Senate Republicans approve plan to allow drilling in Arctic refuge with tax legislation

[thackney]

Senate Republicans approve plan to allow drilling in Arctic refuge with tax legislation
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-republicans-approve-plan-to-allow-drilling-in-arctic-refuge-with-tax-legislation/article/2642365
Dec 2, 2017

Senate Republicans passed legislation early Saturday allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a tax reform package, moving closer to fulfilling a long-time GOP goal.

The passage of the bill marked a significant achievement for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who has introduced legislation to open a portion of the Alaskan refuge to drilling every term she has served in the chamber, only to be blocked by Democrats.

“This small package offers a tremendous opportunity for Alaska, for the Gulf Coast, and for all of our nation,” Murkowski said before the vote. “We have authorized responsible energy development in the 1002 area.”

Democrats have long been successful in blocking Republican efforts to allow energy exploration in a 1.5 million acre section of the 19.6 million acres of ANWR known as the “1002 area,” where billions of barrels of crude oil lie beneath the coastal plain.

But this year, Republican control of Congress and the White House spurred Senate Republicans to consider the provision with the tax reform measure under budget reconciliation rules that allow it to avoid a filibuster and pass with a simple majority vote....

[thackney]

Political History of the Arctic Refuge
http://anwr.org/2014/11/political-history-of-the-arctic-refuge/

...Dec. 6, 1960                Arctic National Wildlife Range
Created (8.9 million acres) Public Land Order (PLO) 2214

1964                                                        President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness
Act, establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System and policies for
wilderness management.

1969                                                        The first manager was hired for ANWR.

Dec. 18, 1971              Alaska Native Claims Settlement
Act. The Act gave the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation (KIC) surface rights to
69,000 acres along the arctic coast within the Range.

June 20, 1977              Trans Alaska Pipeline Start-up

Dec. 2, 1980                Alaska
National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). The Act expanded the Arctic
Range to approximately 18 million acres, renamed it the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, designated eight million acres as Wilderness, designated three
rivers as Wild, and called for wildlife studies and an oil and gas assessment
of 1.5 million acres of the ANWR Coastal Plain (the”10-02 Area”).

Gwich’in opt out settling for
Indian Reservation status and thus not subject to ANILCA 7i revenue sharing of
natural resources. Likewise they don’t receive benefit of other native natural
resource royalties.

1983                                                        The Chandler Lake land exchange agreement
conveyed subsurface ownership of Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation lands to the
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.

                                    Nearly
one million acres were added to the south side of the Refuge when the State of
Alaska decided not to retain control of lands it had selected under the
Statehood Act.

Winter, 1983-84          Approx.
600 line miles of 2D geophysical data acquired in ANWR

Winter, 1984-85          Approx. 580 line miles of 2D
geophysical data acquired in ANWR

Dec. 2, 1985                ANWR closed to any further geophysical
surveys

Sept. 2, 1986               Secretary of Interior’s Report to
Congress, as required by Sec. 1002 of ANILCA

Feb., 1987                   Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for ANWR Exploration Published

Sept, 1987                   Dept. Of Interior recommends
to Congress to open the coastal plain.

1988                                                        House Merchant Marine & Fisheries Committee
approves an open ANWR Bill.

Congress added 325,000 acres to
the south side of the Refuge, bringing the total area managed by the Refuge to
approximately 19.3 million acres and making ANWR the largest Refuge in the
National Wildlife Refuge System.

early 1989                   House Merchant Marine &
Fisheries Committee again approves an ANWR Bill....

...October 31,
1991        Congress debated National
Energy Policy Act, Title 9 of which allowed for development of the Coastal
Plain.

                                    Senate
Energy Committee approves Title 9.

Nov. 1991                   Senate Roll-call vote on Sen.
Wellstone amendment to cut off debate on ANWR, 50 to 44.  (60 votes needed to defeat filibuster)  National Energy Policy Act shelved.

October 1992              New National Energy Policy Act,
without ANWR, passed....

[IsailedawayfromFR]

What I did not know about Alaska is the special provision that permits the state rights to 90% of minerals on federal lands.  This was part of the original entry of Alaska becoming a state and I do not see if this has been rescinded.

Therefore Congress included two measures in the statehood act to help pay for the new state. The first involved federal land in Alaska. Sixty percent of the land in Alaska - 225 million acres - was set aside as federal land. By the first measure, the federal government gave to Alaska 90% of the profits from mineral lease sales on the federal land in Alaska. Oil is one of the most important minerals in Alaska, and to this day wherever oil or gas leases are sold for exploration or development on federal land, 90% of the revenue is given to Alaska.

The second measure also involved land. In the statehood act Congress said that Alaska could select 104 million acres (28% of the total land in Alaska) from the unreserved and unoccupied land in the state for its own; the federal government would transfer the title of this land to the state. . Congress assumed that as the state's land became economically valuable, through development or settlement, the state could earn enough revenue from it to fund state government. This has almost come true because of the discovery of North America's largest oil deposit at Prudhoe Bay in 1967, and because of the way the state taxes the production of that oil.



http://www.akhistorycourse.org/modern-alaska/statehood

[Bigun]

EXCELLENT news!

[thackney]

...the federal government gave to Alaska 90% of the profits from mineral lease sales on the federal land in Alaska...

I did not remember that, but there is, section 28, page 49:

Alaska Statehood Act
(72 Stat. 339) Public Law 85-508, 85th Congress, H. R. 7999, July 7, 1958 https://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?session=29&docid=29890