Statement About the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline

THE QUESTIONS raised by the proposed Trans-Alaskan Pipeline involve two resources of great magnitude and great value: the Alaskan environment and Arctic oil.

Under the law, we are required to move systematically and analytically toward an accommodation between these resources. Our efforts have been painstaking and innovative. They have taken us nearly 2 years, because we have to satisfy not only the high standards I demand within the executive branch of Government but also the stern and impartial scrutiny of the judicial branch. Only this comprehensive analysis can truly fulfill the intent of the law and avoid long periods of reexamination and delay in the future.

Secretary Morton informed me just before my departure from Washington that the Department of the Interior is in the final stages of preparing the legally mandated environmental statement on the pipeline proposal. That statement will examine not only the environmental impact of the pipeline and marine transport systems but also their economic impact on the State of Alaska, their effect on Alaskan Natives, and alternative means for the movement of Arctic oil.

Significant portions of the impact analysis have been prepared with the assistance and active collaboration of the State of Alaska and the University of Alaska. We are deeply grateful to all those who have contributed to this complex study.

Based on the information now at hand, I do not believe that the apparent conflict between oil and the environment represents a permanent impasse. Instead it presents a challenge--a challenge to our engineering skills and a challenge to our environmental conscience. I believe we can meet that challenge, proving that natural resources--in the Arctic or elsewhere--can be developed and transported in a responsible manner which respects environmental values.

Governor Hickel, with whom I am meeting today, put it this way last February: "God gave to America an abundance of resources not to use with abuse but to use without abuse, and this is the issue."

When the Federal task force on Alaskan development was established in 1969, I directed that "we consider the ways in which we can explore and develop without destruction and with minimum disturbance, the oil resources of Northern Alaska." The Department of the Interior has been rigorously observing that difficult charge.

In the safe development of our natural resources, the marketing of Arctic oil is of high priority. The development of the Prudhoe Bay reserves is of great importance both to the State of Alaska and to the oil reserve posture of this Nation. Dr. Paul McCracken, the Chairman of my Council of Economic Advisers, has estimated that utilization of the Prudhoe Bay field would save this Nation $15 to $17 billion which we would otherwise have to spend if we imported a like quantity of foreign oil. But the manner and pace of its development will depend on the environmental analysis that is required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

This Administration is committed to the development of our Arctic resources in a way that will stress environmental compatibility and technological safety. Secretary Morton is well on the way toward balancing this difficult equation which has many complex engineering, economic, and environmental variables. I have been assured that the highest level of professional support is going into the preparation of the analysis. I am fully confident that the conclusion, which I tun informed Secretary Morton will be able to announce this fall, will be sound.