http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/opinion/08BABB.html

Another Attack on the Arctic
By BRUCE BABBITT

Published: July 8, 2004

BARROW, Alaska - Thwarted by the public in its efforts to open
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, the Bush
administration and the oil companies are now quietly turning
their attention to the balance of the Arctic region of Alaska,
all the way west to the Chukchi Sea, within sight of Siberia. In
advance of its efforts, the administration has jettisoned
environmental safeguards and is now threatening the traditional-
use rights of the Alaska Natives who have hunted caribou and
waterfowl along the Arctic slope for thousands of years.

This plan was announced in Anchorage just as Congress recessed
for the Reagan funeral. Outside Alaska it has received little
notice, not even for its centerpiece - a proposal to lease
rights for oil and gas development in Teshekpuk Lake, a body of
water that is vital to the region. This shallow lake, which is
about 30 miles across, is the biological heart of the western
Arctic, the summer nesting and breeding ground for hundreds of
thousands of black brant, spectacled eider, yellow-billed loons,
white-fronted geese and other migratory birds that arrive here
each year from 32 of the lower 48 states as well as countries as
far south as Argentina.

The lake, however, isn't just for the birds. It is also a
critically important subsistence area for the indigenous Inupiat
communities on the Arctic slope. They go there to hunt and fish
for food to sustain them through the long, dark winters.

Teshekpuk Lake lies within the western region of what is known
as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. In 1976 Congress
transferred the management of the petroleum reserve to the
Bureau of Land Management. But Congress also mandated
protections for the wildlife and native peoples, making it clear
that America's Arctic should not be transformed into another
West Texas oilfield.

In 1998 the Clinton administration took the first steps to open
the reserve with a two-year study involving hundreds of
scientists and representatives of the Inupiat communities. Two
years later the scientific teams returned with a recommendation
to begin oil leasing, with stipulations for setting aside
approximately 13 percent of the study area, mostly rivers and
lakes, including Teshekpuk, as protected areas. They also
recommended a ban on permanent roads across the fragile tundra,
based upon assurances from the oil companies that they could
operate with temporary winter "ice roads" that would simply melt
away as summer approached and waterfowl and migratory caribou
began congregating at the lake.

The Bush administration now proposes to eliminate these
safeguards intended to protect the lake, the wildlife and the
Inupiat who depend on it. The decision is not yet final. During
the summer there will be hearings in Anchorage and Washington.
Then, Interior Secretary Gale Norton is expected to make a
decision. In this land of endless summer days, there are bound
to be a lot of sleepless nights.

Bruce Babbitt was secretary of the interior from 1993 to 2001.

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