PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT POLICY

Oversight on Implementation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (Public Law 96-487)

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1982

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND NATIONAL PARKS,

COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR Affairs,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. John F. Seiberling (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. SEIBERLING. The Subcommittee on Public Lands and National Parks will come to order.

As earlier announced, today we begin 2 days of oversight hearings on the implementation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

As all of us who served in the House and particularly on the Interior Committee during the past two Congresses are well aware, the enactment of the Alaska Lands Act-signed into law on December 2, 1980-marked the culmination of many years of studies and debates. Another act in the long drama of Alaska was concluded, and much of the basic uncertainty about the future status of the Federal lands there was resolved.

Now, we are in a new era-the era of implementation. Our purpose in these hearings is to examine how the congressional decisions embodied in the act are being translated into everyday actions by the administration, what resources are being devoted to carrying out congressional mandates, and what problems or difficulties may be arising in connection with the implementation proc

ess.

Let me stress again, as I did earlier in announcing these hearings, that so far as I am aware there is no present need for us to consider any specific changes in the basic framework of the act. Certainly nobody would contend that the act, as it finally was signed into law, is a perfect statute incapable of improvement. But I believe that what some would view as improvements would be viewed rather differently by others.

In any event, our purpose today and tomorrow will not be to reopen old debates or to evaluate possible revisions of the Alaska Lands Act. Instead, we want to receive a status report on how the

act is being applied in practice, now that the administration has had more than a year in which to discharge its responsibilities.

So we can have the benefit of their particular perspectives, we have scheduled for today a fairly lengthy list of witnesses from those persons and groups who are not part of the administration, but who nonetheless have a special interest in the Alaska Lands Act and its implementation. After hearing today's testimony, members may wish to raise with the administration witnesses tomorrow questions suggested by today's witnesses. Similarly, the administration witnesses may wish to take the opportunity to respond to points raised in today's hearing.

Incidentally, it was our hope that we would have the benefit of hearing from a representative of the Alaska State government today, and toward that end I wrote to Governor Hammond extending our invitation to him or his designee. Unfortunately, we have been informed that a number of difficulties associated with the fact that the State legislature is nearing the end of its current session make it impossible for the State to be represented. While I regret we will not have the opportunity to receive direct testimony from the State administration, I am told they will submit a written statement, and of course we will read that with interest and attention.

I believe for the record I ought to note also that the Cook Inlet Regional Corp. also indicated they would prefer to appear at some other time, and that the Alaska representatives of the forest products industry indicated that would be satisfactory for them as well. I am sure the subcommittee will want to conduct further oversight hearings on this subject, and so we will have opportunities to hear from them and others who wish to be heard.

Now, I will recognize the gentleman from Alaska and the other members for such opening remarks as they may wish to make, and then we will be ready to hear from our witnesses.

The gentleman from Alaska is recognized.

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It has been 12 years since this group has been together on this issue and I would like to begin with a welcome back to my good secretary and especially the Alaskans who are here today. I remember the times when the State of Alaska was the best thing going for the airlines. Now that the bill is behind us and we are not worried about what Washington is doing, that is not true, but we are glad to see familiar faces.

Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment you on your opening statement. This is a hearing on the implementation of the Alaskan lands bill. I voted against that bill and worked against H.R. 39, but over the years that we have worked on this issue, we did achieve some great progress from the original bill as submitted by members of this committee. We had adversary roles at different times in this committee. Also, as the gentleman will testify at all times, I think we conducted ourselves in a constructive manner. I hope these hearings will continue to be so.

There is an act that took place, the largest single act ever evolved in this committee concerning lands of the United States. I am frankly quite pleased with much of what occurred in those hearings and in some other areas. Overall, I think those hearings

were beneficial to the committee and to the people who participated. There were weaknesses, but hopefully we can rectify them through administrative methods or additional legislation.

Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for these hearings.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Thank you.

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, I have a letter here which I believe has been submitted to you. It is from the NANA Regional Corp. I would like to submit that letter for the record. I think it is indicative because part of it is being read. They are strongly in support of legislation as it has been passed and they compliment the Park Service specifically. John Schaeffer, president, signed their letter. Mr. SEIBERLING. Thank you. Without objection, that will be included in the record.

[EDITOR'S NOTE.-The letter from NANA Corp. referred to above may be found in appendix I. See table of contents for page number.]

Mr. SEIBERLING. I would also like to note that the Department of Interior has been very supportive of Native subsistence rights in Alaska and so has the Park Service. I say that with considerable gratification.

If there are no further comments, we will proceed with our first witness, our distinguished guest, the Honorable Cecil Andrus, former Secretary of the Interior and the person who was the chief shepherd in the Carter administration who guided this difficult legislation through its passage to final success.

[Prepared statement of Hon. Cecil D. Andrus may be found in appendix I. See table of contents for page number.]

STATEMENT OF HON. CECIL D. ANDRUS, FORMER SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Mr. ANDRUS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. I express my appreciation to each of you for permitting me to address this committee on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I have submitted the 35 copies of my statement to the committee. It is 23 pages in length, but with your permission, I would ask that it be submitted in its entirety for the record and then I will briefly summarize and make myself available for questions.

