HEADLINES
CONGRESS GIVETH AND CONGRESS TAKETH AWAY
POLAR BEARS THREATENED
ANWR vs. ARCTIC REFUGE: WHAT’S IN A NAME?

CONGRESS GIVETH AND CONGRESS TAKETH AWAY
Some excerpts from E&E News PM reporters Alex Kaplun and Ben Geman
One of the priorities of the incoming Democratic majority is to roll back
some of billions in subsidies that have been awarded over the years to
the oil industry. Despite wallowing in record profits, Big Oil convinced
their allies in Congress to continue handing them billions in subsidies.
As Congress has been giving that money away, the new Congress plans to
take it back and redirect it to cleaner, more sustainable, and safer
energy alternatives.
Overall, House Democratic leaders plan to restructure roughly $20 billion
of oil industry tax and royalty incentives, and plan to ultimately steer
the funds into alternative energy development. The subsidy rollback is
part of the new Democratic majority's opening 100-hour legislative
showcase. The Democratic leadership is planning a January 18 vote on the
energy measure.
Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said lawmakers are
"still working on the nuances" of the proposal and that it would not be
introduced this week. He did, however, confirm it would roll back two tax
incentives. One is the amortization of oil and gas exploration costs,
which he said would raise $5 billion over 10 years. The second tax
incentive on the chopping block is the oil and gas industry's eligibility
for a deduction on income from domestic manufacturing, which was
contained in 2004 tax legislation. This will also raise $5 billion, he
said.
The plan also aims to correct problems with the federal program that
allows royalty waivers for deep water Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
production. Deep water leases issued to dozens of companies in 1998 and
1999 were mistakenly drafted without "price thresholds" that end the
royalty incentive when oil prices are high.
The package will seek to correct this oversight, although Hoyer said the
plan is still being drafted and did not say what the mechanism for
ensuring royalty payments from these leases would be. This will raise an
additional $9 billion to $11 billion, he said.
Proposals for addressing the problem to date have included denying new
offshore leases to companies that refuse to renegotiate the 1998-1999
contracts, and placing a new fee on production from these leases if
companies do not agree to the inclusion of price thresholds.
Democratic leaders say the plan will steer the new revenues toward
development of alternative energy sources. However, the package will not
lay out specific programs that the new revenues must fund, Hoyer told
reporters. Representative George Miller (D-CA), a senior member of the
House Resources Committee, said in an interview that the royalty relief
issues reach far beyond next week's plans. "This thing needs a complete
and thorough and exhaustive investigation," he said.
A study from the Interior Department that was not released for over a
year but came out in the New York Times in December, showed that despite
having some of the most lucrative subsidies of any country in the world
for Big Oil, the subsidies actually had minimal impact on increasing oil
production. The study further showed that the inducements would cause
only a tiny increase in production even if they were offered without some
of the limitations now in place. "They are giving up a lot of money and
not getting much in return," said Robert A. Speir, a former analyst at
the Energy Department who worked on the report. "If they took that money,
they could buy a whole lot more oil with it on the open market." The
report predicted that the current incentives would lead to the discovery
of only 1.1 percent more reserves than if there had been no incentives at
all. Total oil production from 2003 to 2042 would be about 300 million
barrels more, or less than 1 percent, than it would have been anyway.
Natural gas production would be 0.6 percent greater than it would have
been otherwise.
Not only do subsidies to Big Oil represent misguided priorities, but it
is apparently not even effective.
This vote on the oil subsidies will be the first litmus test of new
members of Congress. For too long we have been pumping taxpayer money
into an industry that is already the most profitable industry in the
history of the world, while cleaner, safer, more sustainable technologies
received only lip service and chump change. Rolling back the misguided,
ineffective oil subsidies and redirecting the money into alternative
technology research will show that Congress is finally getting serious
about a new energy future for our country.

