ANCHORAGE – After receiving more than 400,000 public comments and following two days of meetings and visits with North Slope leaders, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar yesterday outlined a proposed plan that will allow for additional access for oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A).

The plan will be analyzed in detail and presented for public review as the preferred alternative for the NPR-A Integrated Activity Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (IAP/EIS) later this year.

“To harness the oil and gas potential of the NPR-A, we need a plan that will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives,” Salazar said.

“This proposal would allow us to continue to expand our leasing in the NPR-A, as we have done over the last three years as part of the Obama Administration’s focus on expanding safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that’s needed to bring supplies online. This plan also strikes an important balance by recognizing the need to protect America’s treasures in the Arctic, from the raptors of the Colville River and the polar bears of the Beaufort Sea coast, to Teshekpuk Lake, Peard Bay, and some of the largest caribou herds on Earth.”

The Draft IAP/EIS, released March 30, presented four future management alternatives for the NPR-A for public comment. The Final IAP/EIS, expected to be released in late 2012, will include “Alternative B-2,” a modified version of Alternative B, as the preferred alternative. The release of the Final IAP/EIS starts a 30-day review period before the Secretary may issue a final decision.

The preferred alternative will also identify areas within the NPR-A that will receive special protection from development such as some coastal areas – including Peard Bay and Kasegaluk Lagoon – that serve as habitat for seals, polar bears and other marine mammals; the Colville River raptor nesting areas; calving areas for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and the Western Arctic Herd; and areas important for subsistence.

The NPR-A is one of the Arctic’s greatest migratory bird nesting and molting areas and is the summer home for hundreds of thousands of waterfowl and shorebirds, including critical molting areas for up to 30% of the entire population of Pacific Flyway brant goose. The NPR-A provides calving areas and insect relief areas for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, Alaska’s largest herd at roughly 325,000 animals, and the 55,000 animal Teshekpuk Caribou Herd. These populations are a subsistence resource for over 40 northern and western Alaska Native villages.

The preferred alternative allows for the possibility of pipelines and related infrastructure to be built in the NPR-A to accommodate potential future offshore oil and gas production in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The plan does not predetermine whether pipelines and infrastructure can or should be built, and any such proposal would be the subject of a comprehensive environmental analysis and a separate decision-making process, as required by law.

Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski issued a statement yesterday after the release by the Interior Department. “Today, The Obama administration picked the most restrictive management plan possible,” Murkowski said. “The environmentally sensitive Teshekpuk Lake area was already under a 10-year deferral for additional study, but this alternative goes vastly beyond that, putting half of the petroleum reserve off limits. This decision denies U.S. taxpayers both revenue and jobs at a time when our nation faces record debt and chronic unemployment.”

“Alaskans are not a people who need the federal government to protect them from themselves, particularly from a government that is unwilling or unable to clean up its own messes,” said Murkowski, citing the problem with the abandoned federal oil wells in the NPR-A about which she has repeatedly pressed the administration. “This decision endangers not only further exploration of the NPR-A, but also development of existing offshore leases in the Chukchi Sea.”

Senator Murkowski’s comments on the Draft Integrated Activity Plan can be read here (PDF).

Alaska’s Senator Mark Begich also released a statement regarding the Interior Department’s proposed plan. “I am very concerned about this choice by the Department of the Interior. The new preferred alternative still seems to close off several options for building a pipeline across the NPR-A” said Begich.

“If the DOI is leaving Kasegaluk Lagoon near Wainwright a special protected area, where many people assume a pipeline will come ashore, what additional conditions are going to have to be met and how feasible is it to get a pipeline in there? The same is true if the pipeline has to cross over a new protected area to the west of Alpine.

“We’ve known since the beginning that a pipeline across the NPR-A is a critical piece of the puzzle for successful Arctic development. I was pleased by Secretary Salazar’s statement that the United States cannot be left behind in the Arctic. However, today’s decision creates many more questions than answers about how we are going to get billions of barrels of oil from the Chukchi Sea into TAPS.

“I urge Secretary Salazar and the DOI to bring all the parties involved together immediately to answers these questions and find a true path forward for this much-needed pipeline.”

By law, BLM administers the NPR-A for the purposes of oil and gas leasing, along with protection of areas containing significant subsistence, recreational, fish and wildlife, or historical or scenic value.

Follow this link for a map of the preferred alternative and other alternative maps (PDF). For additional information, go to https://blm.gov/dnkd.