The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 4069; Alaska Lands

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. After months of debate and forty four drafting sessions, the Senate Energy Committee today voted out a bill to set aside nearly one third of Alaska for national parks and conservation. The measure goes to the full Senate next week, and there will begin what they`re calling the conservation battle of the century. The battle is between conservationists, who want huge tracts of wilderness put, in effect, into cold storage for future generations, and development interests, who want more land released for mining, timber and other development. At a stroke legislators are being asked to play God with pieces of land as large as New York State. Tonight, the epic battle for Alaska.

The congressional field of battle is immense, the largest of the fifty states. To fathom its size, think of combining the areas of Texas, California, the six New England states, New York and Pennsylvania. Now think of filling that area with a population about as large as San Jose, California, or Buffalo, New York. Alaska is also bountiful. It has the country`s highest mountains, including North America`s highest peak, Mt. McKinley; the longest rivers -- so many rivers that many have no name; and most of our wildlife. In one small area of Alaska there are more American bald eagles than in the lower forty-eight states combined. And Alaska`s rich in other resources: large amounts of oil, natural gas, coal, platinum, nickel; and vast forests rich with timber.

The conflict is obvious: how to exploit the untapped natural resources without destroying the natural beauty, if indeed those two goals are compatible. It`s ironic to see people fighting over Alaska. When the United States purchased the territory from the Russians in 1867 for a mere $7.2 million -- about two cents an acre -- it was considered the height of folly ...Seward`s folly, in fact. Secretary of State William Seward was roundly criticized for spending the country`s money on such a remote icebox. From the time of the original purchase until statehood in 1959, the federal government held title to all of Alaska`s 375 million acres. But with statehood, Congress awarded 104 million acres to the new state. Alaska is still making its selection. There was another major allocation of land in 1971; Congress was faced with a conflict between the Alaska pipeline proposal and Alaska`s 800,000 Eskimos, Aleuts and Indians, who claim native rights to the land of their forefathers. The result was the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. It gave the native peoples one billion dollars, plus 44 million acres, which they also are still in the process of selecting.

It was that settlement act which set the stage for the conflict we`re seeing today. The act directed the Secretary of the Interior to set aside lands for possible designation as national parks, forests and wildlife refuges. It also stipulated that Congress must vote by December 18, this year, to approve a plan and give the lands permanent national protection. The House voted last May; a Senate vote is expected next week. But their approaches differ radically. Let`s examine those differences.

Jim Lehrer is off tonight; Charlayne Hunter-Gault, who lived in Alaska once, is in Washington. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, the House approach is the one favored by most environmental groups. It divides most of the land in question into two principal designations The first is national parks, here in red. It allows subsistence hunting but no mining, timbering or other commercial activities. The second is the national wildlife refuges, in beige. It allows sport hunting and the possibility of mining, timbering and oil or gas exploration. The sticking point, however, is the designation "wilderness", which has been added to many of these parks and refuges. The wilderness definition supersedes the standard park and refuge definitions, giving them added protection to prevent road building, permanent habitation, mining and timbering.

The Senate found these definitions too limiting and chose instead categories that would allow more activities on the land. It added national forests, national recreation areas and conservation areas, all of which would allow timbering, grazing, mining and oil and gas drilling.

MacNEIL: Tonight we get a preview of the argument when the House and Senate attempt to reconcile the two different approaches. With us are two leading proponents of the two philosophies, Democratic Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona, chief sponsor of the House legislation; and Ted Stevens, the Republican Senator from Alaska, who`s been working for a multiple-use bill in the Senate. Senator, why is the multiple-use approach important to you and the rest of the Alaska delegation, which I gather supports it?

Sen. TED STEVENS: Well, basically it permits us to inventory our resources and to have flexibility of management in the future, and it will permit us to continue the life style of the Alaskan frontier, which we consider to be very important.

MacNEIL: Well, how would the other philosophy prevent you from continuing that life style?

