Industry, indigenous interests clash

Communities seeking stronger control over Arctic development are ratcheting up an end-of-session push to get the Legislature to take a stand where they say the state has failed.

But the oil and gas industry, poised through Shell Alaska to launch a much-awaited exploratory drilling program in offshore waters this summer, is pushing back -- hard.

Both sides are saying everything is at stake. For the industry, it's the future of a new phase of Alaska resource development; for Native communities along the Arctic coast, it's a way of life they say is now in peril.

And both sides seem about at the end of the proverbial rope. Several years of intense negotiations on the two Arctic districts' coastal management plans -- including formal mediation -- have brought the state and the districts to a stalemate, declaring a legal impasse and prompting fresh angles.

"The crux of the matter for me has been to ensure local participation, a local voice, in impacts to our land, our coast, our waters, relative to any kind of activity," North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta said. "It's not just oil and gas. It potentially has the opportunity to impact things relative to climate change -- marine transportation, Coast Guard presence up there, tourism, fisheries."

Pulling out heavy hitters to testify before state lawmakers, though, oil and gas industry reps didn't mince words. Giving more say -- and thus more leverage -- to coastal communities that have for years been a thorn in the side of development could come close to shutting down offshore oil and gas -- Alaska's big hope for keeping oil flowing through the pipeline.

"I have to tell you, we are very, very concerned about this legislation," Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, testified before a Senate committee hearing the bill.

She warned that more local control could put deep craters in the road industry navigates to permits, netting "consistent and constant disagreement" between local districts, the state and industry.

"I just have to encourage you in the strongest possible terms to the impacts of this legislation on Alaska's reputation on its permitting regime," she said. "This is going to take us back a decade."

Bill proponents are criticizing the industry's furious defense, crying foul at claims that the bills would give local districts the ability to kill projects not to their liking. Although veto power isn't implicit in the bills, districts would create an additional layer of regulation for industry to contend with.

"I came down largely armed with the facts, and what's being spread out there is fiction," Itta said. "There has been a lot of fear put out there by various opponents, and fear mongering, quite frankly, is based on sometimes emotions."

But there's a bit of a threat built into the rural lawmakers' push for the bills. Sen. Donny Olson, D-Nome, hinted that without this meaningful voice, districts could find themselves backed into a corner and forced to seek an outlet for their voices elsewhere -- as in with environmental and conservation groups.