Thank you for this opportunity to share some thoughts about Arctic policy with you today. It is a subject that concerns us all, and I think it presents opportunities for a closer relationship between industry and local North Slope communities.

It probably wasn’t very long ago that topics like Arctic policy, climate change, polar bear habitat and arctic fisheries weren’t even mentioned at RDC annual meetings. Then came the realization that the Arctic Ocean frontier is undergoing an unprecedented shift in its climate, its ice cover, and the habitat it provides for every indigenous life form—from plankton and fish to marine mammals and Inupiat hunters. Consequently, the way we think about the Arctic is shifting like the ice pack. There are new commercial opportunities—for oil and gas development, marine shipping, tourism and fishing, to name a few. Suddenly polar bears, seals and walrus are a cause for environmental groups, and marine cargo carriers can imagine shaving eight days off the voyage between Europe and the Orient. Even national governments are getting in the act, laying claim to areas that no one paid much attention to just a few short years ago.

This is not a formula for easy accommodation of all the various interests involved. Competing claims need to be balanced, and all of them need to be weighed against the best interests of the Arctic ecosystem.

Lord knows this is a formula for policy chaos. Things are happening fast, and the future of the Arctic depends on a solid, cautious foundation in the policy sphere. And time is of the essence when it comes to implementing standards for industrial activity in the OCS area. Oil and gas exploration has been underway for some time, and a major find would hasten the development process.

There has been plenty of policy groundwork in the international realm. The eight Arctic nations formed the Arctic Council in 1996 to coordinate policy development in the region, and from the start they allowed significant participation by the indigenous peoples of the circumpolar north. The Arctic Council recognized that if anything goes wrong in the rush to commercialize the region, the long-term consequences will be felt by the Inuit people who will always live there, no matter what happens. So the Council created a category of what they call “Permanent Participants” as a way to bring indigenous peoples to the table and give them a real voice in the deliberations.

I believe it’s fair to expect that any policy framework for the Alaskan Arctic should include a similarly meaningful role for the Native people who really are an integral part of the Arctic coastal environment.

It’s no secret that most Inupiat people in the Arctic are nervous about the pace of change. And I’m not even talking about development activities — I’m talking about our daily observation of the shrinking ice pack and the challenges it has created for polar bears, walrus and other species that gather food from the edge of the near-shore ice. When walrus haul up on our beaches by the thousands, completely exhausted because of the distances they’ve had to swim between ice and shore, it’s a clear indication of stress. Nobody knows the extent of the impacts to marine wildlife caused by the retreat of sea ice. We don’t know how long this will go on, how much of the polar ice cap will be left in a decade or two, or how well our subsistence wildlife will adapt to such rapid ecological change. But it makes us nervous.

That is the backdrop for us as we consider policy options for offshore oil and gas development. And I have to add that incidents like the well failure in the Timor Sea off the coast of Australia do not bolster our confidence. A million gallons of oil in the Beaufort or Chukchi Seas would be devastating, and whatever the differences may be between the circumstances in the Timor and the Arctic, there can be no denying that the risks are real and particularly challenging under our seasonal conditions of ice and weather and darkness.

But our concerns do not lead us to the same conclusions as the environmental groups. Like the State of Alaska and all its citizens, residents on the North Slope depend on oil and gas development as the foundation of our local economy. And our participation in the cash economy is part of what allows us to protect and participate in our traditional Inupiat subsistence activities.

Our Arctic roots have taught us to be practical. That is why we became big supporters of onshore development at Prudhoe. We felt that in most areas of the North Slope, production and subsistence could coexist. We also recognized that a partnership with industry could produce the best results, in terms of addressing our concerns.

Expanding development into the OCS is a different story—much riskier, more difficult to control and contain any accidents, and a direct threat to the health of our most precious subsistence resource, the bowhead whale. And while I would prefer not to see oil rigs in our waters, I understand that the industry has to follow the resource, and if the reserves turn out to be as large as the MMS estimates, then development will occur, whether we like it or not.