STEVENS: It`s a single-use designation, you know, and the impact of the instant wilderness is that we cannot plan for our roads, we can`t even continue our existing life style. You know, seventy percent of the post offices of Alaska can be reached only by air; we use our rivers for transportation; we have fewer roads than King County, Oregon -- Montgomery County. In the whole state we have fewer roads than Montgomery County. And we have to use the airplane and we have to look forward to development of our transportation systems. The impact of this instant wilderness prevents us from even planning our future transportation system.

MacNEIL: Could you explain, besides the ability to build roads and improve communications, what other multiple uses you have in mind?

STEVENS: Well, we have in mind inventorying the resources of Alaska; we`re still very far from development. We have sixteen of the eighteen critical and strategic minerals of the world but we`re not even producing them; we`ve only got three active mines in the state proceeding towards the development. We have timber production in southeastern Alaska, we have great potential for resource utilization in the interior; but basically the multiple-use we`re looking at is recreational, the use of these areas for tourist facilities, for the development of recreational facilities of all types. I think basically we`re looking to very small developments compatible with Alaskan costs and life style.

MacNEIL: Won`t that amount of development, whether it`s small or not, if it`s in the same land areas inevitably lead to the decline in Alaska`s unique natural beauties and wildlife?

STEVENS: No, I don`t think so. We put wildlife protection ahead of everything else, Robin. You know, I told the Congressman one time I`d be willing to make the whole state a wildlife refuge if we could define what compatible uses go on in that refuge. The problem is defining what really is the national interest and the Alaska interest in our lands, but our lands will be de facto wilderness for another century, probably eighty to ninety percent of them. The question is, can we even look at these lands.

You know, under Congressman Udall`s bill you`d have to have an act of Congress to allow an individual miner with a backpack on his back and a pick in his hand to go out and even pick at the surface of these lands.

MacNEIL: I guess what puzzles the rest of Americans, Senator, is this: with Alaska so vast, 375 million acres, wouldn`t there be room there to do all of what you want to do in some areas exclusively and what the Congress man wants to do in something like a hundred million acres exclusively?

STEVENS: Well Robin, I`ve spent forty-four markup sessions with the Senate trying to accomplish that. We missed it by about five areas, but I`m still hopeful we`ll get a bill. We`re trying to make this Alaska lands bill responsive to the national needs and at the same time compatible with Alaska`s frontier spirit of freedom, the right to go where we want to go, the right for other Americans to come see our beautiful land, and at the same time the right to plan for utilization of our own state lands and the native lands without excessive interference from the federal government. I think if you look at the map that Charlayne just put up for us you`ll see that in order to get across those massive reserves to the state and native lands we need rights of way across these wilderness areas, which are prohibited. We need -- for instance, just one little thing: under Alaska law you cannot fly and hunt on the same day. In a wilderness classification you cannot stay all night, you can`t establish any permanent camp. Now, in order to protect the wildlife we`ve established very reasonable rules concerning use of aircraft. Unfortunately, in terms of the way that the bill comes out, we can`t hunt in wilderness areas because of the impact of the regulations that apply to wilderness. I just think that we`ve lost common sense in the approach to our vast lands and the way they can be used compatible with environmental protection. I think we are really the strongest environmental group in the country, but we`ve been painted the other way, unfortunately.

MacNEIL: Well, let`s hear what the other side has to say. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Congressman Udall, the Alaska delegation favors this multiple-use designation. Why do you feel so strongly against it?

Rep. MORRIS UDALL: Well, so do I; I`m for multiple use. The bottom line in this bill is whether you`re going to have balance, whether Alaska`s really big enough to have both. We gave the State of Alaska an area the size of California -- 400,000 people, we gave them an area the size of California; they can multiple-use it to death, they can drill it and dam it and dig it and pave it over and do anything they want to with it. Actually, we`re talking about 65 million acres of wilderness out of a state that`s 365 million, or 375 million acres. So we`re talking about one sixth of this area in wilderness. It isn`t very much. Most of the mining resources we left out; ninety-five percent of the higher oil and gas potential they left out of these units; ninety percent of the state`s going to be potentially open for sports hunting, the State of Alaska. We can have it both ways. Alaska`s so big that we can do what we didn`t do in the lower forty-eight and preserve the right kind of areas and still give the people of Alaska the room to grow and prosper and boom a little bit if they want to.

