctance to infuriate the environmentalists who will be a powerful counterforce in Capitol Hill's energy debate.

One such fight occurred in 1998, when the delegation stalled a huge appropriation bill with an amendment that would have allowed construction of a road to a remote Alaska village through environmentally sensitive land. In a compromise, the Alaskans agreed to reroute the road.

Their colleagues look on with grudging admiration at the delegation's ability to deliver for the folks back home.

"If you think Congress is one big stagecoach robbery after another, they are one of the best stagecoach robbers in sight," Rep. Miller said. "With no apologies, they go for the strongbox day in and day out."