Ministerial Arctic Council Meeting

Floor Speech

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, last week, I was honored to participate in a very historic trip to attend the seventh ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in Nuuk, Greenland. I attended with Secretary of State Clinton, as well as Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Salazar.

The Arctic Council was founded in 1995. It is an intergovernmental association. There are eight member states within the territory that is contained within the Arctic Circle. The group includes Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Russian Federation, and the United States. There are also six permanent participants representing the indigenous people of the region.

The trip was historic for a couple reasons. It was the first time a Secretary of State had led the U.S. delegation to the Arctic Council meeting. The fact that not only Secretary Clinton led it as Secretary of State but she was joined by a second Secretary, the Secretary of the Interior, certainly made that historic. It was also the first time a Member of Congress had attended the Arctic Council meeting.

We met with Foreign Ministers of the eight Arctic Council nations and the representatives of indigenous groups to discuss issues that are related to Arctic governance, climate change, and environmental protection. We watched the Ministers sign a historic search-and-rescue agreement.

The Arctic Council also increased its organizational structure. They formed a standing Secretariat that will be established in Tromso, Norway. They also established criteria for the admission of new observers to the Council. The People's Republic of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Italy, and the European Union are all seeking observer status to the Arctic Council, which might cause some to wonder why are all these non-Arctic nations interested in what is going on within the Arctic. I think that speaks to the evolving role of the Arctic in geopolitics in the world as we know it today.

The search-and-rescue agreement, the first ever legally binding agreement among Arctic states negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council, will strengthen the cooperation on search and rescue between Arctic states.

As the Arctic sea ice decreases, maritime activities are clearly on the rise in the Arctic. Aviation traffic is also on the rise as we see new polar aviation routes across the Arctic airspace in several directions. But limited rescue resources, challenging weather conditions, and the remoteness of the area render the operations difficult in the Arctic, making it very important that we have this coordination among the Arctic nations.

Under the agreement on the U.S. side, the Coast Guard will be the lead Federal agency for the search and rescue in the Arctic. While we applaud the role the Coast Guard plays historically--a very long, distinguished history of operating and conducting rescues in the Arctic--the current status of the Coast Guard's service and aviation fleets makes conducting search-and-rescue operations in the Arctic very challenging. With the scheduled decommissioning of the POLAR SEA, the Coast Guard will maintain only one--only one--heavy icebreaker in its fleet, and it is not expected to return to service until the year 2013. They are doing some work on that vessel. While the Coast Guard does have a medium-endurance icebreaker, the HEALY, the cutter is clearly not equipped to handle the thick, multiyear ice that is present within the Arctic.

On the aviation side of the Coast Guard operations, the Coast Guard C-130 aircraft stationed in Kodiak, AK, are the only aircraft in their inventory that are capable to make the direct flights to the Arctic.

To give some sense of the scope, here is a map of the Arctic. The United States is up here. Everything is upside down. I apologize for that, but that is the way the world is. Kodiak is an island off the southern part of the State. Barrow is down here. This is where the air assets are stationed in Kodiak. To get to any search-and-rescue operations in the Chukchi Sea, in the Beaufort off Barrow or Prudhoe, it is over 900 miles. It is the same distance as the distance between Washington, DC, and Miami. If there were an incident in Miami, the helicopters would have to fly from Washington to get there to provide for the rescue.

Given the often harsh weather conditions in the Arctic, combined with a lack of infrastructure to provide for any forward deploying basing of helicopters, the Coast Guard's C-130s possibly can provide the search part of the rescue, but it is very difficult to get to the rescue site. This lack of maritime resources and shore-based infrastructure to protect our aviation resources places the Coast Guard and the United States in a difficult situation in the Arctic. Without concerted efforts and a focused policy for the Arctic, the United States and our Coast Guard are going to continue to be ill-equipped to conduct the search-and-rescue operations that are going to become increasingly necessary as amounts of sea ice continue to diminish and the levels of maritime vessel traffic increase. As former Admiral Allen, former Commandant of the Coast Guard, would say: I cannot discuss too much about climate change, but I can tell you there is more open sea that I am responsible for in the Arctic. We are clearly seeing that.