Given this reality, the most productive route for us is to work with industry and the federal agencies to craft the best possible protections and mitigation measures. It is in everyone’s interest to incorporate the best possible precautionary standards as we proceed into the ocean. This will reduce the likelihood of a very expensive and politically disastrous accident. It will demonstrate the industry’s commitment to the highest standards of environmental protection. And at the same time, it will calm the inherent anxiety of residents who have to live with the cultural displacement that would flow from any sort of catastrophe.

It’s a win-win, and I believe it can set a standard that puts Alaska in the forefront of global offshore development standards. Certainly the magnitude of the MMS reserve estimates and the Northern Economics revenue and job estimates from OCS operations over the next 50 years suggest that this kind of investment is well worth it, and will pay dividends by avoiding the costs of a spill or other large-scale accident.

The North Slope Borough has put together a package of eight offshore policy positions. These include a requirement for pipelines to shore-based facilities rather than tanker transportation. This is both an environmental concern and a revenue concern for Alaskans, since oil that isn’t transported to shore won’t require onshore facilities and won’t help to keep the pipeline full. Senator Murkowski (and Begich?) has already introduced legislation to this effect. Another key policy on our list is a zero discharge standard similar to the standards used in Norway’s offshore region. This is both achievable and desirable, and it would put Alaska in a leadership position we could be proud of.

We would also like to see an effective Coast Guard presence in the Arctic, with oceangoing and airborne response ability; marine pilotage requirements to put independent pilots with ice training on the bridge of certain ships; a beefed up baseline science effort using a collaborative research approach like the North Slope Science Initiative; and controls on the number of projects allowed in an area at one time.

Stakeholders from industry, government and local communities should be able to come together and work through any disagreements we may have on these individual policy measures. I think we’re facing a far greater challenge over endangered species issues. This is a concern that I believe can bring us together. The fallout from endangered species listings is likely to hamstring the routine business of the North Slope Borough in fundamental ways, just as it could similarly affect industry operations.

Let me give you an example. The village of Kaktovik has a serious health and safety issue with its airport. Every time the eastern Beaufort Sea kicks up a storm surge, Kaktovik’s runway ends up under water. We’ve been working with the FAA to get a new airport for the community. Now, since there may be polar bear denning areas near that location, is the FAA going to have trouble lining up the permits it will need for airport construction? It is certainly a possibility. This is a big issue for Kaktovik, and there is similar potential for this kind of trouble in all of our coastal communities. The Borough came out against the ESA listing of the polar bear for this reason, and also because we’re afraid these listings could interfere with subsistence hunting in some areas.

Climate change poses serious potential problems for marine mammals in the Arctic, but the Endangered Species Act is not the right tool for the problem. I believe it is likely to cause havoc with all kinds of human activity in the region without necessarily having any effect on the health of the animals.

So we’re all in the same boat in this regard, and I’d like to work with industry to come up with innovative solutions. For example, the ESA allows non-federal entities to develop a habitat conservation plan that could cover multiple species and activities. It might be possible to create a single plan for a multitude of uses as a streamlined approach to ESA compliance.

There seem to be plenty of federal Arctic policy initiatives, from the revised U.S. Arctic policy issued by President Bush at the beginning of the year to the Ocean Policy Task Force more recently commissioned by President Obama. The North Slope Borough hosted members of the task force in Barrow during their visit to Alaska a few months ago. We plan to be involved in their deliberations, and as soon as we figure out exactly what “marine spatial planning” is, we’ll know whether it’s a good thing or a nightmare.

I sincerely hope that industry and local interests can continue to find areas of agreement and ways to work together, because it is in all of our best interests. Alaska’s greatest chance for success as we move forward in the Arctic is to institutionalize the attitude that industry and the local communities are in this together, or even that we’re on the same team. Because I believe we need each other; and we can certainly accomplish a lot more if we are able to sit down as collaborators instead of adversaries.

That is my hope for the future of Arctic policy development.

Quyanaqpak.