US budget amendment raises ire on pipeline issue
Date: 30-Jan-03
Country: USA
Author: Yereth Rosen
The provision, authored by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, prohibits any legal challenge to the 30-year renewal of the federal right-of-way lease that was issued to the pipeline's owners earlier this month by the Bureau of Land Management.
That amendment was approved unanimously by the Senate last week and will become part of the omnibus budget package to be considered later this week by a joint House and Senate conference committee, Murkowski spokesman Chuck Kleeschulte said Tuesday.
So far, there is no sign of Congressional opposition, Kleeschulte said. "There's no indication there will be a problem in with it in conference," he said.
In a news release last week, Murkowski called the environmental review performed prior to lease renewal "very thorough and very complete."
"Since no one is suggesting that we take the pipeline out of the ground, what purpose will be served by delays caused by irresponsible radical environmental groups aimed at locking up Alaska, except enriching outside trial lawyers?" she said in her news release.
Environmentalists were angered at what they said was an unfair bar to legitimate complaints about the lease terms.
"We had hoped for better from our new senator. It's not encouraging when her first act is to nullify public comment and to cut off access to one of the branches of government," said Bob Randall of Trustees for Alaska, an Anchorage-based environmental law firm.
Murkowski was appointed in December by her father, Frank Murkowski, to fill the Senate spot he vacated when he became Alaska's governor.
The federal right-of-way grant allows the six owners of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System - BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Unocal, Williams and Amerada Hess - to operate the line over 372 miles of federal lands. A state lease renewed in November allows the owners to operate the line for another 30 years over 344 miles of state lands.
The remainder of pipeline corridor crosses private and Native-owned land, where there are separate agreements allowing pipeline operations.
The federal and state lease agreements had been due to expire next year.
In 1999, a full environmental impact review had been ordered of the oil line as a prerequisite to the lease renewals.
But the review that resulted, pipeline critics said, was only superficial and failed to consider age-related problems like metals corrosion and thawing permafrost.