HUNTER-GAULT: Why would you feel it necessary to add that category of wilderness to this area of land?

UDALL: The wilderness says something very fundamental about America, the decision we make here. They haven`t done this in other countries; the wilderness idea is typically an American idea. We`ve said in the lower forty-eight states maybe one percent; if you want ninety-nine percent for subdivisions and roads and factories and farms and all this, fine, but good Lord, let`s leave one percent so our great grandchildren can see this the way the Almighty made it. And that`s what we`re trying to do in Alaska with about one sixth of the state in wilderness designation. We can always unlock it; if we find out later down the road the last bucket of copper or molybdenum or uranium is in these wilderness areas you can open them up; but if you decide to open them up all now you don`t have that decision to go back and change it later on.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you respond to the Senator`s argument that your proposal stands in the way of their existing life style and their development?

UDALL: Let me tell you the kind of life style they`re going to have. If Anchorage, which is one of the fastest growing cities in America at 400,000 now, if it gets to be four million, if it`s another Los Angeles, you`re not going to have an Alaska life style. The people out in the bush, a lot of them, support our bill. We get letters from them saying, save this, we want the Alaska kind of life style. You don`t have the Alaska kind of life style in Anchorage. We want to preserve some of this country for future generations so that people will have a chance to see the wilderness as it originally was.

HUNTER-GAULT: And you feel that there is enough room in Alaska in these lands to have both the kind of wilderness conservation that you want as well as the kind of development, economic growth...

UDALL: Yes. We have a balance. It is our bill which is the balanced bill, it is their bill, their approach, which is unbalanced, which says open the whole blasted state up and let the drillers and developers come and have at it. That`s essentially the difference in philosophy. I`m for balance down here, I`m for balance up there.

HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Senator, it`s a little difficult to follow this because you both seem to be saying the same things and yet accusing each other of saying the other. Congressman Udall has just defined the difference as he sees it; let`s hear you define the difference as you see it.

STEVENS: Well, the difference is that Mo talks a good game. When it comes down to writing a bill he just doesn`t do what he says he`s going to do. You take the job problem, you know, Robin. We have a commitment, I believe, the commitment that in designating wilderness we`re not going to disturb the existing economy. Yet when you really see what`s been done by the House bill, it just emasculates the existing economy of southeastern Alaska. Now, how can we believe the commitments that are made for future utilization of Alaska`s land in the interior if the actual impact of this bill in southeastern Alaska is to destroy the existing economy, close down at least one of the mills? It`s going to affect jobs throughout the United States. You know, we are the storehouse of America as far as resources are concerned. Over forty percent of the natural gas and the oil that Americans consume between now and the end of the hydrocarbon age will come from Alaska. We have the largest national forest of the forests in the United States and we have the potential for at least seven or eight more. Now, as we see the supply of timber decline, the cost of lumber for housing increase, we ask why shouldn`t we be involved in the utilization of our renewable resources? Congressman Udall wants to make them instant wilderness. It`s interesting to see, you know -- I support wilderness, Alaskans support wilderness; but why is it that Alaska, he wants to make 65 million acres of Alaska instantly wilderness when in the fourteen years that the Wilderness Act has been in effect and he`s been in the Congress he`s only seen to it that fifteen million acres of the United States -- which is five times the size of Alaska -- is wilderness?

MacNEIL: Congressman?

STEVENS: As a matter of fact, part of that wilderness is in Alaska, the fifteen million in fourteen years.

MacNEIL: Congressman?

