Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today for the fourth time to introduce or reintroduce legislation to settle the outstanding land claims of the Tlingit and Haida Native people, the first people of Southeast Alaska. I first introduced this legislation to speed up the conveyance of lands to the Sealaska Native Regional Corporation in 2008. Native residents of Southeast Alaska in 1971 were promised lands to settle their aboriginal land claims to all of Southeast Alaska. Under the motto that nothing of worth comes easy, I hope that the compromise bill I introduce today with my colleague from Alaska Senator Begich will finally settle those claims early in the 113th Congress, capping nearly six years of congressional negotiation and review on this issue.

The newly revised bill establishes where and how Sealaska may select the remaining 70,075 acres of land the Bureau of Land Management now says it is entitled to receive under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, ANCSA. In all, Sealaska, the regional corporation representing some 20,000 Alaska Natives, more than a fifth of all Native residents in Alaska, will receive about 68,400 acres of land for timber development, about 1,099 acres for other economic development such as hydroelectric generation, marine hydrokinetic activity and future tourism development near Yakutat, Kake and Hydaburg, and 490 acres that Sealaska can apply for to gain an additional 76 cemetery and historical places.

The bill provides a balance of old-growth and second-growth timber, allowing Sealaska's timber business to transition to second-growth harvesting. To address local concerns, the new bill does not contain some 26,000 acres of selections on northern Prince of Wales Island. This version of the bill also eliminates more lands near Kassa Inlet and Mabel Bay near Keete on Prince of Wales Island to meet wildlife concerns, buffer key fisheries and anchorage areas for fishermen, and revises selection areas to address the Forest Service's desire to retain more lands that will aid its young-growth timber transition strategy in the Tongass National Forest.

Frankly, it has taken years of frustrating talks and negotiations to reach this point. This bill contains more than 175 changes since the 2008 version, all designed to make the bill acceptable to all Americans. While the odds are that it still won't make absolutely everyone happy, the bill does address all of the major concerns voiced with the Sealaska bill during nearly a half dozen congressional hearings, 22 town hall meetings, and in hundreds of letters and media comments. It gives Sealaska its ANCSA selections, while it provides unprecedented public access to the lands Sealaska will be receiving, and meets the valid concerns of small communities, fishermen and timber workers and protects their industries while fully protecting the environment.

It is a compromise. Clearly there are provisions in the bill that I wish were different, but on balance, it is a fair solution to a most difficult matter that has been dragging on for more than four decades. It is certainly a balanced solution that allows Sealaska to finally take title to the last 70,000 acres it was promised by the land claims settlement--lands largely to be used for economic development in a region where unemployment often hits 25 percent--while at the same time protecting more than twice as many acres for environmental and fisheries protection in Southeast Alaska, an area roughly the size of South Carolina. The bill does the latter by creating 152,000 acres of new conservation habitat areas in the region in eight tracts.

The revised bill also requires Sealaska, by a conservation easement, to protect three major salmon spawning systems on lands it is gaining by imposing a 100-foot no-cut buffer, specifically, along the main stem of Trout Creek on Koscuisko Island, along Old Tom Creek at Polk Inlet and along Karheen and Tuxekan Creeks on Tuxekan Island. The State Forest Practices Act and buffer rules will govern the management of all other streams on state lands inside the new Sealaska selections.

The bill continues and strengthens all public access provisions contained in ANCSA. The bill contains a provision that guarantees public access to Sealaska's economic land selections for recreation, hunting and fishing both sport and subsistence, allowing closures only to protect public safety, to safeguard cultural properties, to promote educational efforts or to protect against environmental damage, while allowing the public to legally challenge any such closures. It also protects the rights of existing guides and tour operators to continue operations automatically on Sealaska lands for portions of two permit terms, or up to 20 years.

The revised bill also reduces the size of selection areas on Koscuisko and Tuxekan Islands to meet local community concerns, to protect, subsurface, karst formations, to protect old-growth habitat areas for sensitive species, and to protect anchorages for fishermen. The revised bill rearranges selection areas at 12 Mile Arm and Polk Inlet to protect Forest Service planning, facilities and research facilities, and increases the size of selection areas at Calder and the Cleveland Peninsula to offset the acreage reductions.

Sealaska, through this bill, will give up its existing selection rights to 327,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest, allowing that timber to return to full Forest Service planning control, and the bill will result in Sealaska selecting about 25,000 fewer acres of old- growth timber, traditionally the most sought after lands in the forest and about 50,000 fewer acres of inventoried road less lands than might have happened should Sealaska have stayed inside their original selection boundaries, lands that were designated for selection by the corporation in 1976. The problem with those lands, the reason why this bill is so important for the public good, is that if Sealaska had to select from those lands it would have had to select timber lands in the Situk River Valley, the home to the nation's foremost steelhead stream. It would have had to select lands in the Craig municipal watershed, key fisheries habitat near Hoonah and Hydaburg and some 64,000 acres of Old-Growth Habitat Reserves, four times more such land than the corporation is taking by this bill. Those selections would have been bad for the commercial and sport fishing industries, for tourism, and for the environment. Equally important from Sealaska's viewpoint, 44 percent of the lands it had to select from by the 1976 selection areas were located under water bodies, making the selection rights worthless.

Sealaska may use part of its entitlement to select 76 cemetery sites and historical places, but to address concerns from some stakeholders, the bill reduces the number and acreage of cemetery sites and historical places that Sealaska can file to receive. Acreage available to Sealaska was reduced more than six fold, from 3,600 acres in the original 2008 bill to a maximum of 490 acres. The total number of sites was reduced from 206 in the original bill and all parks and wilderness lands were placed off limits.

This bill also confirms that all cemetery sites and historical places will have to pass the existing historical review process before they can be conveyed. The bill, again, prohibits the selection of cemetery sites and historical places inside parks and conservation system units. Sealaska will be required to consult with local tribes before applying for conveyance of any sites, and the bill prohibits the transfer of such sites to third parties and protects them from loss of Native ownership in the event of any future financial claims against Sealaska--the lands reverting to the Federal Government in the event of financial issues. The bill also requires that Sealaska provide a 25- foot easement to allow anyone to sport fish along any salmon stream that crosses such new sites.

The bill allows Sealaska to receive nine small parcels of land that Sealaska may use to help spur cultural tourism, ecotourism, or, in two cases, renewable energy development near the communities of Yakutat, Kake, and Hydaburg. The number of sites, totaling 1,099 acres, is vastly reduced, considering more than 50 sites totaling 5,000 acres had been considered in earlier versions of the legislation. The small parcels all are within or near the so-called 10 selection boxes established by a 1976 amendment to ANCSA. Five sites are in the Yakutat area, where Sealaska currently owns no land on behalf of its tribal member shareholders. The sites in the Yakutat area are at Crab Island, North Dolgoi Island, Cannon Beach, Chicago Harbor and Redfield Lake. Two sites are in the Kake area: Turnabout Island and East Payne Island. There is a hydro site at Lake Josephine on Prince of Wales I and and a final site for marine hydrokinetic development, ocean current energy, on the northern tip of Dall Island at Turn Point-Tlevak Narrows' revised bill removes all sites that drew concern from commercial fishermen, small tour operators, environmental groups or local communities in the Alaska Panhandle.