Mr. SEIBERLING. Without objection, the entire statement will be included in the record. The gentleman may proceed.

Mr. ANDRUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you know, and as you alluded a moment ago, the resolution of this Alaska lands issue was the single most important goal of my tenure as Secretary of the Interior. It was a most valued achievement as Secretary that we could together collectively resolve this issue that has been going on for almost a decade.

So again, I appreciate the opportunity to be before you and your committee members. Almost a year and a half has passed since we resolved this issue. Today I come before you to point out some areas where I believe the spirit of the law is not being followed. I would hope the Congress who drafted that law will follow the implementation of it very closely.

As Mr. Young said earlier, we cannot simply accept the fact that the Government in Washington will always do exactly what the people expect. I would hope they will watch it closely.

There have been incidences within the Department of the Interior and within this administration where early actions indicate that some of these lands are not being studied or utilized as you and I might have wished them to be, thought they were going to be, when we drafted that legislation. There is continual rhetoric about stewardship and balance, but sometimes I wonder whether there is a total understanding of the word balance. There is certainly a need for the energy materials and for the timber resources, but there is also a need for wilderness areas in the parklands.

In developing the Alaska lands bill you, Mr. Chairman in particular, and your colleagues throughout the Congress were continually striving to seek that balance. I think we came very close to it. But now there are those within the administration that would like to move back to the old way of doing things. They put a new handle on it. They call it privatization of the public lands and natural resources. I think it is based on the notion that Government ownership and/or regulation simply indicates that the Federal Government is not capable of handling these lands and resources. I do not agree. I think the Department of the Interior is very able and capable of doing this. Certainly that is what the Congress had in mind.

The conservation and proper management of our natural resources, Mr. Chairman, has always been a bipartisan issue. I would like to point out to this committee and to people in this room the history of both political parties in the conservation movement. I have had the feelings in the last year that perhaps it was becoming a partisan issue from both sides.

I hope it is not. But whether it is or whether it is not, today I would like to point out that major conservation legislation has been supported by Presidents, both Republican and Democratic, and by the Congress. It has been back and forth across the aisle. The resolution of the Alaska issue itself was certainly a bipartisan effort. I would hope it would not become tainted in the political

arena.

I would say to you, Mr. Chairman, in all candor, that neither this administration nor any other administration has the ability to directly undermine the body of the Federal public lands law through amendments or new legislation without coming to the Congress and doing it up front. But there are plenty of other approaches.

One of them that is being utilized right now that I feel the Congress should be aware of is the budgetary aspects that are provided to circumvent, if you will, the intent of this act, an excuse to make major policy decisions that would not be made legislatively and make them in the budgetary arena of cutting the funds, eliminating planning moneys and personnel. I urge you to watch very carefully.

I will give you some examples now of the charges I have made that it is no surprise to me that the single largest budget item on the Interior Department's fiscal year 1983 budget request is $9.4 million for the Alaska resource assessment. This is mandated in

section 1010 of the bill. This $9.4 million for that single purpose, Mr. Chairman, is $1 million more than all of the planning budget in the other agencies combined.

I would submit to you that when that bill was passed by this Congress and certainly when I worked on it, we were thinking it mandated studies and the others would all proceed forward not just a development aspect of it.

To give you an example, the very first one early on was the directive from the Secretary's office that pertains to the implementation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain resource assessment. Now, Mr. Chairman, you were involved in the drafting of this. I don't need to remind you that it was section 1002 that mandated this study.

Now, the current Secretary moved to take the responsibility for this away from the Fish and Wildlife Service and give it to the U.S. Geological Survey. A Federal court held the action violated the law, but that is one of the indications that I point to.

The other examples I would use this morning in my previous remarks is the mandates the Congress put in, and we supported, for the planning procedures to authorize the exploration activity and the efforts. These items many times pointed out that a baseline study should be conducted first and then the exploration activities would follow.

If you will look, you will see the exploration activity is moving ahead very rapidly but due to the delays by the litigation and by internal activities within the Department the studies are not anywhere near completion. The unpublished baseline study is being awaited, yet the exploration is moving on.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the exploration aspects are going to go forward regardless, and it does not matter whether the adequacy of the study and projectory guidelines set in place by the law are where they are. That is my observation, as I see it.

Two other quick examples, Mr. Chairman, and then I will close my remarks. I bring them out as indicative of how we are proceeding in this regard. Section 1317 of the act requires the Secretary to complete studies of 76 million acres of park and refuge lands by 1985 with the recommendations to the Congress by 1987.

It is my understanding that these studies are receiving very little attention or funding. In contrast to the nonenforcement of the wilderness review requirement, the administration did choose to implement section 1320 which excuses BLM from the mandatory wilderness review of FLPMA.

As you recall, Mr. Chairman, we discussed that issue in the drafting of the legislation and felt with the scrutiny that was taking place in Alaska of these lands that FLPMA procedures would not have to be followed. But the wildernerss inventory would continue in Alaska under the Alaska Lands Act. On March 12, there were directives that said, "No further wilderness inventory, review or study or consideration by the Bureau of Land Management is needed or is to be undertaken in Alaska except in those areas where study is mandated by legislation."

Then to implement the Secretarial directive, BLM put out a memo which I quote at length in my prepared testimony, but