UDALL: What I want to do is to do it right. If you`d sent me out to the Rocky Mountains a hundred years ago and said lay out the national parks and the game refuges, I would have had much larger areas. The tax payers this year -- let me give you an example -- are going to spend $400 million, nearly a half a billion dollars, to give us a puny little redwood park. There were two million acres of coastal redwoods when California became a state. All you had to do is somebody sign a piece of paper; without spending a dime, this was a redwood national park. What we`ve got a chance to do in Alaska is to do it right this time. We`ve got inholdings in the Grand Canyon National Park, mining claims. Let`s get in there and have the national parks we need in Alaska without those inholdings and do it right from the very beginning. I don`t want to get off in statistics, but my friend Ted Stevens is simply wrong. I am committed and the House bill is committed to have the timber industry on a permanent, sustained-yield basis, have the average of the last five years` production and some room for growth; and we`re going to write that kind of a bill. So you have all the timber you want. Most of that lumber, incidentally, is not going to build homes in San Francisco or Tuscon, Arizona; most of that timber is going to Japan. But the fisheries industry is important in southeast, the tourist industry`s important. We can have balance, we can have a good timber industry, and our bill provides for that.

MacNEIL: Let me get one thing clear here. Senator, are you totally against the locking up, so-called, or putting into deep freeze for future generations of any part of Alaska, or are you just complaining that they want to do too much?

STEVENS: Robin, it would be nice if you and other Americans would see what we did before Mr. Udall felt compelled to save Alaska from Alaskans. We have three of the four largest national parks in the United States in our state today; we have the largest national forest; we have two thirds of the wildlife refuges of the United States in Alaska today. As a matter of fact, almost a third of all the wildlife protection areas of the world are in the State of Alaska, before this bill passes, before we even consider it. Now, you asked, are we willing to lock it up. I was the Assistant to the Secretary of Interior when we created the...

MacNEIL: No, but are you willing, under the terms we`re using tonight, this new wilderness definition, are you willing to see any part of the state locked up for future generations so that there can be no activity except as defined by the House bill?

STEVENS: We have agreed to some wilderness in the areas that should be national parks. As a matter of fact, we suggested some of these national parks. The trouble is, every time we suggest one along comes Mr. Udall and he increases the size five times. He increased the size of the Gateways of the Arctic National Park five times the size that his brother when he was Secretary of Interior requested President Johnson to create, and Johnson wouldn`t create it because it was too big.

MacNEIL: Okay.

STEVENS: Now he comes along and Gateways of the Arctic is over twelve million acres.

MacNEIL: Well, let`s move along with this. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Senator Stevens, let me just ask you...

STEVENS: Sounds like what you...

UDALL: I`m not my brother`s keeper, but he`s on my side in this fight; maybe he knows better...

STEVENS: He is now, but...

UDALL: Maybe he was trying to get all he could then, and we can get more now.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, he`s not here right now. Let me just ask you, Senator Stevens, how much of this attitude of yours is a result of thinking that people like Congressman Udall are trying to save Alaska from the Alaskans and not giving Alaska an opportunity to determine its own future?

STEVENS: Charlayne, I`m a national Senator and I`ve been sent here to represent Alaskans in a national sense. We`re trying to define what is the national interest, and I believe what`s in the national interest is in the best interest of Alaska. The question is, what is the national interest? Is it to set aside an area which is all of New England, New York and Pennsylvania for a single use, lock it up and say no one can use it but backpackers; or should we define the national interest in terms of resources, in terms of recreation, in terms of access, in terms of the life style of the people who are there? Above all, I`d like to protect the life style.

HUNTER-GAULT: But you`re also saying that it is Alaskans who know what`s best for Alaska, is that not right?

STEVENS: We think we know Alaska best, but we`re willing to take advice. I think we`ve worked well with the national government. The only trouble is that we`re painted as being against environmental protection which we originated.

HUNTER-GAULT: But you also said that you didn`t like the idea of federal interference; you said that a few moments ago.