The compromise bill conveys three non-exclusive access easements to Sealaska to use as traditional Native trade and migration routes in Southeast. The bill, as revised, renames the routes to honor Alaska's Tlingit and Haida Indians and the history of the region and provides generally for public access. The Yakutat to Dry Bay trail will be renamed ``Neix naax aan flax'' meaning, The Inside Passage; the Bay of Pillars to Port Camden trail will be renamed the ``Yakwdeiyl'' trail, meaning the Canoe Road; and the Portage Bay to Duncan Canal trail will be renamed ``Lingit Deiyl,'' meaning the People's Road.

The bill requires Sealaska to share use of all forest roads with the Forest Service and others, meaning that the government retains the right to use the roads to access other timber sales, as do the public. The bill maintains all of the access provisions granted by ANCSA and includes provisions to make access rights workable for all.

It has taken years of really listening to the requests about this bill and working through them one by one to find solutions, with the past nearly two years involved in frequent negotiations among the Forest Service, Democratic and Republican congressional staff, Sealaska, environmental groups and other interest groups such as commercial fishermen and timber operators. This is truly a compromise piece of legislation. But it finally gets Sealaska its lands, protects fisheries and wildlife, and helps maintain a timber industry in Southeast Alaska.

This compromise, the direct result of years of negotiation, has a host of good points. It will prevent ``high-grading'' of timber' the practice where companies cut only the best timber lands, leaving lesser quality lands behind. Sealaska's conveyances in the nine commercial tracts called for in this bill: Calder, Election Creek, Cleveland Peninsula, 12-Mile Arm, Tuexkan Island, Polk and MacKenzie Inlets, Koscuisko Island, Keete, and Kuiu Island include only about 20,700 acres of large old-growth trees just 3.8 percent of the forest's 537,451 acres of such trees. Already 437,000 acres of large old-growth trees, 81 percent, are protected in conservation areas within the 19.6- million-acre national forest.

The bill likely will save the government money. In additional to making Sealaska give up some $2 million of escrowed funds, the bill means Sealaska, by getting about 25,000 acres of less valuable second- growth, based on current timber prices, could be foregoing more than $10 million of timber value, compared to if it had received all old- growth trees--old-growth providing the most valuable habitat for species in the forest like Sitka black-tailed deer, the Queen Charlotte goshawk and wolves.

For Alaskans, the bill makes sure that more than 99 percent of the lands Sealaska will be receiving are open for public access. That is the opposite of what could happen if this bill does not pass, as then Sealaska would be free to prevent the public from trespassing across their new lands, like all other private land owners can post their properties.

The changes between this version and previous versions of the measure are far too many to list here. But briefly this bill reduces the number and acreage of small parcels for economic diversification, once called ``Future'' sites. It reduces the number of new Native cemetery and historical places that Sealaska could select, allowing only such sites outside national parks or wilderness to be selected. The bill increases public access provisions, prevents Sealaska from gaining potential federal grants for management of the cemetery sites, removes a host of questionable land selections on environmental grounds and revises timber lands to protect subsistence hunting areas and resource gathering spots.

As I say, I introduce this bill in a bipartisan manner with my Alaska colleague, Senator Mark Begich again as a co-sponsor. It is a reasonable bill and I hope it finally can pass both bodies of Congress, it passing the House of Representatives in a somewhat different form in 2012 and become law. Southeast Alaska's Natives, which while the largest group of Natives in Alaska in 1971, received the third smallest land entitlement in the claims act 42 years ago. That was mostly because much of the rest of the forest at the time was already dedicated to long-term timber sale contracts. Now that those contracts have been voided, it is only just and equitable that Alaska's first inhabitants get a chance to select a little more of the land first settled by their ancestors.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation to clarify Federal mining law and remedy a problem that has arisen from the extension process for ``small'' miner mineral claims.

Under revisions to the Federal Mining Law of 1872, 30 U.S.C. 28(f), holders of unpatented mineral claims must pay a claim maintenance fee originally set at $100 per claim by a deadline, set by regulation, of September 1st each year. Since 2004 that fee has risen. But Congress also has provided a claim maintenance fee waiver for ``small'' miners, those who hold 10 or fewer claims, that they do not have to submit the fee, but that they must file to renew their claims and submit an affidavit of annual labor, work conducted on the claim, each year, certifying that they had performed more than $100 of work on the claim in the preceding year, 30 U.S.C. 28f(d)(1). The waiver provision further states: ``If a small miner waiver application is determined to be defective for any reason, the claimant shall have a period of 60 days after receipt of written notification of the defect or defects by the Bureau of Land Management to: cure such defect or defects or pay the $100 claim maintenance fee due for such a period.''

Since past revisions of the law, there have been a series of incidents where miners have argued that they submitted their applications and affidavits of annual labor in a timely manner, but due to clerical error by BLM staff, mailing delays or for unexplained reasons, the applications or documents were not recorded as having been received in a timely fashion. In that case BLM has terminated the claims, deeming them null and void. While mining claim holders have argued that the law provides them time to cure claim defects, BLM has argued that the cure only applies when applications or fees have been received in a timely manner. Thus, there is no administrative remedy for miners who believe that clerical errors by BLM or mail issues resulted in loss or the late recording of claim extension applications and paperwork.

There have been a number of cases where Congress has been asked to override BLM determinations and reinstate mining claims simply because of the disputes over whether the claims had been filed in a timely manner. Congress in 2003 reinstated such claims in a previous Alaska case. Claims in two other incidents were reinstated following a U.S. District Court case in the 10th Circuit first in 2009 in the case of Miller v. United States and secondly earlier this year in a second Alaska case. Legislation to correct the provision to prevent this problem in the future actually cleared the Senate in 2007, but did not ultimately become law.

In the past two Congresses I have introduced legislation intended to short circuit continued litigation and pleas for claim reinstatement by clarifying the intent of Congress that miners do have to be informed that their claims are in jeopardy of being voided and given 60 days notice to cure defects, including giving them time to submit their applications and to submit affidavits of annual labor, should their submittals not be received and processed by BLM officials on time. If all defects are not cured within 60 days, the obvious intent of Congress in passing the original act, then claims still are subject to voidance. But this administration has opposed the legislation arguing that it would be too expensive to notify all small miners who fail to file their small miner waiver documents on time and giving them time to solve the defect prior to the loss of their claims. It has even been suggested that giving small miners simple due process would just encourage miners to ignore the deadline for filing for their fee waivers.