POLAR BEARS THREATENED
The US Department of the Interior announced on December 27 that it was
recommending that the polar bear be officially listed at "threatened"
under the Endangered Species Act.  Citing the growing body of evidence
that receding sea ice threatens the existence of the Arctic bears,
Secretary Kempthorne stated "based on current analysis, there are
concerns about the effect of receding sea ice on polar bear
populations...I am directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the
U.S. Geological Survey to aggressively work with the public and the
scientific community over the next year to broaden our understanding of
what is happening with the species..."
The proposal to officially list the polar bear as "threatened" can be
found at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's website. 
The proposal to list the polar bear is significant for America's Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge because the Refuge is the most important
on-shore denning site for polar bears in the United States. Additionally,
more polar bears den on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge than any
other place in the country. Some scientists have concluded that if
climate change accelerates and the ice shrinks more, the on-shore denning
will become even more prevalent. One of the stated purposes of the
Endangered Species Act is to "provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon
which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved,
to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and
threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to
achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth in
subsection (a) of this section." 
The Interior Department's (DOI) decision to propose the listing was the
result of a lawsuit filed in 2005 by the Center for Biological Diversity,
Greenpeace, and NRDC to list the polar bear both as threatened and to
designate its denning areas as critical habitat. The polar bear was
petitioned to be listed as a threatened species, defined as a species
likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future. An endangered
species is one that is likely to go extinct within all or a significant
portion of its range in the foreseeable future. The legal settlement
between Interior and the Environmental groups mandated that Interior
submit their proposal no later than December 27. 
In the DOI proposal, global warming is listed as the driving force behind
the possible decline of the polar bears. The U.S. government is now
officially on record as saying that global climate change could
conceivably make the polar bear extinct. 
Although the proposal to list the polar bear as threatened was submitted
officially to the Federal Register at the end of December, it has not
been printed in the Register yet. Once the proposal is printed in the
Register, it will be available for public comment for 90 days.

ANWR vs. ARCTIC REFUGE: WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Our Opinion (Editor's Note: parts of this article were first sent out as
part of AlaskaWild Update #172 from January of 2002)
This debate is as contentious as ever. To quote Shakespeare, does not a
rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Yes, but while many people
are named Rose after the beautiful flower, if a rose were called
stinkweed, there would be less stinkweeds in the world. Names carry with
them meaning and substance of the items for which they represent. Imagine
if Grand Tetons National Park was merely called GTNP, or if Yellowstone
was referred to as YNP? So we arrive back at our current debate: ANWR or
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? 
As a name, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a big mouthful to keep
saying or especially to keep typing. It is easy to stumble over its
pronunciation or spelling, especially after many repeated attempts. It
is, however, very descriptive of the place's form, function, and
location. It is a wildlife refuge, it is in the Arctic, and perhaps most
importantly, the name tells us who owns it by calling it a NATIONAL
Refuge (as opposed to an Alaskan State refuge). The name conveys meaning
and often conjures up images of mountains, musk ox, and caribou for those
who come in contact with that descriptor. 
On the other hand, acronyms are small, funny words meant to make a
reference to something quickly without having to say the whole thing.
They convey no true meaning or images, and to people unfamiliar with the
full term, it actually serves to confuse and leaves many feeling like
they've missed something. ANWR as an acronym is impersonal and does not
create the same images in one's mind of the Arctic Refuge and is a
corporate "term" that leaves the listener with no sense of ownership,
identity, or warmth. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, on the other hand,
does all of these things, and is indeed a mouthful nonetheless. Our
preference is to shorten it to Arctic Refuge since that is not such a
mouthful and still conveys images of snowy peaks, tundra, musk ox, and
polar bears. 
The best reason to call it the Arctic Refuge instead of ANWR? Big Oil and
its supporters in Congress ALL call it ANWR to keep it impersonal and
distant. Let’s keep the full name Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and
keep reminding people exactly what it is we fight for! No more ANWR!
Arctic Refuge all the way!
TAKE ACTION
Please contact your Representative and Senators and enlist their support
for protecting all of America’s Arctic Wilderness, the Tongass, Teshekpuk
Lake and other special areas of the western arctic. Send a personal note
to your Representative or Senator congratulating them on his/her recent
victory and urge them to support any legislation that would permanently
protect the Coastal Plain of America's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
and other special places in Alaska. You can also click here to send an
email Wilderness for the Arctic Refuge. 

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