STEVENS:I don`t like the idea of getting to the point where in order to live as Alaskans you must have a permit from the federal government. And in order for an American citizen anywhere to come up to Alaska they have to have a permit to enjoy the great outdoors. We think that we can have wilderness protection, environmental protection and planning for compatible uses in a balance. The difference is, Mo doesn`t trust even -imagine now, when he talks about not trusting people, he`s talking about not trusting the Department of Interior. Our bill merely gives the Secretary of Interior the discretion in the future; it doesn`t compel anything. It just says you can, if you wish, permit hunting or mining in specific areas.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, let`s move on. Robin?

MacNEIL: Congressman, are you not in fact denying Alaskans the ability to decide how to use their state in the future?

UDALL: Alaska, Robin, was totally federally owned at the time of statehood. Now, when my state of Arizona became a state we needed some land; it was nearly it was all federal. You know how much they gave us? Ten million acres. And we`ve done pretty well, we`ve prospered in Arizona. We didn`t give the people of Alaska ten million or twenty million or forty million or eighty million. They`ve been given 105 million. The State of Alaska was given the right to select, and they selected Prudhoe Bay, with $150 billion worth of oil; we came along twelve years later and gave the natives of Alaska forty-four million acres. Now, you`ve given them an area, 400,000 people, an area the size of Texas -- the size of Texas -- for this 400,000 people up there to develop in any way they want to, totally free of federal controls, and then they come in here complaining and saying the federal government`s trying to tell them how to live. In Nevada it`s eighty-eight percent federal; you don`t hear this complaint in Nevada. Alaska got the most generous land settlement in the history of our country, or the history of the world, for that matter, and they`re complaining about it.

MacNEIL: Senator, the land we`re talking about does not in fact belong to the people of Alaska, it still belongs to the other 216 million people in the United States plus the Alaskans.

STEVENS: Well you know, Robin, you know it`s nice to hear my good friend tell what he`s done for us, but you know, the problem is, is the agreement we made when we passed the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act was we would study up to eighty million acres of Alaska land to see whether any part of that ought to be reserved. He introduced a bill that would have wiped out all the native selections he`s talking about, the state selections; he encompassed those in great national parks so we couldn`t use them. And then he designed it so in any event he totally obliterated the transportation plan for Alaska and the access to the native lands. Why is it the natives are down here lobbying on my side? If he`s such a friend of the native people in the settlement, why are they for my bill?

MacNEIL: Why is that, Congressman?

UDALL: A lot of the natives are actually for this bill. We held...

MacNEIL: For which bill? For your bill, you mean.

UDALL: For my bill. We held hearings all over Alaska. The natives, we give them their land. This bill says we do hereby transfer the natives land, we give the State of Alaska...

STEVENS: If you didn`t have time to state it, what do you have to do that for? You`ve been holding it up for that time; that`s the point.

UDALL: We give...

STEVENS: Twenty years we`ve been waiting for that land.

UDALL: We gave you the right to pick, you picked Prudhoe Bay, you picked the best agriculture land, you picked some of the best timberland that was available...

STEVENS: You imply you told us the oil was there; we picked it because we thought there was oil there, we took the risk of that selection, put the money in for development. If it had stayed in federal hands we would not have had Prudhoe Bay. Don`t ever forget that, Mo, we have ten percent of the oil and ten percent of the gas discovered now because the state took the land and allowed prudent development, and that is one of the engineering masterpieces and environmental masterpieces of the world, and you know it.

MacNEIL: Congressman, let me ask you a political question and then get the Senator`s reaction. The newspaper the Anchora the Times, in an editorial several months ago said that in an election year this as, as it put it, a cheap environmental vote for the 532 members of Congress who don`t have to live with the results in their states. What`s your reaction to that?