I find the cost complaint unpersuasive. Many Federal departments and agencies, the Federal Communication Commission, as one example, routinely sends out notices on permit and license applications. The FCC sends out hundreds of thousands of such notices to Americans who have small radio licenses expiring yearly, warning them that they need to file applications for license renewal. The Bureau of Land Management certainly should be able to afford a few hundred 50-cent stamps to perform a similar service. Given the value of claims placed at risk and the bother, inconvenience and fear of loss of claims, it is highly unlikely that miners would avoid filing their waiver paperwork on time just because a notification process was clearly in place before claims could be terminated.

So today I reintroduce legislation to solve the notification issue and include language to remedy an injustice to one of my constituents who has lost his rights to nine mineral claims on the Kenai Peninsula, near Hope, Alaska. The transition language would reinstate claims for Mr. John Trautner, who has lost title to claims that he had held from 1982 to 2004. Mr. Trautner suffered this loss even though he had a consistent record of having paid the annual labor assessment fee for the previous 22 years. The local BLM office did have a time-date- stamped record that the maintenance fee waiver certification form had been filed weeks before the deadline but just not a record that the affidavit of annual labor had arrived when he dropped it office in the Anchorage office at the same time.

This legislation, supported in the past by the Alaska Miners Association, will clarify that small miners do have a right to simple due process to be able to have a chance to file their small miner waiver applications in the event of mistakes in processing, rather than immediately lose their rights to patented mining claims without effective appeal or recourse. I appreciate that the Justice Department and BLM Jan. 22, 2013 reinstated claims owned by Alaskans Don and Judy Mullikins of Nome, finally reversing a decision that they should lose their claims following a 2009 application filing incident. But the legal expense, bother and uncertainty that the Mullikins went through in getting their claims reinstated are clear reasons why Congress should clarify past changes to the small miner waiver provision and permit claims to be retained in the event of clerical errors or honest mistakes by claim holders in missing the deadline for filings. Such a change would simply provide justice for small miners.

Madam President, I want to acknowledge the comments of my colleague from Washington. As the incoming chairman on the Indian Affairs Committee, she is obviously well aware of the challenges-- oftentimes the horrific challenges--so many American Indians, Alaska Natives, and our indigenous people face when it comes to domestic violence and the inability to access the law.

I have been a member of the Indian Affairs Committee now since I came to the Senate some 10 years ago, and every year, without fail, we have some aspect of a hearing that focuses on domestic violence. We look to the statistics, and they are staggering. They are staggering and they are overwhelming when you put them into perspective in terms of how our Native women--particularly our Native women on reservations--deal with an epidemic when it comes to domestic violence issues that they face within their homes and so often have no place to turn. As to the law enforcement you and I would hope to be able to rely on in the event of a true tragedy, far too often women on our reservations are not able to avail themselves of those protections. It is something our committee has struggled with for far too long.

When we talk about VAWA and the importance of the Violence Against Women Act, I think we all recognize the universe we are speaking to is all women, but I think it is important to recognize that within this particular demographic, the statistics of those Native women, for whatever terrible, tragic reason, are even that much worse.

That is why I am a proud cosponsor of this bill. I think it will make real improvements in the services that are offered to victims of domestic violence. Even given the very difficult budget environment that we face, we look to those areas where we can make a difference. I think this legislation will make a difference.

As I start off my comments, I am talking about indigenous women everywhere and the violence and the statistics they face. In Alaska, unfortunately, our statistics stand out. They stand out in a way that makes none of us proud. They stand out in a way that requires us to turn inward and say, What are we doing wrong? What is happening that we are not able to make a difference in the lives of women and other victims of domestic violence?

According to the Alaska Victimization Survey, conducted back in 2010, 59 percent of Alaskan women have experienced intimate partner or sexual violence.

In the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, our Alaska State troopers responded to almost 50,000 domestic violence offenses, almost 5,500 sexual abuse of a minor offenses, and almost 4,500 sexual assault offenses. Seventy-four percent of the victims of sex crimes in Alaska were less than 18 years old. Think about what that does to you. You are a young child, a young woman, a victim at such an early age. You carry that with you throughout your life.

The average rate of reported forcible rape in Alaska was 2\1/2\ times higher in Alaska than across the rest of the country. So as a woman in Alaska, you have a 2\1/2\ times higher likelihood of being the victim of a forcible rape. This is a very personal issue for my State.

I have heard from people all over the State urging us here in the Senate, urging us here in the Congress: Pass this VAWA bill. You had a chance last Congress to pass it. You didn't make it happen. You have an opportunity now. Make it happen.

A mother in Anchorage wrote me:

This is of utmost importance to me. As one who has

represented victims of domestic violence in Alaska under

VAWA, I know how very important this legislation is to

protect my daughter and all other women in Alaska and

throughout our country.

A woman from Dutch Harbor wrote:

As a rural Alaskan who is also a board member of my local

domestic violence shelter, I can tell you from experience

that VAWA saves lives! As you know, Alaska has one of the

nation's highest rates of domestic violence, sexual assault,

child abuse, child sexual abuse, and elder abuse. The

economic downturn makes it even more crucial for us to

provide immediate safe shelter to survivors in times of

crisis to help them escape further violence.

Think about it. This woman is writing from Dutch Harbor, AK, out at the end of the Aleutian channel, about 1,000 miles away from Anchorage, and an $800 airplane ticket. If you need to get away from your violent situation and you don't have $1,000, where do you go? How do we provide that help?

I received another letter from a woman in Fairbanks, who said:

Tragically, there is not a single Alaska Native woman or

girl in Alaska whose life has not been affected by violence

against women at some level. Personally, it has affected my

life and those that I love for generations. As Alaska

Natives, we know that you value and advocate for the rights

and welfare of the many people of Alaska. Please continue to

be a voice for those who cannot be heard and work to

reauthorize VAWA and SAVE Native Women.

These are the types of requests that I get from men and women all over my State.

Our Governor, Governor Parnell, has made a very personal effort in his 4 years as Governor to focus on domestic violence and child sexual assault. He has launched a campaign that he has dubbed Choose Respect; and every year across the State Alaskans gather in a very high-profile way to march. We have banners and there are young children and women and men and anybody you might imagine, all over the State.

This year, March 28, the Governor will again be encouraging us to choose respect. We want to make sure it is more than just overt demonstrations. We need to make this translate into real words that change these statistics, that change the dynamic, because Alaskans are right: Our statistics of domestic violence and sexual assault are absolutely staggering--2\1/2\ times, again, more than the national average. We need to do everything we can to get a handle on these tragic statistics, because they are not statistics, they are lives, they are families, they are people and friends we know.

