Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act of 2007--Continued

Floor Speech

CREATING LONG-TERM ENERGY ALTERNATIVES FOR THE NATION ACT OF 2007--Continued -- (Senate - June 19, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise this evening to acknowledge the 30th anniversary of the first drop of oil passing through the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. This is truly an engineering marvel which is a central component of the transportation of oil from the largest single domestic source in America's history--Prudhoe Bay--to the rest of the United States, where it powers industry and provides jobs to this day.

Alaska has been called a lot of different things, some not too complimentary, unfortunately. You may remember the term ``Seward's folly.'' This was after the United States approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 which got the State of Alaska, the territory, for $7.2 million. ``Seward's folly'' was a reference to Secretary of State William Seward, who was an advocate for the purchase.

Alaskans themselves dubbed it ``Seward's icebox,'' reflecting the sentiment Americans had toward our supposedly barren, dark, ice-covered land. But we soon recognized there was far more than just dark, barren, empty land. It was not an icebox but instead a lush, resource-rich, and stunningly beautiful land.

Gold was discovered in the 1890s, and black gold, or oil, was discovered about 75 years later. While oil is often viewed in a negative context these days, the fact remains that this black gold has enabled America to grow into the economic power it is today.

Alaskan oil, quite honestly, could not have been found in a more inconvenient place. Prudhoe Bay, which is the location of the massive 1968 discovery, contained oil in ground that was permanently frozen up to 1,000 feet deep in the northernmost section of the State with three mountain ranges between it and the nearest ice-free port.

Seven oil companies got together to discuss how they might move the oil to the lower 48 States. There were several options that were proposed at the time.

One of them was a water route that would use large ice-breaking tankers--essentially plowing through the ice--to get the oil down to the lower 48 market. A second option was a water route using submarines. A combined land and water system with a Trans-Alaska Pipeline and shipments from a southern Alaskan port was the third option and the option that was considered to be most feasible for several different reasons from the technical, the economic, and the legal issues that surrounded it.

The third option, this Trans-Alaska Pipeline, raised so many concerns and so many problems that for many it seemed an impossible task. The southern two-thirds of the proposed route was the most seismically active area in North America. This was the location of the very famous 1964 earthquake centered out of Valdez. The southern portion also contains a very high avalanche threat. Permafrost, which is the permanently frozen ground, runs about half the length of that pipeline route. You will find permafrost in that area. These all presented an unprecedented engineering challenge. The pipe would have to span a distance greater than the distance between Oregon and Mexico or, to put it in perspective as to where we are here, it would be the equivalent distance of going from this Capitol in Washington, DC, all the way south to Orlando, FL. That is the distance our Trans-Alaska Pipeline covers today.

Also, keep in mind we are not only talking about an incredibly long 800-mile pipe, but it is a stretch of land that includes thousands of rivers, three mountain ranges, and we have air temperatures ranging from minus 80 degrees below in the wintertime to a positive 95 degrees in the summer. So the challenges that faced the Nation as they looked to this engineering feat were quite incredible.

There were also political obstacles that were pretty steep. Environmental concerns, which, quite honestly, mirror the modern-day debate over oil development in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, resulted in a 50-50 Senate tie on the vote for the pipeline's approval. Vice President Spiro Agnew cast the tie-breaking affirmative vote in this Chamber about 34 years ago.

It took 38 months, billions of the final $8 billion pricetag, and 1,347 State and Federal permits later for the construction to begin on one of the most ambitious engineering endeavors in the history of the world. During construction, thousands of would-be job seekers flocked to Alaska, and those workers battled the cold in the winter that caused the equipment to freeze up, and in the summer they battled sunken bogs when digging the concrete supports that allow the pipeline to shift in order to deal with the temperature changes and the seismic activity. They solved problems such as installing the pipe in both Atigun Pass and Thompson Pass, incredibly steep terrain just outside the southern terminus in Valdez. The terrain is so steep there that workers had to be tethered to the peaks by cables to keep them from falling down the slopes.

Mr. President, I think I have probably used my 5 minutes. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair.

Along the way, those working on this pipeline made major engineering advances, learning how to insulate the pipe and how to keep the permafrost ground frozen so that the pipe didn't sink out of site. When the project was completed in 1977, 3 years after construction started, we had a new domestic supply of oil made available to the United States--the single largest domestic source it has ever had.

On average, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline--we call it TAPS--now sees just over 800,000 barrels of oil pass through it each day. This is 231,000 barrels per hour and 22,000 gallons per minute. So, in other words, in the time I have been standing to address you, Mr. President, it has transported about 100,000 gallons of crude.

At peak production, TAPS provided the United States with about 2 million barrels of oil a day, or 30 percent more than Saudi Arabia does today, and nearly as much oil as the entire Persian Gulf provides our country today. And Alaskan oil, unlike Middle Eastern oil, does not come from unstable regimes, does not hinder our foreign policy options by bonding us and our allies to such regimes, and is not at risk of being cut off due to instability. We have been a stable domestic supplier of the oil needs of the United States for over 30 years.

The pipeline has turned out to be a much better deal than originally anticipated. The dire predictions of environmental disaster have been proven false. There have been minor spills, we acknowledge, but the environment and the wildlife have been unaffected by the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Our caribou numbers have actually grown along the pipeline area, with estimates of up to sixfold in terms of the herd. Moose and bear have not been affected, and little oil has been added to the environment. All land spills have been completely cleaned up.

Additionally, while Prudhoe Bay was originally forecast to contain 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil, we will actually recover twice that much, about 18 billion barrels, by the time that field is depleted.

We recognize the days of abundant Prudhoe Bay oil are dwindling. We have produced about 15 billion barrels of oil, leaving only about 3 billion barrels remaining to recover. Output has fallen by more than 7 percent a year recently. According to the Energy Information Administration, Prudhoe Bay production will be down to 270,000 barrels per day by 2030, a level so low that the pipeline likely will not be able to function in winter's cold and may become inoperable. That could ``shut-in'' billions of barrels of future heavy oil deposits in the Greater Prudhoe Bay area and perhaps hamper oil recoveries from elsewhere in northern Alaska and the OCS off the State's coast.

In the meantime, U.S. oil imports have grown to account for 58 percent of our current net oil consumption. Twenty years from now, that number is forecasted to climb to 68 percent.

So I ask my colleagues and the American people, as we remember today what Alaska and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system has given to our country, to consider also what Alaska could provide for America's future. The decision truly lies in the hands of Congress.

Mr. President, I appreciate the time, and I yield the floor.

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