Clinton Opts Not to Shield Alaska Refuge

SEATTLE — In one of the last environmental showdowns of the Clinton administration, the White House said Wednesday that it does not plan to extend national monument status to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the president leaves office.

The decision--which conservationists fear could leave the pristine coastal plain on Alaska’s North Slope vulnerable to oil drilling--comes after weeks of appeals for President Clinton to grant the 19-million-acre preserve the legal protections afforded under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

With oil supplies elsewhere on the North Slope dwindling, Alaska’s congressional delegation has sought to open up the refuge for development. The conservation community, which considers the area one of the most important wildlife refuges in America, has vigorously opposed any such moves.

President-elect George W. Bush has placed a priority on oil drilling in the refuge as part of his energy plan.

But Clinton’s White House spokesman, Jake Siewert, said Wednesday that the president “does not intend to designate” a monument because legal protections against drilling there already exist.

“ANWR has something that some of the other areas we looked at do not have, which is legislative protected status . . . higher than that conferred by monuments,” Siewert told reporters.

“So we’re not convinced that giving it a monument status would give it any additional legal protection.” Siewert added that it is “very unlikely” Congress would bypass existing protections to open the refuge for oil activity.

And Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt recently warned that adding the high-profile Arctic refuge to the list of monuments already designated by Clinton could jeopardize the 1906 law itself by “raising the stakes.”

Oil drilling supporters in Alaska quickly applauded the decision. “We agree with [Clinton’s] analysis of it. You create a monument of an area called a refuge and you really haven’t done anything but change the name. It still can be opened by an act of Congress,” said Camden Toohey, executive director of Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based pro-drilling group.

Industry officials say new technologies could remove oil from underneath the refuge without having to place massive drilling pads atop the coastal plain.

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) has introduced a bill--the latest in a number put forward in recent years--to open the refuge to oil activity. Drilling opponents have signaled their intent to seek legislation extending official wilderness protection to the refuge--a much stronger category of protection than national monument status.

The Senate, locked in a 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats, is likely to have the final word on drilling in the refuge.

The environmental debate over the Arctic refuge has become the nation’s most visible because it pits the escalating demands for energy against an unparalleled wildlife resource.

The 1.5-million-acre coastal plain--east of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields--is where 130,000 Porcupine caribou give birth to their calves after their annual trek from Canada, one of the last great mammal migrations in the world. It also is home to more than 200 other species, including musk oxen, wolverines, bears and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.

Earlier this month, supporters of the monument designation tied up White House phone comment lines for most of three days. Some conservation leaders said the administration’s statement Wednesday still leaves room for the president to change his mind.

“We still think there’s great public support,” said Jim Waltman of the Wilderness Society. But with or without the monument designation, “we know we’ve got a great defensive battle on our hands with the new administration.”

Deb Moore of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center said the White House was wrong in its analysis that a monument designation would not extend additional protections.

Although the existing refuge designation blocks oil drilling, she said, it permits the incoming administration to approve a number of oil-related activities without congressional approval. That might include using the refuge as a staging area for offshore oil exploration and spill cleanup. “I think they could technically run a pipeline across the Arctic refuge at this point that would not be considered drilling,” Moore said.

“If the president recognizes this area as important enough to give it the title of a national monument, it’s also difficult for Congress to turn around and tell the American people this doesn’t matter that much, we’re going to allow drilling,” she said.