Sweeping conservation legislation that passed the Senate on Feb. 12 has a bundle of bills tied to issues of importance to Alaska, from improvements in early warning and monitoring of volcanoes to allotments for Alaska Natives who served in the Vietnam war.
“From increasing access to federal lands for sportsmen to land conveyances for communities to boost the local economy, to protecting Alaskans from natural hazards, this package addresses a wide range of priorities important to our state,” said Sen, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Murkowski, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, ranking member Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WVA, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash, led the way for the Senate’s strong bipartisan approval of S. 47, the Natural Resources Management Act, which passed 92-8, before heading for the House.
“It’s the first time we have been able to advance a lands package in about five years,” Murkowski said during a media teleconference from Washington D.C. “It is significant.
“There are provisions which many would say are a very small scale, but what they open up in economic opportunities is significant,” she said.
S. 47 is a bipartisan package of over 100 public lands, natural resources and water bills, introduced in January by Murkowski and Cantwell. The package was negotiated with the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources last year, and the majority of bills included in it have undergone extensive public review in the House the Senate, or both, Murkowski said.
Among the bills of particular interest to Alaskans is the Chugach Land Study Act, which requires the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service to do a study to identify effects that federal land acquisitions have had on Chugach Alaska Corp.’s ability to develop its lands, and to identify options for a possible land exchange with the regional Alaska Native corporation.
The Alaska Native Veterans Land Allotment Equity Act would ensure fulfillment of a decades-old promise from the federal government to provide allotments to Alaska Natives who served in the Vietnam War.
“Federal areas will have to be identified where selections may be made,” Murkowski said. “Many will not be able to select in areas they have had historic ties to. There will be a process that will be outlined. The Vietnam war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia ran from November 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, and many Americans who served in that war are aging.”
“This is something they have followed and wondered if they will still be alive when they are able to select (allotments),” Murkowski said.” My hope is to try to make this available as soon as possible.”
The National Volcano Early Warning and Monitoring Act will provide for improving the nation’s volcano-related capabilities to keep communities and travelers safe.
“For Alaska and Hawaii, it is pretty important to have more monitoring, the ability to provide for those warnings, particularly for those in aviation,” Murkowski said.
The bundle also includes renewal for five years of the National Geologic Mapping Act Reauthorization Act run by the U.S. Geological Survey.
“It recognizes there is still so much as yet unmapped or outdated, to make sure maps and survey data are up to date,” Murkowski said.
The Land and Water Conservation legislation permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with key reforms to strengthen and provide parity for its state-side program.
“The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been a pre-eminent program for access to public lands,” Cantwell said. “It gives local communities the tools and resources to manage public lands, to give more access to the American people, to do the things that will help us grow jobs and preserve against a very challenging and threatening climate.”
The Sportmen’s Act provides greater access and opportunities for hunting, fishing and other recreational activities on federal land. It recognizes that on areas like BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands, “that we want to make sure these lands are open, unless they are specifically closed,” Murkowski said. “In areas used in the Interior … sometimes there may be military training operations going on in a certain area and you don’t want hunters in that area during the two-day exercise, so there are specific processes for closure. It is about making sure it is clear these are not closed for unreasonable periods of time or without explanation.”
The Denali National Park Improvement Act would provide routing flexibility through Denali National Park and Preserve for the proposed Alaska Gasline project through a non-wilderness portion of the park, to avoid seismic hazards, generally along about a seven-mile stretch of the Parks Highway. Permits could only be issued, however, if consistent with National Park system laws applicable to utility rights-of-way, in accordance with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980.
The bundle would also repeal, under the Kake Timber Parity Act, a statutory ban preventing the export of unprocessed logs harvested from lands conveyed to the Kake Tribal Corp. and require the Interior Department to convey all rights, title and interest in the sand and gravel resources within and contiguous to the Barrow Gas Field to the Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corp., the village corporation for Ukpeagvik.
“Barrow will be able to sell gravel,” Murkowski said, citing the Ukpeagvik Land Conveyance legislation as another example of small pieces of legislation that can make a significant difference in the economic development of local communities.
