Bank attack hurt Alaska

Democrats in the U.S. Senate recently hit Alaska with the nastiest sneak attack it has suffered since Japanese forces invaded Attu and Kiska in 1942.

A majority of Democrats in the Senate signed a letter asking large American banks not to loan money to companies exploring for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While most industry operations in Alaska’s Arctic are currently east of ANWR, some of the most promising new oil prospects lie beneath the refuge’s coastal plain.

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan reports that “over a third of Senate Democrats wrote a letter to our country’s biggest banks, begging them not to invest in the Alaska economy.”

Sullivan’s report followed the announcement several weeks ago that Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase would refuse to lend money for oil and gas operations in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Their move was made at the behest of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee is an Alaska Native organization that is opposed to ANWR development. Its opinions are not shared by most other Alaska Native groups, including the village of Kaktovik, which lies within ANWR and stands to benefit from oil development under and near its lands. It’s also worth noting that many Alaska Native corporations are involved in Arctic oil development and very much want to see the refuge’s oil potential become a reality.

The refuge contains 19.3 million acres in the northeast corner of our state. Much of the refuge is mountainous and is not prospective for oil and gas. But its 1.5-million-acre coastal plain contains several very promising oil-bearing structures. Legislation authorizing oil exploration passed Congress in late 2017 but no drilling has taken place as yet.

ANWR is home to many wild creatures and its coastal plain is the calving ground for the sizable Porcupine caribou herd, named for the Porcupine River. Those creatures are a precious resource and must be protected if oil exploration is to proceed.

But Alaska has shown in the past that it very much wants its wild lands, fish and wildlife to be protected from harm and respectfully treated whenever industry operates here. And industry has admirably complied with regulations established for their protection.

I was manager of public relations for ARCO in the years after its Prudhoe Bay Field discovery was made in 1968 and can testify that industry has consistently gone the extra mile to protect Alaska’s wild country.

Some new fields are still being developed in the Central Arctic, which includes the Prudhoe Bay Field. But production from the older fields has been declining and some of the most promising acreage yet to be explored and developed lies within the ANWR coastal plain.

The move by the three banks against new drilling in Alaska’s Arctic is not expected to affect the major companies interested in the area. They are generally self-financed. The boycott could impact some contractors but there are many other lenders available to them if needed, so the anti-ANWR move is likely to be more a public statement that will have little real economic impact.

It is, however, a disappointing development that casts an unfortunate shadow on Alaska’s oil and gas industry during a difficult time.

For more information on the attack by the Empire of Japan on Attu and Kiska and the American counter-attack that drove them out , you might want to read a book by my friend, the late John Cloe, “Attu, the Forgotten Battle.”