Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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In Alaska there is a great deal of attention focused this week on the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964. March 27 marked the 50th anniversary of this amazing physical event, the second largest earthquake that has ever been recorded, an episode Alaskans have been talking about for the past 50 years and will be talking about for the next 50. I rise this afternoon not to speak about that anniversary but to speak of a 25-year anniversary that while not caused by Mother Nature had a devastating impact on Alaska and the surrounding waters of our State. I would like to speak very briefly about where we are 25 years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef.

The Exxon Valdez was a 987-foot tanker. It was carrying 53 million gallons of crude oil. It struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound at 12:04 a.m., on March 24, 1989, and within literally hours it had released approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water.

As most know, the Alaskan coastline isn't just a nice thin straight beach; it is hundreds and hundreds of coves and islands and miles of shoreline. That oil spread over approximately 1,000 miles of shoreline across our coast. It is absolutely a fact that this environmental disaster is something that has left an impression on Alaskans not unlike what we experienced 25 years prior to that with another one of Mother Nature's devastations, the Great Friday earthquake in 1964.

It is important when we have milestones, when we have anniversaries or times where we pause to think about what has happened before, that we not only think about the tragedy at the time but we think about how we have moved forward from that time, hopefully learning from those incidents that trigger such strong memories.

So many Alaskans have stories of how they worked to help clean up the oil spill in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez, whether it was fishermen who had been displaced--they were no longer going out and fishing; instead they charged their vessels to be part of the massive cleanup effort that was underway. The stories that are out there throughout our State and from folks around the country are as poignant and touching 25 years later as they were at the time, because as the environment was impacted, the lives of Alaskans were clearly impacted.

I like to think I spend a good amount of time in the small fishing community of Cordova--a community that was dramatically impacted by the Exxon Valdez spill--visiting with fishermen and fishing families decades after the fact and hearing their stories not only of the loss they incurred because they were not able to go out and fish, they were not able to meet their boat mortgages, but the other stresses the community experienced because of this disaster, whether it was personal bankruptcies, whether it was divorce, whether it was social issues because people just couldn't deal with the fact that their landscape and their livelihoods had been changed. It was a very trying and traumatic time.

I think those scars take decades to heal.

My hope is that, as Alaskans, we come together and learn from these tragedies and events so we can move forward. We are pretty resilient people. The people who have been so dramatically impacted are proof and evidence of that.

What else have we seen as we have tried to learn from that tragedy? I think it is fair to say that at the time--back in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground--there was perhaps, as some would call it, a complacency. Perhaps we were just not monitoring operations as we should have, but we had an industry that had been operating quite safely--absolutely safely--for decades without incident. When you lose that vigilance, things can happen, and things happened with the Exxon Valdez.

Since that time, we have learned that you have to have a level of preparedness as you operate in areas such as the Prince William Sound, you have to have a level of preparedness that meets the challenge you face. At the time the tanker ran aground, the spill response equipment that was there and had been planned for was not readily available. We didn't have sufficient boom available in the event of a disaster. We didn't have the fleet that could go out and assist in the disaster.

Now, 25 years later, Alyeska has 189 skimmers, 49 miles of boom and on-water storage capacity of almost 38 million gallons. We have put in place a requirement that North Slope oil must be transported in double-hull tankers. You cannot bring a tanker in to carry North Slope crude unless it is double-hulled. It doesn't matter what the weather is, we require a level of escort--a two-tug escort--out of the Prince William Sound. It can be a flat, calm summer day or a foul winter day, but every tanker going out is escorted by two tugs. We also have radar monitors that are in place that truly allow for a greater level of oversight and scrutiny.

What we have done in response to the spill is, I think, something that is worthy of note. Clearly, it is something that Other Nations look to as the example of preparedness. We have our Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council in place. They are truly active and engaged, not only with the community, but with the fishing fleets.

We have learned that the company Alyeska--the management company for the transportation of Alaska's North Slope oil--conducts two major oil spill drills every year to make sure that there is a level of preparedness. We have about 400 local fishing boat owners that are trained to deploy and maintain the boom. They come together with drills to make sure we never have anything like we saw with the Exxon Valdez again.

I think it is fair to say that 25 years after the spill, we are continuing to monitor not only the land and water but our fisheries. I recognize we still have a herring fishery that has not yet recovered. We still have a bird population--the guillemot--which has not recovered.

Twenty-five years is a long time. When you have a disaster, as we had, it does leave an impact. My goal, mission, and effort as a legislator is to make certain we do not have a level of complacency where we close our eyes and fail in our efforts for preparedness again.

I think what we have demonstrated in Alaska since the spill is, as I say, admirable in recognizing that we had failed in a level of prevention, but we also recognized we could learn from that tragedy and move forward, and we did.

I wanted to take a couple of minutes this afternoon and acknowledge that there are still many Alaskans who woke up this morning not thinking about the weather or getting their kids to school, but with a very strong reminder of where they were 25 years ago and how the events of that day changed people's lives. Again, the goal here is to never have a tragedy of that scale and scope again.

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