It has been projected that a seasonal ice-free Arctic Ocean was decades away and that maritime shipping through the Northwest Passage, through the Northern Sea route above Russia and direct transit across the Arctic Ocean was going to be few and far between. But last year, Russia sent a large ice-breaking bulk tanker through the Northern Sea route and across the Arctic, carrying hydrocarbons bound for Asia. The Russian Federation has received 15 icebreaker escort requests to provide navigational support through the Northern Sea route for this year. Compare that to last year when they only had three requests. We can see the level of commerce stepping up.

Transit through the Northern Sea route or the Northeast passage, as it is also called, cuts 5,000 miles and 8 days off the Suez route between Europe and Asia. We can see why other nations would have an interest in what is going on up there. If they can cut their transit time, it is money and an opportunity for them.

Interest in the Arctic by both the general public, the media, and the Arctic and the non-Arctic nations continues to grow for many reasons. The Arctic is a vast area. We can see from the map it is essentially one-sixth of the Earth's landmass. It has a population within the Arctic area--this red line, if we can see it, is essentially all of the Arctic nations. In the governments that are contained within, there are some 4 million people who live in this region, with over 30 different indigenous people and dozens of languages. While the land is clearly massive in size and relatively barren, it is not like Antarctica, where there are no indigenous people and no governance. The eight Arctic nations are sovereign governments with laws that govern their land and their people.

The Arctic holds, clearly, vast amounts of energy. We have known this for some time. But until recently, the resources of the Arctic were deemed to be too difficult to access. They are covered with ice. They are difficult to access, and they are expensive to develop. With increasing access and high energy and mineral prices, the Arctic's wealth, which is estimated to contain approximately 22 percent of the world's remaining oil and gas reserves--22 percent of the world's remaining oil and gas reserves within the Arctic area--is obviously of great interest. It is now being actively explored and developed. Six of the eight member nations of the Arctic Council are exploring or developing energy resources in their own waters.

This makes energy exploration perhaps among the more important and perhaps the most serious issues for Arctic policy as we move forward. This includes conventional oil and natural gas but also the methane hydrates and some of the less conventional forms. Offshore Alaska, we are estimating about 15 billion barrels of oil in a concentrated area of the Chukchi Sea, and over in the Beaufort Sea about 8 billion barrels.

We have suffered serious delays in exploration, but I am hopeful we will see exploratory wells prove up this next summer. While the U.S. Geological Survey tells us the region has the world's largest undiscovered oil and gas deposits, we also think it holds huge amounts of other minerals, such as coal, nickel, copper, tungsten, lead, zinc, gold, silver, diamonds, manganese, chromium, and titanium. The potential for the mineral resource is equally significant.

There is a natural and sometimes reflective tendency to question how in the world it can ever be safe or even economic to drill and produce in such harsh, misunderstood, and clearly distant environments. But it is happening. It is happening today, and the technology and the engineering behind some of the existing and proposed activities are advancing rather rapidly.

While we struggle in the United States with moving ahead with offshore development in Alaskan waters, our neighbors are rapidly moving forward on Arctic energy development. Russia, which is just 53 miles from Alaska's shoreline, is turning its eye to the Arctic's vast energy reserves as they are building the first offshore oil rig that can withstand temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius and then heavy packed ice around it as well. As their oil production is in decline, they are also reducing taxes and bureaucratic hurdles to encourage new oil development within the Arctic.

Norway has been exploring and producing energy in the Arctic the longest of the Arctic nations. They have found the way--led the way--for energy development and other activities, such as fisheries, to coexist. They also lead the world in developing technology to clean up oil in Arctic waters.

Energy development, as well as protection of the environment, must go hand in hand. It is as simple as that. I was pleased the Arctic Council announced the formation of a new task force that will negotiate measures for oilspill preparedness and response throughout the region. The decision to launch these negotiations is evidence of the strong commitment to proactively address emerging issues within the region and to create international protocols to prevent and clean up offshore oilspills in areas of the region that are becoming increasingly accessible to exploration because of a changing climate.