UDALL: Well, we had a vote in the House of Representatives back in May, and it came out 287 or something to thirty-one. It was a vote of nine to one. We were lobbied by oil companies, we were lobbied by mining companies, we were lobbied by a lot of labor unions, who see this as a jobs issue -- I think incorrectly, but this is painted as a jobs versus environment issue. Sure, I suppose if I were from Alaska I might see things a little bit differently, but it`s our job as the trustees of all of this land`-- it`s not owned by Ted Stevens, it`s owned by the American people-- and it`s our job to do what we should have done in Arizona a hundred years ago and in Wyoming with Yellowstone and Yosemite and Grand Canyon and the great parks in Colorado and Utah. I wish somebody had made these kinds of decisions out there, and we`d have a much better national park system today.

MacNEIL: Senator?

STEVENS: Take a look at what we`ve done in the Senate bill. I don` still totally support the Senate bill, but that bill`s responsive to the needs of the people of Kotzebue for reindeer grazing, it`s responsive to the needs of the Alaska community to have access for sports, recreation; we created a new recreational area between Seward and Anchorage, for instance; we`ve allowed sports hunting in portions of the Wrangells; we have permitted and assured the continued use of the forest system -- incidentally, Mo, thirty-eight percent of our timber is now going to the south forty-eight and as we become more economically viable we will be selling our timber production in the south forty-eight. But as a practical matter the problem with the approach that Congressman Udall has is he is afraid of the facts, he does not want us inventoried. He`d have you believe there`s bulldozers all over ready to go into this land. This land is not going to be disturbed for another twenty to thirty years. But he says at the time it is needed we could open up this country. We won`t know where the minerals are unless you can prospect now. We won`t know what is really the value in the national interest of Alaska`s land unless we permit some flexibility. Again I say he can`t find one single place where we`ve mandated development. We`ve merely given the federal officials future discretion to allow development if it`s in the national interest. He`s unwilling to do that.

MacNEIL: What`s wrong with that, Congressman?

UDALL: There isn`t a single major operating mine in Alaska today, and we have said to the people of Alaska sixty percent of the whole area and sixty-seven percent of the highly mineralized areas, as shown by the federal studies, are open for mining. They`ve got enough digging and drilling up there to go for the next sixty or seventy years. And when they get through with that let`s go back and drill in Mt. McKinley if you have to.

MacNEIL: Okay. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Gentlemen, if Congress fails to act by December 18th, the deadline when this is supposed to happen, the Secretary of Interior can take over these lands, and Secretary Andrus has said if Congress fails to act he and the President will. Won`t you get what you want? I mean, aren`t your...

UDALL: No, not really. We ought to settle this in a broad way. But you make the point that should have been made earlier: these are federal lands; they are now Federal Bureau of Land Management lands. The question is not taking state lands and putting them in federal; the question is what categories of use are going to be allowed in these federal lands before and after the bill? I hope the Secretary will prevent the people of Alaska from moving in and grabbing these lands, will prevent the developers from going at them; and you can argue -- and he will, legally -- about what can be done on the 19th of December, but the point is, the reservation runs out on December the 18th.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, let me just ask you, is that going to happen?

STEVENS: Charlayne, I put that in the bill at the time Mo raised this whole question to force a decision by Congress early. The problem is we`ve waited twenty years to get these lands; we don`t have the lands yet. The natives don`t have their lands yet. It`s being held up. On December 18th...

HUNTER-GAULT: In the last twenty seconds that we have, do either of you gentlemen see any room for compromise? Can you get this bill out without the Secretary taking over?

UDALL: We`ve been talking, we`re trying to get a bill. He knows we`re quite a ways apart, but I`d like to see a good bill.

HUNTER-GAULT: By December 18th.

UDALL: Well, maybe. Let`s see.

STEVENS: By this Congress.

UDALL: If we don`t get it we`ll be back next year; we`re going to settle this right.

HUNTER-GAULT: There`s room for compromise.

UDALL: Yes, but we`re going to settle it right this time.

HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Thank you, Congressman; thank you, Senator. Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow night. I Robert MacNeil. Good night.