Testimony of Richard Ranger, API
May 4, 2010
Washington, D.C.

• API acknowledges the potential value to be gained through revision of the Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the Arctic NWR. We are here because we believe that the missions of the USFWS for wildlife conservation and ecosystem management, and oversight of recreational and subsistence uses can be achieved without designation of the Arctic NWR coastal plain as wilderness.
• The crude oil and resource in particular that is believed to lie in geologic strata found below the Arctic NWR coastal plain is generally believed to be the single largest crude oil resource in the U.S.
• From the standpoint of the possibility of future development of energy resources under the coastal plain of the Arctic NWR, the provisions of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) frame the context in which the plans to revise the existing CCP for the refuge take place.
• In ANILCA, Congress recognized the importance of both the environmental and energy resources of the Arctic NWR, by specifying in Section 1002 of ANILCA that about 1.5 million acres of the coastal plain on the Refuge (or about 8 percent of its 19 million acres) should be subject to a thorough resource evaluation, a comprehensive and continuing inventory of the biological resources on the coastal plain, along with an analysis of the potential impacts of oil and gas exploration, development and production. Congress reserved to itself the future determination whether production of oil and natural gas resources would later be allowed on the Arctic NWR coastal plain.
• Until Congress takes action, no production of oil and natural gas from the Refuge is allowed, nor may leasing and development leading to production take place.
• Global demand for energy will grow and, because existing and developing energy sources will struggle to keep up with demand, oil and gas resources will be needed for American consumers and the American economy for decades to come.
• Development of oil and natural gas resources in the Alaskan Arctic can occur in an environmentally responsible way. In over 30 years of oil production at Prudhoe Bay and other fields on the Alaska North Slope, producers have significantly advanced technology and pursued a commitment to environmental performance. These efforts have greatly reduced the effects of oil development on the wildlife and surface resources surrounding the production operations, and have reduced the footprint that these operations occupy.
• Americans do not have to choose between development of valuable energy resources or the protection of Arctic species and the habitat on which these species live, feed, breed, rear their young, and migrate.
• USFWS’ management objective to sustain fish and wildlife species and their habitat in the Refuge can be achieved without designation of the coastal plain as wilderness. This is consistent with the ability USFWS has demonstrated to carry out stewardship of fish and wildlife species on other refuge units it administers, work that it accomplishes without regard to wilderness designations.
• API strongly urges USFWS to explore techniques to achieve the objectives of the CCP effort that can be accomplished under the current administrative arrangements for Refuge lands and without administrative efforts to declare the coastal plain as a wilderness. We believe doing so is fully consistent with the capabilities USFWS has demonstrated across the wide variety of National Wildlife Refuges where energy production has taken place, and will avoid conflict with the provisions of ANILCA that will be unnecessary and unproductive.