SENATOR
MURKOWSKI ARCTIC COUNCIL FLOOR SPEECH
***As Prepared For Delivery ***
MAY
23, 2011
Thank you Mr.
President. Last week I was honored to
participate in a historic trip to attend the 7th Ministerial meeting
of the Arctic Council in Nuuk, Greenland with Secretary of State Clinton and
Secretary of the Interior Salazar.
The Arctic Council, founded in 1995, is an
intergovernmental association of eight member states with territory inside the
Arctic Circle. The group includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
Sweden, the Russian Federation and the United States of America. There are also
six permanent participants representing indigenous people of the region.
The trip
was historic because it was the first time a Secretary of State has led the
United States delegation to an Arctic Council meeting. It was also the first time a member of
Congress has attended. We met with the foreign ministers of the eight Arctic
Council nations and representatives of indigenous groups to discuss issues
related to Arctic governance, climate change, environmental protection, and
watched the ministers sign a historic search and rescue agreement.
It was music to my ears
to hear Secretary Clinton say that the United States is an Arctic nation and as
such we have responsibilities in the region.
We are an Arctic nation because of Alaska and its indigenous people.
The Arctic Council also
increased its organizational structure by forming a standing Secretariat, to be
based in Tromsø, Norway, and by establishing criteria for the admission of new
observers to the Council.
The People’s Republic
of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Italy and the European Union are all
seeking observer status to the Arctic Council.
The search
and rescue agreement, the first ever legally binding agreement among Arctic states
negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council, will strengthen the
cooperation on search and rescue between Arctic states. As Arctic sea ice
decreases, maritime activities are increasing in the Arctic. Aviation traffic
is also on the rise as new polar aviation routes cross the Arctic air space in
several directions. Limited rescue
resources, challenging weather conditions, and the remoteness of the area
render SAR operations difficult in the Arctic, making coordination among the
Arctic nations imperative.
The U.S. Coast Guard will be the lead federal
agency for search and rescue in the Arctic. Historically, while the Coast
Guard has a long and distinguished history of operating and conducting rescues
in the Arctic, the current status of the Coast Guard’s surface and aviation
fleets makes conducting search and rescue operations in the Arctic extremely
challenging. With the scheduled decommissioning of the POLAR SEA, the
Coast Guard will only maintain one heavy ice breaker in its fleet, which is not
expected to return to service until 2013. While the Coast Guard does have
a medium endurance ice breaker, HEALY, the cutter is not equipped to handle the
thick multi-year ice that is present in the Arctic.
On the aviation side, Coast Guard C-130
aircraft stationed in Kodiak, AK, are the only aircraft in their inventory that
are capable to make direct flights to the Arctic. And Kodiak to Barrow is
the same distance as Miami is to Washington DC.
Given the often harsh weather conditions in the Arctic, combined with a
lack of infrastructure to provide forward deployed basing of helicopters, the
Coast Guard’s
C-130’s can possibly
provide the ‘search’ but are incapable of providing the ‘rescue’. This
lack of maritime resources and shore based infrastructure to protect aviation
resources, places the Coast Guard and the United States in a difficult situation
in the Arctic. Without concerted efforts and a focused policy for the
Arctic, the United States and the Coast Guard are going to continue to be
ill-equipped to conduct the search and rescue operations that are going to
become increasingly necessary as the amounts of Arctic sea-ice continue to
diminish and the levels of Arctic maritime vessel traffic increase.
It has been projected that a seasonal ice free
Arctic Ocean was decade’s away and maritime shipping through the Northwest
Passage, Northern Sea Route above Russia and direct transits across the Arctic
Ocean were going to be few and far between.
But last
year Russia sent a large, ice-breaking bulk tanker through the Northern Sea Route
and across the Arctic carrying hydrocarbons bound for Asia.
The Russian Federation has received 15 ice breaker
escort requests to provide navigational support through the Northern Sea Route
for this year. Last year, they only had
three requests. Transit through
the Northern Sea Route, or Northeast Passage as it is also called, cuts 5000
miles and 8 days from the Suez route between Europe and Asia.
Interest in the Arctic,
by both the general public, the media and Arctic and non-Arctic nations,
continues to grow, for many reasons.
The Arctic is a vast
area, covering over one-sixth of the Earth’s land mass, with a population of
some four million people, including over 30 different indigenous peoples and
dozens of languages. While it is massive
in size with barren land, it is not like Antarctica, with no indigenous people
and no governance.
The eight Arctic
nations are sovereign governments, with laws governing the land and
people.
The Arctic holds vast amounts of energy,
but until recently, the resources of the Arctic were deemed to be too difficult
to access and expensive to develop. But with increasing access and high energy
and mineral prices, the Arctic’s wealth, which is estimated to contain
approximately 22 percent of the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves, is now
being actively explored and developed.
Six of the eight member nations of the Arctic Council are exploring or
developing energy resources in their waters.