VAWA provides the tools to do so, including in the villages of rural Alaska, where victims of sexual assault and domestic violence face some pretty

unique challenges. Many of these villages have no full-time law enforcement presence. They may have only a single community health aide who has to tend to every medical crisis in the community. Just being able to provide rape kits is a challenge.

I mentioned being in a small remote community where everybody knows everybody, and you are the victim of domestic violence and there may be no place to turn. There may be no way to get out of your village. Eighty percent of our communities are not attached by roads. It is not as though you can just hop in your car and get away. You have to be able to fly out. If you don't have the money, you can't get out. If the weather closes in, there are no planes even if you did have the cash for an airplane ticket. So how we can be there to be that support is crucial.

VAWA is a ray of hope to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in our Alaska Native villages, whether you are in Ketchikan or whether you are in Kenai, from Anchorage to Dillingham. And this bill will help that States such as Alaska, with smaller populations and truly great need, are given the same access to grants for victims while providing services and support to all victims of domestic and sexual violence. I am pleased to be able to lend my support.

Amendment No. 11

Madam President, I want to take a moment to explain an amendment that is in order this afternoon. This is my amendment No. 11.

It was mentioned earlier by the Senator from Washington State that section 904 and section 905 of the bill would expand the jurisdiction of Indian tribes to address issues of domestic violence committed by non-Indians against tribal members. So within section 905(b) and 910, they provide that, within the State of Alaska, this expanded jurisdiction applies only to one Indian reservation in our State, and that happens to be the Metlakatla Indian Reservation in the southeast.

You might say why just Metlakatla. In Alaska, there is only one reservation and that is Metlakatla. We have 229 federally recognized tribes, but other than Metlakatla, none controls Indian country in the State under existing law. The U.S. Supreme Court held in the Venetie case that none of the lands conveyed under the Alaska law is Indian country.

So what we have in the amendment before us is nothing more than a technical clarification. Both the legislation and my amendment state that the tribes, other than Metlakatla, retain all of the authority they currently have to issue domestic violence protection orders, whether or not that authority is inherent or statutorily created, and none of this authority, to the extent it exists, is diminished by the legislation or by my amendment. In addition, we go on to clarify that none of the authority the State of Alaska has is diminished.

So the natural question then would be: What is the difference between the Alaska provisions that are contained in 905(b) and 910? And why then do we even need my amendment?

The only difference is that we are attempting to spell out in plain English, consolidated in one section of the bill, to make it more clear. It truly is a technical amendment in every respect. We had some who actually questioned whether the bill's language was clear enough, so we worked with Senator Leahy's folks, we worked with some of the Indian law scholars, to allay the confusion. We very simply state the rules for Alaska's unique situation.

I certainly hope that if we move to vote on this amendment, folks would understand that what we are talking about is mere clarification, and I would ask for their support.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, first I would like to follow my colleague from Minnesota in voicing my support for passage of the Violence Against Women Act. As she noted, I have been a cosponsor of this very important legislation not only this Congress but last. I have urged on multiple occasions that we move forward with reauthorization of this very significant legislation, have urged the House to do the same last year. They failed to do that.

You do not give up when the cause is right. This is far too important to too many around the country. My colleague has cited some of the statistics and the issues and the initiatives she worked on when she was back home in her home State of Minnesota. It is something I think we all share--a concern for the levels of domestic violence within our respective States. In a State such as Alaska where we have so much to be proud of, unfortunately our statistics as they relate to domestic violence are appalling. Appalling.

So anything that we can do, whether it is here in Washington, DC, at the local level, the State level, we must do. We need to act here. So I join not only my colleague from Minnesota but so many who have led the charge here to do right as we work to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. I will have an opportunity to speak more on the VAWA reauthorization later.

Decision by the Department of the Interior

I wanted to take some time this morning to come to the floor to speak about an issue that has absolutely inflamed me this week. This week I learned that the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior has made a decision to deny the construction of a single-lane gravel emergency access road through a very, very tiny portion of a national wildlife refuge located on the Alaska Peninsula in southwest Alaska.

You might think, well, why is this such a big deal? You have heard me here on the floor or others here in this body have certainly heard me many times advocate on behalf of Alaska and the development of our resources to benefit the people of Alaska, to benefit the country as a whole. This is not a development project I am talking about here today. What I am addressing today is the health and the safety--the safety of the residents of a small Aleut community located in the Aleutian Islands. These are 748 people who really do not have the audiences so many constituents in Alaska or in other parts of the country enjoy.

They are kind of out of sight, out of mind, if you will. They are not out of sight, out of mind, out of my heart.

One of the most important responsibilities we have as U.S. Senators, as Members of Congress, is to protect the safety of those people we represent.

I wish to tell the story of King Cove, AK, and what is going on. You have seen the picture of the map of Alaska, the big beautiful State. I don't have it superimposed over the rest of the lower 48, because my point today is not to talk about how big we are in comparison to the rest of the Nation as a whole but to put in context what we are talking about here when we talk about the community of King Cove, AK.

You have the Aleutian peninsula here that stretches out approximately 1,000 miles. You might not appreciate the length and scope we are talking about here, but the Aleutian chain is just exactly that.

King Cove is right on the end of this peninsula area in this diagram. It is kind of out there. When I say ``kind of out there,'' there is nothing else around there. There are no roads that connect you to get anywhere when you want to go to ``town.'' Town is Anchorage, AK, probably about 600 miles away, maybe even a little bit longer. It is most likely a $1,000 airplane ticket to get there. That puts it in context here. This is King Cove, AK.

To put it in a little better context as to what we are speaking about, this is the community of King Cove right on the end of this lagoon, this bay. All the way around the other side of the bay is an area called Cold Bay. Cold Bay was designated during World War II as an air base this country relied on. During the war, they constructed a 10,000-foot runway. It is the second longest runway in the State of Alaska right now, and it is in pretty good shape. It is used as a divert runway. NASA uses it as one of its divert places. It is a pretty good solid airport.

Keep in mind, Cold Bay has about 100, maybe 110 people on a good day who live there. Around here, King Cove is an Aleut community. It has been

around for maybe 1,000 years, maybe a couple of thousand years. It has been around a long time. The Aleut people have lived in this part of the country for thousands of years. This community now is host to about 748 people, give or take. During the fishing season you might get it up as high as possibly 1,000 people. It is not a booming metropolis by any stretch of the imagination.

King Cove, as you can see, is kind of isolated. There is water all around it. That is fair, that is good. This is a situation where this community is ringed by mountains.

I have a picture here of King Cove. When you look at the location of the water, you see where the mountains are. These are pretty fjord- like. These are not timid and tame mountains. These are the types of mountains that get your attention when you are flying in.

The air strip here for King Cove sits right back up in this area. You need to come through these high mountains on all sides. When the cloud layer is low, as it usually is in this area, there are some issues as to whether you have a safe fly-out range.

