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Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have come to the floor this morning to recognize and commemorate the 45th anniversary of the first oil moving through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. We actually reached that milepost on Monday so I am here to speak this morning about what this 800-mile-long pipeline continues to mean for Alaska, our Nation, and really the world itself.

TAPS, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, is truly a modern marvel. It is the backbone of my home State's economy. It supports great jobs for Alaska. It helps generate critical revenues for our State. It ensures that our energy is transported safely, and it really is a vital component of America's energy security. But I think it is kind of nice, as we reflect on decades past, to appreciate some of the history behind the Trans-Alaska Pipeline because, for a period of time, there was a question of whether or not this extraordinary energy infrastructure would be built at all.

After oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay, there was vigorous debate as to how we were going to move this resource, how we were going to transport it. Some wanted to use trucks or tankers; others actually thought that massive jets would be the way to go. There were some who wanted to build an overland pipeline across Canada. That would have been about a 3,200-mile line in length. But, thankfully, it was an all- Alaska pipeline route that prevailed.

So when you look at the map of Alaska and where our pipeline sits today, it truly does just bisect the entire State of Alaska. From Prudhoe to Valdez at Tidewater is an 800-mile line. Thankfully, an all- Alaska pipeline route was the one that ultimately prevailed over all of the alternatives that were considered. Congress authorized it in 1973-- an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis of authorization.

There is an interesting side story--it is actually not a side story; it is pretty pivotal--in terms of whether or not this Trans-Alaska Pipeline actually came into being. But it was a tie-breaking vote cast by Spiro Agnew that really helped to facilitate the line because it effectively determined that there would be no further litigation about the line moving forward.

The preconstruction process for TAPS lasted for about 6 years, mostly concurrent with the final passage of its authorization act; and as part of that, the Federal Task Force on Alaskan Oil Development--this is a group that we should probably be bringing back--completed a six-volume environmental impact statement, so a six-volume EIS.

And that EIS, along with Congress's decision to shield TAPS from litigation--again, this tie-breaking vote that I have alluded to-- allowed the construction to begin. So it did.

Several companies joined together to form a joint venture, called Alyeska, and they set forth to build and operate the line. And Alyeska ultimately acquired 515 Federal permits, along with more than 832 from the State of Alaska, in order to proceed.

Now, at that time, TAPS was the largest private construction project of its kind. It had a pricetag of more than $8 billion. In October of 1975, more than 28,000 people were working to make it a reality, and together they turned over 100,000 pieces of 40- to 60-foot pipe in a 48-inch diameter that runs from, again, Prudhoe to Valdez in the south central part of our State.

I have had many opportunities to show visitors our Trans-Alaska Pipeline. If you look at it from the air, it is just this silver ribbon, again, that bisects the State. You look at it from the ground, and, again, it is truly, truly an engineering marvel.

Now, I saw an old criticism that TAPS was an ``engineer's nightmare.'' The occupant of the Chair here might be interested in this given your background, but, in reality, it is a testament, truly, to world-class engineering and the genius, the creativity, and the pioneering spirit of all who worked on it.

TAPS crosses three mountain ranges, including Atigun Pass in the Brooks Range that has an elevation of 4,739 feet. It reaches a grade of 55 degrees at Thompson Pass in the Chugach Range. It crosses more than 530 streams and rivers. It accommodates some 579 animal crossings. And it operates at temperatures ranging from 95 degrees above zero to 80 degrees below zero, and that is not counting the windchill factor.

And when you are talking about Alaska, of course, you have got to account for seismic activity. So TAPS' engineers also had to account for that. You have got mountain ranges. You have got extreme weather. You have got animals, wildlife that you have to accommodate. You have the rivers, the streams, but you also have to accommodate seismic hazard.

The pipeline crosses three fault lines, including the Denali Fault. In that area, engineers built the pipeline on slider beams with Teflon shoes. So if you look at these supports here, these vertical support pillars here and the slider beams are on Teflon shoes that allow the pipeline to move laterally up to 20 feet--up to 20 feet laterally--and up to 5 feet vertically. So this pipeline can absorb the give-and-take and the hard shake of a significant earthquake.

And it is pretty important that the engineers worked this into this extraordinary infrastructure. We had a magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck in 2002 right on that Denali Fault. The pipeline handled it well. It remained intact, and it did exactly what the engineers designed it to do: It moved back and forth on these lateral supports. It moved up and down, and it allowed that pipeline, that piece of steel pipeline, to have the flex that it needed to avoid any--any--issues.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System was built in just over 3 years. This was between 1974 and 1977. I was a young person growing up in Fairbanks at the time, and that was a time and place of great energy and intensity as we were involved in this extraordinary oil construction boom. And the men and women who were working on the project at that time had this saying: ``They just didn't know that it couldn't be done.'' And they not only met their goal of first oil moving through the pipeline by July 1, 1977; they beat it by 10 days.