This makes energy
exploration among the most important and perhaps the most serious issues for
Arctic policy moving forward. This includes conventional oil and natural gas
but also methane hydrates and other less conventional forms. Offshore Alaska we are estimating 15 billion
barrels of oil in a concentrated area of the Chukchi Sea and 8 billion barrels
in the Beaufort Sea, and while we have had serious delays in exploration, I am
hopeful that exploratory wells will prove up next summer. While the United States Geological Survey
tells us that the region has the world’s largest undiscovered oil and gas
deposits, we also think it holds huge amounts of other minerals – like coal,
nickel, copper, tungsten, lead, zinc, gold, silver, diamonds, manganese,
chromium and titanium.
But there’s a natural,
sometimes reflexive tendency to question how in the world it can ever be safe
or even economical to drill and produce in such harsh, misunderstood, and
distant environments. But it’s
happening, and the technology and engineering behind some of the existing and
proposed activities is advancing rapidly. While we struggle moving ahead with
off-shore development in Alaskan
waters, our neighbors
are rapidly moving forward on Arctic energy development. Russia, which is
only 53 miles from Alaska’s shoreline, is
turning its eye to the Arctic’s vast energy reserves as they are building the
first offshore oil rig that can withstand temperatures as low as minus 50
degrees Celsius and heavy pack ice. As
their oil production is in decline, they are also reducing taxes and
bureaucratic hurdles in order to encourage new oil development in the Arctic.
Norway has been
exploring and producing energy in the Arctic the longest and has found the way
for energy development and other activities, like fisheries, to co-exist. They also lead the world in developing
technology to clean up oil in Arctic waters.
Energy development and
protection of the Arctic environment must go hand in hand, and I was pleased
that the Arctic Council announced the formation of a new task force that will
negotiate measures for oil spill preparedness and response throughout the
region. The decision to launch these negotiations is evidence of the strong
commitment to proactively address emerging issues in the region and to create international
protocols to prevent and clean up offshore oil
spills
in areas of the region that are becoming increasingly accessible to exploration
because of a changing climate.
One question I was presented in seemingly every
conversation in Greenland was the United States position on the Law of the Sea
Treaty. The U.S. delegation reiterated
their support for is ratification of the Convention for the Law of the
Sea. I believe it is crucial
for the United States to be a party to this treaty, rather than an outsider
hoping our interests are not damaged.
Accession to the
Convention would give current and future administrations both enhanced
credibility and leverage in calling upon other nations to meet Convention
responsibilities. Given the support for the Treaty by Arctic nations and the
drive to develop natural resources, the Treaty will also provide the stability and certainty that is vital for investment in
maritime commerce.
The United States is
the only Arctic nation that is not a party to the Law of the Sea convention,
having first submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate for approval in 1994 but
not yet acceded to it.
Canada and Denmark
joined the treaty in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Until the U.S. accedes to the treaty it
cannot submit its data regarding the extent of its extended continental shelf
to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, established under the
Treaty. Without a Commission
recommendation regarding such data, the legal foundation for ECS limits is much
less certain than if the U.S. were a party to the Treaty.
Russia
submitted an extended continental shelf claim in 2002 that would grant them
460,000 square miles of the Arctic Ocean’s bottom resources. That is an area
the size of Texas, California and Indiana combined. Denmark and Canada are anxious to establish
their own claims in the Arctic and Norway’s claim is currently under review by
the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
According
to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, if the United States were to become a
party to the Treaty, we could lay claim to an area in the Arctic of about
450,000 square kilometers-or approximately the size of California.
But if we
do not become a party to the Treaty, our opportunity to make this claim, and
have the international community respect it, diminishes considerably, as does
our ability to challenge other claims.
While some have
described a scenario where the Arctic is undergoing an “arms race” or a “race
for resources”, after seeing the international cooperation at the Arctic
Council, I believe what we have is a race for cooperation and sustainable
management. The Arctic offers a
great opportunity to work collaboratively and is one area in which the Obama Administration can highlight
international cooperation in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy. This
follows the Administration’s intent to “reset” relations with Russia and the
Arctic is the perfect place to do so.
So, what does the
future hold for the Arctic? I believe
that the pace of change in the Arctic DEMANDS that greater attention be focused
on the region. The implications of the dynamic changing Arctic for U.S. security,
economic, environmental, and political interests depend on it.
It will, however, take
robust diplomacy and very likely, recognition, as Secretary Clinton reminded
us, that interest in the Arctic is not just limited to the five Arctic coastal
states, or even the eight countries who are permanent members of the Arctic Council. It will take a level of collaboration and
cooperation to include the non-Arctic states as well.
I am pleased that ever
so slowly, the United States seems to be waking up to the fact that we are,
indeed, an Arctic nation and willing to take up the responsibilities as such.
I am confident that
with the leadership of members of Congress, the Administration and from the
Arctic community at large, we can continue to highlight the strategic
importance of the Arctic for the United States.
I believe the Arctic Council meeting may just be the turning point for
American leadership in the Arctic.
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