There are clouds, not only cross currents that hit as you are coming into the airport, but you also have the downdraft coming off these very strong, very prominent mountains. This type of downdraft causes turbulence that particularly impacts helicopters which might be coming into this community for a rescue.

Again, as you look at the options of getting in and out of King Cove, your airport sits about here. You are rimmed with mountains. You may either fly in up this way or you may fly in and out that way. Either way you cut it, you are moving through very high mountainous terrain with winds on all sides coming from above, clouds coming from below. It is as tricky and as difficult a navigational issue as about anywhere in the State.

Going back to where King Cove sits in the ocean here, weather comes in off the Bering Sea up here and there is weather that comes up from the Gulf of Alaska here. It all kind of comes together right around the Aleutians. The Aleutians are known to be one of the areas, at least in this country, of--excuse the expression, but we call it snotty weather. It is foul weather too many times of the year, not just in the winter.

We saw last month the incident with Shell's vessel trying to move from Unalaska across the Gulf of Alaska during January and encountering seas of up to 40 feet. This is the weather we deal with in Alaska. There are difficult seas, and there are difficult flying situations. Yet there are people who call King Cove home and have for thousands of years.

You might ask why I am spending so much time talking about the weather. It sets the stage for this action the Department of Interior has taken and why I feel this decision is so wrongheaded, so shortsighted, and so wrong to the people who call this area home.

Talking again about the weather and what it means, when you are in a small community that doesn't have a hospital--you don't have a hospital if there are 748 people. We have an IHS clinic, an Indian Health Service clinic. To provide for health needs is a community health aid, and we might have a PA every now and again, but not always reliably. We actually did have a doctor out in King Cove some years ago. He was there in 2006, and he left after 6 months. We don't have the medical assistance we need. When somebody suffers a heart attack, when a woman has a complication with a pregnancy, it is not as if you can stay there in King Cove and seek medical help.

What happens? They have to get out. Well, how do they get out? They can get out by boat. They can move around by boat from King Cove over to Cold Bay, where we have the second largest runway in the State of Alaska. It seems like a pretty simple situation. The problem is that a boat is about as dangerous oftentimes as flying. What happens is if you have weather this stinky, it raises the waves, making getting a fishing vessel across with a sick person, trying to get them to the dock on Cold Bay side and out of that vessel, a harrowing event.

This is a picture we took from a video which had been taken by the residents of King Cove. It might be difficult to see this, but what you are looking at here is a steel ladder, a ladder going up the side of the dock. It is about a 20-foot area there. Way down at the bottom here you see the base of a fishing vessel. What they are trying to do is to haul a sick, elderly gentleman up this metal ladder in the rain, sleet, and snow that is coming. You have a boat that is pitching and heaving here, with somebody up at the top of the dock ready to pick up this individual underneath their arms and haul them up onto the dock. This is not a condition you want if you are feeling at all poorly. The fishing vessel isn't helping, so maybe we could do something else. Congress back in 2005 said maybe we could put a hovercraft there so it can fly the waters between this point here and Cold Bay over here, because there is a road that can take you right along here and take you across to the water.

The problem was not only the seas wouldn't accommodate, but also the operational costs were through the roof. It made no sense, and the people in King Cove and Cold Bay had acknowledged it was not going to make any sense. They tried it, they were game, but it hasn't worked.

What happened was action needed to be taken because we were seeing too many people whose lives were at risk. We were seeing too many people who were killed trying to get out in an effort to seek the medical help they needed.

At some point in time you say this doesn't work. When you have a way out, and it could be a simple road, why wouldn't we do that to address the life safety of the people who live here?

Back in 1979 and 1980, there were a number of airplane crashes that happened as they were trying to take off and land in King Cove. In 1981 we had a medevac plane go down. We lost a nurse, her helper, the patient, and the medevac's pilot--all killed. They were trying to airlift an individual who had suffered a heart attack. Everybody was killed.

In 2010, there was an airplane crash that occurred well on landing into King Cove. Della Trumble, who has long been an advocate for a solution to help the people of King Cove, was watching that plane land because her daughter was coming home. To be sitting there at the air strip, watching the plane come in to deliver your daughter, knowing the weather is foul, knowing the conditions are sketchy, and then seeing that airplane crash in front of your eyes--fortunately for Della and her daughter, she walked away. Think about that trauma.

In February of 2011, the Coast Guard was forced to dispatch a helicopter out of Kodiak, moving a helicopter from Kodiak over to King Cove. They were trying to transfer a 73-year-old woman who was suffering from chest pains. A few days later the Coast Guard tried and failed to reach King Cove with a helicopter to airlift an 80-year-old woman who was also suffering chest pains. Fortunately, she survived. Two days later, there was another medical airlift that was delayed 6 hours from leaving.

I just received the statistics from the Coast Guard for last year. How many rescue missions did the Coast Guard take on to go into King Cove to help those who needed help--not because the medevacs didn't want to go help or because it was going to be too costly--because the medevacs refused to go in because they will not take those risks.

What do we do? We call on our fabulous Coast Guard to come in and do the job. It was five times last year. It is scary work. The Coast Guard does it, and fortunately nobody was killed last year. How many people need to be killed when you have an option for a road to get you to the second longest runway in the State of Alaska?

Let me share with others what it is we actually did to address this problem. We said this is not acceptable. Five years ago this Congress approved a land exchange. In that exchange the Aleut people and the State of Alaska agreed to give up 56,400 acres of prized waterfowl habitat. They said, okay, we are going to give up 56,000 acres here to add to the Alaska peninsula and Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. We are going to trade this and, in return, the government will give back about 1,800 acres.

Do the quick math on this. This is a 300-to-1 exchange the people agreed to,

and it is even less when we isolate it. We are talking about 206 acres that are at issue--206 acres to allow for construction of a one-lane gravel road that will have no commercial use. This is to be used for emergency access. If someone needs to get out of King Cove because they have some kind of a condition, all they would need to do is drive 20 miles--20 miles. Think about that. We drive 20 miles to get from here to wherever. We drive all the time and we don't think about it. We are talking about 20 miles to save people's lives.

But it is even better than that. Because when we are talking about what we are putting through a refuge, it is about a 10-mile road. I hate to even describe it as a road. It is a one-lane gravel area through this lagoon we are talking about and not for commercial use. We have agreed to this. In exchange for this 10-mile road, we said: We are going to give the Federal Government 56,400 acres to add to a wilderness area. What a deal--what a deal.

I hope you can see this, Mr. President, because it is important to understand what we are talking about. This area in the black is what would be subject to the exchange. This is what is going into the wilderness area. All this, plus other acreage that is not shown on this map, in exchange for these red corridors here--about 206 acres.

