By Maureen Lorenzetti
OGJ Online
WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 16�Democratic leaders who oppose proposals by the administration of President George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers to drill on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain are asking the General Accounting Office to weigh in on the fight.
Lawmakers want GAO to estimate how much it would cost industry to return the North Slope to its original condition once drilling stops and how companies plan to pay for it.
GAO is an independent, investigative federal agency that Congress frequently uses to analyze controversial issues.
Demo strategy
Democrats are seeking GAO�s answer to bolster their view that industry can�t be trusted with drilling in environmentally sensitive areas such as ANWR�s coastal plain because of its track record on the North Slope.
�We are interested in the cost of, and plans for, returning the wetlands and tundra on the North Slope to their biologically natural state following the completion of drilling and production activities,� the Mar. 6 letter obtained by OGJ Online said. Long-time oil industry foe Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and two key Democrats from the House leadership, Minority Leader Dick Gephart (D-Mo.) and Nick Rahall (D-W. Va.), ranking minority member of the House resources committee, wrote GAO to ask the agency to offer a possible legislative remedy if �deficiencies� are found.
Environmental groups allege that North Slope development has led to massive groundwater and offshore pollution that overrides any economic benefits.
Industry responds
Industry maintains that it has a good record in Alaska. Companies say they have 3 decades of experience dealing with the harsh conditions and can use new technology to drill in national monuments and refuge areas that leaves a �footprint� that is only a small fraction of what it had been on the slope.
Oil companies also have argued that, in the case of the now-declining North Slope fields, the economic benefits of drilling in the state have far exceeded rare environmental problems.
However, Markey in his letter to GAO maintains that mitigating the damage done by the routine operation of oil and gas development on the scale of supergiant Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope oil fields �will be a vast, expensive undertaking.�
Under the North Slope lease agreement signed by Prudhoe area interest owners, Alaska, and the federal government, the companies agreed to dismantle the infrastructure of both the fields and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that brings North Slope oil to market.
Markey argues in his letter that the estimated $11 billion spent to develop Prudhoe Bay was four times the cost of what it would have taken to build up a comparably sized oil field in the Lower 48. �Removing these facilities can be expected to be similarly expensive,� he wrote. �Moreover the oil and gas industry on the North Slope is urging Congress to permit it to expand its activities. The industry plans to expand into pristine, environmentally sensitive areas both to the east (ANWR) and to the west (the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska).�
Lawmakers want GAO to ask industry if there are funds being set aside to restore the field areas after the fields are depleted. GAO has also been asked to compare how the oil and gas industry handles the reclamation issue with that of the nuclear power industry and �other analogous situations.�
No timetable has been set for the study�s release, but it is expected to come while the political battle over ANWR is still in full swing, both industry and environmental groups acknowledge.