And the rest, they say, is history. Over the past 45 years, TAPS has not just been a pipeline, not just oil pipeline infrastructure; it has become Alaska's economic lifeline. I say it is like the artery for our State. It has helped us create jobs to the point where our oil and gas industry either employs or supports about one-third of Alaska's workforce. It has generated billions of dollars in revenues for our State--for everything from roads and schools to essential services.

TAPS has allowed us to create and now grow our Permanent Fund. This Permanent Fund has really turned our oil resources into an enduring source of prosperity for Alaskans. We not only have a Permanent Fund, but spun off from that Permanent Fund and the investment on those earnings are dividends that are returned to each and every Alaskan in this State. If you lived in Alaska from 1982, when they first started the dividends, until today, you would have received nearly $45,000 in annual dividends that go to offset the high cost of living in a high- cost State like Alaska. This year, Alaskans are set to receive a pretty hefty Permanent Fund dividend: more than $3,000 more.

So it has been an economic benefit, most certainly, to Alaskans. It has also enabled us to keep our State tax burden low. We have no income tax in the State. We have no statewide sales tax. We have the lowest gas tax in the country.

As the economist Scott Goldsmith has noted, revenues from TAPS also enable us to keep taxes on other industries like our tourism, our fisheries--it allows us to keep those taxes lower than they might otherwise be.

But really, from day one, TAPS has strengthened our energy security. And when I talk about energy security, I am referring not just to the security of those of us in Alaska but to our Nation's energy security. It helped tide America over during the 1979 oil crisis. It has insulated us from OPEC and OPEC Plus and lessened our dependence on nations that do not share our interests, and it has dramatically reduced the dollars that go overseas to purchase oil.

It has certainly provided reliable and affordable energy for tens of millions of Americans up and down the west coast because it is the west coast where Alaskan oil is primarily directed.

But it is hard to imagine Alaska without TAPS, without the Trans- Alaska Pipeline System. It is hard also to imagine the consequences that America would have faced without the 18.4 billion barrels of oil that it has now safely moved over these past 45 years. And I think it is no exaggeration to say that while we built a pipeline, that pipeline has helped us build our State.

And in the midst of all this--something that the folks at Alyeska Pipeline are very, very proud of--Alyeska has accrued a remarkable safety record. From 2017 through 2020, the company reported a total of just 5.1 barrels of oil as spilled. Yet over that same time period, from 2017 to 2020, more than 733 million barrels of oil have moved through TAPS. So not 1 in every 1 million gallons, not 1 in every 10 million gallons, not even 1 in every 100 million gallons was spilled during this time period. That is a pretty darn good record. And that is something that Alyeska can be proud of, and I think it speaks to the kind of company that it is.

And, at its core, the reason why TAPS has been successful are its people. They focus on safety first. There are more than 700 people who work directly for Alyeska on the North Slope, at the pump stations, at its Anchorage control center, and in Valdez. And you are probably not going to find a more dedicated group. They are just so committed to their mission, and it certainly makes me proud to know that 95 percent of those who work at Alyeska are Alaskans.

TAPS is an economic engine for our State. But as we are standing here in 2022 celebrating its 45th anniversary, the fact of the matter is, this pipeline faces a real challenge. TAPS' technical capacity is 2 million barrels per day. We have achieved that years ago. But right now--right now--the pipeline is moving just a quarter of that. They are moving about 500,000 barrels a day. So what that means is that the line is about three-quarters empty, and that can create some difficult operational challenges.

We have had many of the briefings about what it means when you have a pipeline that isn't completely full. The throughput moves slower. And when you have hot oil coming out of the ground in an arctic environment, moving 800 miles through a cold piece of steel, if it doesn't move quickly and it is allowed to cool down, it can build up waxy buildup on the inside that needs to be scrubbed and cleaned. We call it pigging. It is just an operational thing. Alyeska deals with it, but it is something that is an issue.

When you have less than full throughput, it moves differently. So when you are going up mountain ranges and down the other side, now what happens as you see that pipeline, which is designed to flex, when you don't have your full operational capacity? And Alyeska has been working to work through some of these challenges, and they have been doing a good job.

But in fairness, this is not Alyeska's fault here. If you want to know why TAPS is a quarter full, you can probably look to some people in this Chamber, some who have been serving in this Chamber before. You can look down the street to Pennsylvania Avenue at the current administration as well as some who preceded the Biden administration.