So back in 2009 we figured in the Senate and over in the House it was important to address the safety needs of the people of King Cove, and if we could do that by allowing for 10 miles, 11 miles of new road through the Izembek Refuge, we could solve a lot of problems. Again, I reiterate, this road is specifically not allowed to be used for economic development. In the omnibus bill we passed the language is specific: ``Primarily for health and safety purposes and only for noncommercial purposes.''

There were some who were so concerned we were going to see a volume of traffic going back and forth between this community of 748 people and the 110 people over here and that somehow there was going to be this wild traffic going back and forth that was going to disturb the migratory waterfowl, the birds that come through here, the animals in this refuge area. I think it is important to recognize this is not an area that has never been tracked by man; that has never seen a presence. Again, I will remind my colleagues, this was an Air Force base in World War II. This is the second largest runway in the State. This is an area that has seen traffic through vehicles, ATVs, over the years because of the war.

In this chart, we can see the red tracks here. These are all the areas where all-terrain vehicle use is currently in play, and this has been in play since 2005 to 2008. Then the areas that are kind of red dotted are the predicted ATV vehicle travel corridor. We can see this is all within the Izembek Refuge area, the wilderness area. So it is not as if this is without any kind of access that is in place.

If we look at this next picture, this is an example of what we are talking about with this proposed road. It is out in the middle of some pretty amazing, sweeping landscape, as we can see. But the road is pretty much a one-lane gravel road. There is not going to be any stuff such as street lights. There are not going to be any dividers, meridians, sidewalks. There will not be any overpasses. This is pretty much what we are talking about here.

This next chart shows the existing trails that are currently within the refuge area. Again, it is pretty much a small, narrow, one-track road. It is not like we are going to be able to pass one another moving through the area.

The last picture I wish to show is a view of what the area looks like. It is amazingly flat. It is surrounded by a lagoon area. It is beautiful, absolutely. But these are roads that are currently in existence in the area now. So what we are talking about doing is adding--adding--about a 10-mile strip that would allow us to connect the roads that exist in Cold Bay to connect to a community that needs to have an emergency way out that is safe. They need to be able to connect to those who are on the other side of this lagoon, and the way to do it is this simple road.

I have mentioned the concern about the waterfowl, and this is why the Secretary of the Interior called me and he said: I listened to the biologists, and the biologists tell me the best way to respect this refuge is to not allow any road, to not allow any road so we can respect the refuge. He listened to the biologists, but the Secretary of the Interior did not listen to the people of Alaska. He did not listen to the people of King Cove. He did not even accept a meeting with them the numerous times they have asked to meet with him. They have flown across country to make their case. But he listened to the biologists because he wants to respect the refuge, and, instead, the lives of these people are not being respected.

If this is the attitude of this Department of Interior--that we are going to respect the animals and we are going to respect the birds, but we are not going to respect the people who live there--then this is the wrong way to be going. This is the wrong way to be going, and I will not stand for it.

I want to make sure we have refuge areas. I want to make sure we have wilderness areas. In this exchange we adopted 5 years ago, we allowed for that. We are putting in place wilderness area--the first new wilderness area designated by Congress in a generation, with 45,456 acres of prime waterfowl habitat added to wilderness in Alaska. But you know what, that is gone. Those lands will not remain in wilderness designation unless this road is permitted because the exchange is then going to be nullified if that road is not going to be built.

We have offered a pretty sweet deal--a 300-to-1 exchange--in exchange for the safety of the people who live there. Anyone who thinks we can't build a one-lane gravel road that will allow for a coexistence between the waterfowl that migrate through there and the people who live there, they have another thing to be thinking about. We will not have a practical impact on the waterfowl in the refuge. While the land exchange involves 206 acres, far less is actually going to be impacted by the construction. It is far less than 1 percent of the refuge. Again, the Federal Government is getting 300 times more land.

It is just inconceivable to me we would not be able to have a resolution that works for both sides. For the Secretary to move forward with a designation that says no road--no road--it is just stunning to me. Some might say it is because it is going to cost us money. There is no cost to the Federal Government. The State of Alaska is going to be building this.

Too many people have died for there to be any legitimate excuse for further delay, and I challenge those officials within the Department of the Interior to come and visit King Cove and don't necessarily come during the good weather--although the people of King Cove would tell us they are not entirely sure when the good weather is--but come and see them. Come and see what we are talking about. I have been there. To Deputy Secretary Hayes' credit, he, too, has been there, and I appreciate that. I appreciate that others have tried and perhaps have not met with success because the weather didn't allow them in because we weren't about to take a risk with them. But at a minimum, the Secretary of the Interior needs to be there. He needs to meet with people--real people, such as Carl Smith, a King Cove elder, an Aleut warrior. He was recognized as one of the amazing veterans. He is an Eskimo Scout with the Territorial Guard. Look these people in the eye and tell them their lives are not worth as much as the lives of the birds, the black brants, that inhabit the area.

It is not too late. While this decision of the Department of the Interior has been made, the Secretary--or if Secretary Salazar is no longer there, his designee--has a legal obligation under this 2009 act to base a decision on the road on what is deemed the ``public interest.'' Right now it seems to me the Department of the Interior has deemed the public is made up solely of birds and sea otters. My public--my public--is the real human beings who live in King Cove.

So we need to make sure a decision is not based on an incomplete and misleading EIS that concludes, with lives at stake, no action is somehow acceptable. I repeat: No action is absolutely not acceptable.

I am going to end my comments by letting you know what has happened in

some other refuges. It was just a few years ago, we will all remember, when we were transfixed by what was called ``the miracle on the Hudson.'' There was a commercial jetliner that hit a flock of Canadian geese, lost power, and landed in the Hudson River. Through the amazing skills of that pilot, nobody was harmed. But what was the result of that?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 1 additional minute.

What actually happened a couple years after that incident was that USDA's Wildlife Service agents went into the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, rounded up and killed 751 Canadian geese. The plan was to kill 1,0000, but they couldn't catch them fast enough.

Essentially, we see it is OK to kill birds in New York refuges, but we can't inconvenience the birds in Alaska. Maybe geese are less exotic than black brants or maybe it is because Members of this body and their families and friends fly through La Guardia and they worry about that. Well, I worry about the lives of Alaskans. I worry about the people of King Cove, and I am not going to rest on this. The decision that came out of the Department of the Interior was a travesty. It will not be allowed to stand, and I will do everything I can to ensure it does not.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the editorial from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that also opposes the decision of the Department of the Interior, as well as the press accounts I have referred to of the New York geese story.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would potentially help in solving a significant unemployment problem in my home state of Alaska. Today, joined by my colleague, Senator Mark Begich, I reintroduce the Niblack-Bokan Mountain Mining Area Road Authorization Act to permit road access to two proposed multi-mineral mines on southeast Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska.

