Alaska allocates money for wildlife refuge campaign
Date: 19-Mar-03
Country: USA
Author: Yereth Rosen
The bill allocates $1.1 million to Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based nonprofit group with the sole purpose of campaigning in favor of opening the northeastern Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling.
It gives $100,000 to a lobbying effort conducted by the governor's office and an additional $100,000 for lobbying by the Inupiat Eskimo village of Kaktovik, a community on the refuge's coastal plain that is largely in favor of development.
Murkowski said state funding for the campaign, granted each year by the legislature, is especially important now that Republican leaders of the Senate are seeking to attach a pro-drilling provision to a budget bill and could avoid a Democratic-led filibuster.
"It is critical, given the opportunity we now have in Congress to get ANWR open, to have the funding we will need to make it happen," said Murkowski in a news release. He is a former U.S. senator who spent much of his career advocating for oil drilling in the refuge
Alaska is heavily dependent on oil money. About three-quarters of its government operating revenues come from oil royalties, taxes and fees; there is no state personal income tax or sales tax, and a state-owned trust fund, created with oil wealth, pays residents an annual dividend.
Nearly all elected officials in Alaska support Arctic Refuge drilling. The proposal is a keystone of President George W. Bush's national energy strategy but is opposed by environmentalists.
State funding typically provides about half of Arctic Power's annual budget, and this year's appropriation was similar to those made in past years. But it was significantly less than the $3 million that Arctic Power had requested.
Kim Duke, executive director of Arctic Power, said the group may seek more legislative support later this year, depending how events unfold in Congress. She said she is hopeful that approval is imminent, and that Arctic Power will have fulfilled its mission.
Opponents of drilling criticized the state contribution to Arctic Power, as they have in past years.
Wealthy oil companies will be the beneficiaries of the state funding, said Faith Gemmell, program coordinator for the Gwich'in Steering Committee, an anti-drilling group representing Athabaskan Indians from the Arctic Refuge region.
"They can fund their own lobbying," she said. "The funds that have been appropriated for this lobbying are most likely going to be cut from programs that our rural communities rely on. It's basically not right."