One question I was asked seemingly everywhere I went when I was in Greenland was: What is the U.S. position on the Law of the Sea Treaty? When is the Senate going to move on this treaty? The U.S. delegation reiterated its support for the ratification of the Convention for the Law of the Sea. I happen to believe it is crucial that the United States be a party to this treaty rather than an outsider who hopes our interests are not going to be damaged. Accession to the Convention would give current and future administrations both enhanced credibility and leverage in calling upon other nations to meet Convention responsibilities. Given the support for the treaty by Arctic nations and the drive to develop national resources, the treaty will also provide the stability and the certainty that is vital for investment in our maritime commerce.

It should be pointed out that the United States is the only Arctic nation that is not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention. The treaty was first submitted to the United States for approval back in 1994. It has not been approved yet. Canada and Denmark joined the treaty in 2003 and 2004, respectively. But until the United States accedes to the treaty, it cannot submit its data regarding the extent of its extended continental shelf to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf established under the treaty. Without a Commission recommendation regarding such data, the legal foundation for ECS limits is much less certain than if the United States were a party to the treaty.

Russia submitted an extended continental shelf claim in 2002 that would grant them 460,000 square miles of the Arctic Ocean's bottom resources. We can see the green is Russia's extended Continental shelf, but this lighter green is the area Russia has submitted to the Commission. This is an area the size of the State of Texas, California, and Indiana combined. Denmark and Canada are also anxious to establish their own claims in the Arctic. Norway's claim is currently under review by the Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf.

According to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, if the United States were to become a party to the treaty, we could lay claim to an area the size of the State of California. So if you look again, Alaska--again, up on the top--this area here is the area that is within the United States EEZ, this 200-mile area. But this area here--an area again about the size of the State of California--is what our mapping indicates we would be able to submit a claim to the commission for if we were party to the treaty.

So this whole area, again, would be area the United States would be able to claim. If we fail to accede to the treaty, and we are sitting on the outside, we have no right to move forward with our claim. If we do not become a party to the treaty, our opportunity to make the claim and have the international community respect it diminishes considerably, as does our ability to challenge the claims of any other nation.

Some have described the scenario in the Arctic as a ``race for resources'' or even an ``arms race.'' But after seeing the international cooperation at the Arctic Council, I believe what we have is an opportunity. This should be a race for cooperation, a race for sustainable management within the Arctic. The Arctic offers a great opportunity to work collaboratively. It is one area where the Obama administration can highlight the international cooperation in the implementation of its U.S. foreign policy. Think about what the administration is poised to do with the ``reset'' with Russia. I think the Arctic is a perfect area to do just that.

What does the future hold for the Arctic? I believe the pace of change in the Arctic absolutely demands greater attention be focused to the Arctic. It was music to my ears to hear the Secretary of State acknowledge the United States is an Arctic nation. We are an Arctic nation because of Alaska and its people. That was incredibly significant to hear that not only as a U.S. citizen but for the other Arctic nations to hear that statement from our Secretary of State.

The implications of the dynamic changing Arctic for U.S. security, economic, environmental, and political interests depend on greater attention, greater energy, and greater focus on the Arctic itself. But it will take robust diplomacy and very likely recognition, as Secretary Clinton has reminded us, that the interest in the Arctic is not just limited to the five Arctic coastal States or even the eight countries that make up the permanent members of the Arctic Council. It will take a level of cooperation, a level of collaboration to include the non-Arctic states as well. But I am pleased that ever so slowly the United States seems to be waking up to the fact that we are an Arctic nation and willing to take up the responsibilities as such.

I am confident with the leadership of the Members of Congress, the administration, and from the Arctic community at large, we can continue to highlight the strategic importance of the Arctic for the United States. I believe the Arctic Council meeting may be just the turning point for American leadership in the Arctic.

With that, Mr. President, I thank you for your attention, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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