We have the resources--Alaska has the resources to fill TAPS up. What we have lacked is access to our lands, access to our leases, and access to the permits to help make this a reality. And this is despite various Presidents telling Alaskans that, look, you are going to be able to develop your resources. They say it, and the promises are broken over and over and over again. And it continues to this day.

The Biden administration is breaking the law by refusing to carry out the oil and gas program that Congress mandated for the non-wilderness 1002 Area. We did that in the 2017 law.

Millions of acres in our National Petroleum Reserve are being taken off the table with this administration through, effectively, administration whim. And with one of the best projects within the Petroleum Reserve right now, we are dealing with some redtape here; but, effectively, the excuse is that more studies need to be done. These are studies that have been done already, and we are being told you have to do them again.

With gas prices averaging more than $5 a gallon across the Nation, it sure would be nice to fill up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It not only gives us more product domestically; it would certainly help us in Alaska. We would have more jobs in Alaska and more revenue to help us improve the quality of life in every community in our State, help offset the very high fuel costs in our State. We averaged $5 and above a long time before many in the lower 48 here.

But we would also be bringing less foreign oil to the West Coast, including California, where imports have risen in almost direct proportion to our production decline. As you are seeing less oil coming out of Alaska to the West Coast, particularly California, they are getting it from somewhere, and they are bringing it in. They are importing that. And whether it is from countries that don't like us and don't really care about their environmental track record or their human rights issues, we get it from there.

We would also have an alternative to Russia, which continues to sell its energy and bring in billions of dollars a day to finance its bloody war against Ukraine. And then across the Nation, you could anticipate that prices would be lower at the pump, which would reduce the pain that families and businesses are experiencing.

I know that there is not a dial on this extraordinary energy security asset where we can just ramp it up, but this is an important discussion to be having, again, in context of what value the oil resources in Alaska can contribute to our country.

And when you have in place policies that say it is not important to keep this thing full--even though in Alaska, you have the resources to keep it full--when you say it is not important and you put in place pressures and obstacles and barriers to increase production, you are going to see that. You are going to see that impact, what happens in this country to our supply. Right now, we are all reading about it. We are all watching the news.

There is a lot that President Biden is saying that this is what we are going to do to bring down your gas prices, but I will go on record to suggest that a full TAPS would do a heck of a lot more to reduce gas prices than many of the other suggestions out there like price gouging probes and suspension of the Federal gas tax, the proposal to hand out gas cards. These are temporary--almost momentary--blips that might make somebody feel OK for a month or 2 because maybe I get a few cents more off the price at the pump if we have a 3-month Federal gas tax holiday like President Biden is suggesting. But, you know, it is not right to put in place--I mean, you can call it a gimmick, but are you addressing the fundamentals of supply and demand if you just say for a few months: ``Here, we are going to take the pressure off you so you won't be so mad''? Well, people are going to continue to be so mad if it doesn't help alleviate the problem, if it doesn't help address the pain that American families are feeling.

It is pretty simple out here. We need supply. We need supply to keep up with the rising demand and the falling output from around the world. This is where we need to wake up because it is not as if we don't have options. It is not as if we don't have the supply. Alaska has the supply right in the vicinity of a world-class pipeline that has room for an additional 1.5 million barrels per day.

It is just beyond me why anyone would contemplate oil from Iran or Venezuela or other members of OPEC+ over a State like Alaska. It is just beyond me; yet that is what we hear. That is what we hear from the President. That is what we hear from the administration that somehow we have to get this resource and it is going to have to come from somewhere, so we are going to go asking. We are going to go asking outside of our country. We are going to go to Iran, Venezuela.

The President is going to make a trip to Saudi Arabia, yet they are not asking Alaska to do more. In fact, they are not only not asking, they continue to put up impediments and barriers for us to do more, and that just defies logic. It degrades the environment. It makes the world a more dangerous place every time we look to other countries for resources that we need, knowing full well that we have a better environmental record here. We have the ability to make us less vulnerable, less energy-insecure, and yet we are not taking advantage of that.

There is a section on Alyeska's website titled ``Memories and Mileposts,'' with historical information about TAPS, and I would suggest that it is well worth visiting and recognizing what an incredible asset this pipeline has been since first oil was moved through it on June 20, 1977. Forty-five years is a good long time, but even as we thank all who have made TAPS such a resounding success, I would encourage all of you to maybe mark your calendars for June 20, 2027. That will be the 50th anniversary.

I would hope that we could all be honest and realistic about our global energy needs in the meantime and ensure significantly greater throughput is running through that pipeline when we reach the next milepost. That would be good for Alaskans; that would be good for the country. I think it would be good and important for the world. And we know the men and women who operate TAPS at Alyeska and their contractors will ensure that every last molecule moves safely through it.

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