Prince of Wales Island, formerly the main area for timber activity in Southeast Alaska, has fallen on hard times during the past decade. In 1990, when Alaska's timber industry in total harvested more than 1.1 billion board feet of timber, Prince of Wales was the center of activity. In 1994, for example, timber jobs accounted for 32.8 percent of all wages on the island. Six years later, with total regional harvests having fallen to about 350 million board feet, timber accounted for less than 19.8 percent of wages on the island, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Today, with total harvests of timber being just above 100 million board feet a year in the region, just 35 million board feet being harvested from federal lands in 2011 and just about 50 mmbf sold in 2012, and timber jobs statewide having fallen from about 4,000 to just over 400, Prince of Wales has been particularly hard hit. According to the State, timber jobs have fallen by more than 1,700 positions on the island.

As of November of last year, the unemployment rate on the island was ``down'' to 12.1 percent, compared to 13.8 percent in November 2011, partly because of the outmigration of some of the unemployed. Those rates are nearly 5 percent higher than the national average.

While the Viking Lumber Co. of Klawock remains the largest private- sector timber employer on the island, the island, the third largest in the United States, is badly in need of new employment opportunities. Fortunately today's high metal prices are encouraging a resurgence of mineral development on the 2,231 square-mile island.

Currently, Heatherdale Minerals of Canada is considering reopening the Niblack Mine, a gold, copper, zinc and silver deposit. The company is in advanced exploration and development study of the estimated 9 million-ton mine, forecast to cost $150 million to $200 million to reopen. The mine, likely to last at least 12 years, is forecast to produce 1,500 tons of ore per day and require 130 workers at the mine site, and another 60 to 70 at a processing mill, which could be located near the site, or perhaps in Ketchikan, AK, 40 vessel miles away.

The Niblack property is also close to another mineral deposit that is in the advanced stages of economic feasibility review, the Bokan Mountain Rare Earth Elements, REE, mine. Bokan Mountain, being considered for opening by Ucore Inc. of Canada, likely will employ 170 workers. It, too, will involve an investment of $221 million for the mine and processing plant to process the heavy rare earths, REEs, that the site contains. Both mines currently estimate they could be open within three to four years, depending on final economic reviews and current permit approval timeframes. Bokan Mountain is located about 28 air miles south of Niblack and can be accessed by boat by traveling down the relatively protected Moira Sound to the end of South Arm, or by an about 50-mile road that would branch off of a road to the Niblack mine.

The two mines could produce substantial numbers of high-paying jobs for the residents of southern Southeast Alaska. Niblack, for example, predicts the average salary for mine workers at its facility will be $80,000 a year, compared to the current median income in Craig of $48,594 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The problem of getting those jobs to people who need them is one of logistics.

There currently is no road access to reach either mine site, both likely to be supplied by boat from Ketchikan, AK. That means that potential workers on Prince of Wales Island will need to travel by boat or more likely by airplane to Ketchikan, in order to turn around and take a mine boat back to the island to report for work, a costly, time- consuming, often unpleasant and sometimes dangerous process given sea conditions in Southeast Alaska. Or they will need to pilot their own small boats to the mine site, a hazardous process given that reaching Niblack from the community of Thorne Bay to the north, a site that is located on the island's road system, will require a daily 60-mile one- way boat trip down perilous Clarence Strait, a difficult water body during fall, winter and spring storms, when seas can easily top 17 feet waves.

But the problem could be solved, if a road could be extended the roughly 29 miles to connect the Niblack mine, by means of existing logging roads, to the state highway system on the island. Such a road will involve at least 2.5 miles of logging road reconstruction and the construction of 26.3 miles of new road. Those roads, if built to existing logging road standards, are estimated to cost $7.075 million, the cost certainly rising if the roads are built to Federal Aid Urban Highway standards. The issue is that 18.3 miles of that new construction is across federal lands in the Tongass National Forest and, more importantly, across areas classified as inventoried roadless under the 2001 U.S. Forest Service roadless rule, as it was reimposed on the Tongass in 2009.

Looking at the topography of the area, located inside the Eudora inventoried roadless area, the road would begin at the Haida, Hydaburg, Native village corporation's West, Cholmondeley, Arm sort yard and head Southeast through the Big Creek Valley and climb to a mountain pass at the roughly 1,400-foot elevation. From there it will drop onto land owned by the Kootznoowoo Native village corporation of Angoon and follow existing logging roads that lie on the western side of the South Arm. The route then runs south and parallels South Arm on the west side until the southern end of the bay is reached. Then the route follows the shoreline of the south end of the South Arm until the far southeast corner of the bay is reached, the location of existing cabins and a State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game fish weir. From this point, there are two potential route alternatives: the 1A route continues to run in a southerly direction through a mountain pass of slightly more than 500-feet elevation passing two unnamed lakes. Once it reaches the shoreline of Dickman Bay, the road turns in a more easterly direction and runs across the south end of Kugel Lake and Luelia Lake, and the north end of Kegan Lake. From the 900-foot elevation pass on the west side of Luelia Lake, the route continues to run in an easterly fashion and must cross 1,200- and 1,400-foot passes before the route turns north to reach the Niblack mine at tidewater. That total route is 26.3 miles of new construction and a total distance of 28.8 miles. There is an alternative, Route 1B, early in the route corridor to reduce the elevation and add switchbacks required to reach the first pass, an alternative that would add 1.9 miles to the road.

There is another alternative route, Route 2A, that leaves from the same location and runs on the same route until the south end of South Arm. The second route then turns in a northerly direction and continues to follow the eastern shoreline of South Arm, Cholmondeley, for roughly 1.5 miles. The route then turns in an eastern direction and climbs through a mountain pass of about 900-feet elevation. From this pass, the route descends into the existing road system on Kootznoowoo lands near the south shores of Miller Lake. At the eastern terminus of these existing roads, the new route picks up again and continues in a southeast direction along the south end of Clarno Cove and Cannery Cove until Cannery Point is reached. From there the route turns into a southerly direction and climbs to another mountain pass of roughly 1,000-feet elevation. The route then follows the hillside to the west of Niblack Lake and meets another mountain pass of the same elevation and then descends in a southerly direction along the west side of Myrtle Lake to reach the Niblack Mine and tidewater. That route involves 24.6 miles of new construction, 6.1 miles of road reconstruction and involves a total length of 30.7 miles, thus costing more. It involves, however, constructing only one

pass higher than 1,200 feet, compared to 3 on the first route, but may have more environmental impacts given its route along Cannery Cove and Niblack Lake.

An additional road, running to the Bokan Mountain mine, would branch from the Niblack road and then run south to the Bokan mine site.

