www.AKRDC.org 35 VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 3 | FALL 2024 “Instead of establishing a publicly accessible outreach docket, BLM has asked for comments to be submitted by email, a private format which diminishes the transparency of stakeholder engagement. The current RFI process, with its limited visibility and lack of transparency, runs contrary to the practices BLM has historically followed.” — Kara Moriarty, CEO, Alaska Oil and Gas Association This reluctance to engage locally is illustrated in the request for information itself, which says that rather than publishing any information received from the public the BLM instead may post the responses on its website and may use the information that it finds suitable, the delegation’s letter said. “BLM’s use of ‘may’ here is a clear indication that BLM will pick and choose specific information, as it sees fit, to tailor its likely decision to expand Special Areas,” the delegation wrote. There have been protected areas in the NPR-A for years, in fact since the reserve was transferred from the U.S. Navy (it was then Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4) to the BLM in 1976 federal legislation. But the notion that protected areas can be periodically changed, and enlarged, is nee with the land rule adopted last summer. For example, since 1976 coastal areas important to migrating waterfowl as well as Teshepuk Lake, a large freshwater coastal water body have been off-limits to oil and gas development. These restrictions were maintained even during the pro-development administration of President Donald Trump. To some extent this was a difficult pill to swallow for the oil and gas industry and the state of Alaska, which shares in petroleum royalties from production in the reserve, because some of the most prospective geology for oil and gas discoveries lies under the coastal areas, which are mostly ecologically-sensitive wetlands. Despite all of this, the reserve is not pristine wilderness. It was created in 1923 by President Warren Harding as a reserve of potential oil discoveries for the U.S. Navy, after government geologists advised Harding that are region held oil prospects. There was no exploration until after World War II, however, when the Navy mounted an extensive regional drilling program that yielded a small oil discovery at Umiat, near the Colville River at the southeast boundary of the reserve, and a natural gas discovery at Barrow (now Utiagvik). The oil at Umiat was not a commercial-scale find but the gas field at Barrow was large enough to provide energy for the community, and still does. It was only in recent years and with use of modern technology that companies have found commercial-scale deposits that are now being produced, at GMT-1 and GMT-2, and planned for development, as at Willow.
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