I mention the two detailed routes, and the third branch route, only to indicate that substantial work has been done to select a potential road corridor to the Niblack/Bokan Mountain mines and to make clear that I am not prejudging the route with the fewest environmental impacts. I am leaving that to the Forest Service to decide after an environmental assessment or impact statement is undertaken. The legislation I am introducing simply says that the Forest Service should permit development of a road along one of the two routes and the third branch route, picking the route that both minimizes the costs, while also minimizing the effects on surface resources, prevents unnecessary surface disturbances and that complies with all environmental laws and regulations.

These roads, I need to point out, will not set a precedent in any way weakening the inventoried roadless rule's implementation in Alaska, regardless of how I feel about that rule. Under the original regulations governing roadless areas in Alaska issued by the Clinton administration in January 2001, Section 294.12(b)(7) permits roads to be built across inventoried roadless areas if needed ``in conjunction with the continuation, extension or renewal of a mineral lease on lands that are under lease by the Secretary of the Interior. . . . Such road construction or reconstruction must be conducted in a manner that minimizes effects on surface resources, prevents unnecessary or unreasonable surface disturbance, and compiles with all applicable lease requirements.''

The patents on the Niblack property and on the Bokan Mountain deposit certainly predate the creation of the roadless rule. The mines were discovered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Modest copper production occurred between 1902 and 1908 at Niblack and modern exploration on the 2,000-acre site began in 1974, some 150 patented claims being in place at the mine. Development/ production on the uranium/REE deposits at Bokan Mountain began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.

The point is that Niblack and Bokan Mountain are certainly real prospects that offer the likelihood of real employment for many who are unemployed on Prince of Wales Island, if they simply can access the sites from their homes in Craig, Klawock, Hydaburg, Thorne Bay, Kasaan, Whale Pass and even Coffman Cove, located on the northeast end of the island. The need for these jobs has prompted the City Council of Craig to formally request Congress to accelerate the approval of a road corridor to the mines. Such a road could be built by the mines, but more likely funded and built by the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities at state expense, not federal expense. A road could also allow a power line to be built to either or both mines, allowing non-carbon producing hydropower to power the mines, rather than them relying on expensive diesel generation for energy. That would reduce greenhouse gas production and benefit the environment.

It makes no sense in a state that already contains 58 million acres of formal wilderness, and in the Tongass National Forest contains nearly 6.4 million acres of parks and wilderness areas, to bar construction of a road that does not cross any wilderness areas but could provide a good income to more than half of all of the people, 281 people, unemployed on the island as of November 2012, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

I would hope that this Congress would look favorably on allowing these roads to this mining area, so that residents on the island can get the jobs they so desperately need in the years ahead.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to clear the title to three small parcels of land owned by the Municipality of Anchorage, AK, my home State, so that the land can be put to more productive uses in the future.

At different times between 1922 and 1991, Anchorage, AK, received a number of parcels of land from the Federal Government, including these three parcels of land, located in downtown Anchorage, comprising 2.65 acres in total. They were conveyed to either the former ``City of Anchorage'' or more recently the ``Municipality of Anchorage.'' They were transferred by the Federal Government to the local government for a wide variety of specific purposes, but all were transferred for the overarching purpose of helping the then nascent City of Anchorage, which was, and largely still is, surrounded by Federal lands, have sufficient land resources to provide municipal services to the growing community. For reasons that made sense decades ago, all of the deeds for these properties contain reversionary clauses, that should the land not be used for various general ``municipal purposes'' their ownership would revert to the Federal Government. The problem is that in each case, the tracts are no longer useful for the purposes originally intended, the lands are not needed by the Federal Government, the public purpose for which the reversion clause was put in place has long ago been fulfilled, and in case they were to be returned to the Federal estate, it would cost the Federal Government substantial sums to maintain the properties or prepare them for future sale.

These small tracts are not practical for the Federal Government to repossess for several reasons: the Federal Government is barely able to manage all the land it currently owns in Alaska, including in Anchorage, let alone adding small tracts to burden its responsibility. After more than 50 years since the Statehood Act, and 42 years since the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act's passage, the State and our Native People still have not received final patent to all their lands. The public purposes for which the Federal reversionary clauses were put in place have been met. These clauses were added to insure that during its earlier, developmental stages, Anchorage would use the Federal land conveyed to it to build the city and the municipal and public infrastructure of the community. After decades of dedicated public use of these properties, the ``public purpose'' basis for the clauses has been fulfilled. For these properties, my legislation addresses the question of how long is long enough for a reversionary clause to have served its purpose, by recognizing that after decades of living up to its obligations under what are now outdated restrictions from the last century, it is time to let the City move forward with its vision for the new one. The commercial use of the properties will add to the public municipal treasury, and to the Federal treasury, hence continuing the public benefit of the lands, albeit in a different way.

In 1922 the City of Anchorage received a number of properties around Anchorage for municipal/school purposes. One of the properties was the 1.93-acre site in Block 42 downtown that since the early 1980s has been the site of the William A. Egan Convention Center. With the completion in 2010 of the larger Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center, the tract is surplus to municipal needs, and could best be utilized for sale to the private sector that would then be best able to afford the cost of conversion of the property for future use, adding to the Federal income tax base and local property tax base.

The second tract is a lot of .48 acres at Seventh and I Streets downtown, currently being used as a municipal parking lot. The land, obtained by the city as part of a 1982 land exchange that cleared the site for a major office building across the street, is too small for municipal or Federal office space use, or for park construction, but might be properly sized for a commercial enterprise. It is zoned for business, but cannot be used for business that

would contribute to the local property tax base or Federal income tax base, because of the inability of the Municipality to sell the property due to the Federal reversion clause.

The third site at the corner of H Street and Christiansen Drive, .24 acres in size and obtained by the city in 1963, again is too small for municipal or Federal office space, and unneeded for park space, but might be of use for a retail establishment given its location near a municipal parking facility. Likewise, it is zoned for business/ commercial, but cannot be used and potentially contribute to the local and Federal tax bases due to the Federal reversion requirement. It currently sits vacant and idle.

In all cases, the best municipal use of the lands would be for sale to provide revenues to the Municipality of Anchorage that could be used for provision of municipal social services. In each case, reversion of the lands to the Federal Government would result in Federal ownership of tracts unneeded for Federal purposes, but lands that would produce greater conveyance and management costs to the Federal treasury than are likely to be recovered through fair market sales.

The Municipality of Anchorage and its Mayor Daniel Sullivan have asked that the reversionary clauses be repealed on the three tracts, the city absorbing all costs connected with surveying, recording and other costs connected with the properties. In these cases, lifting of the reversionary clauses on three of the literally thousands of acres conveyed to Anchorage, partially as a result of the Alaska Statehood Act, makes for good land use, and economic and public policy sense for both the local government and the Federal Government. The Municipality of Anchorage has already established 223 parks containing 82 playgrounds and 250 miles of trails, encompassing 10,946 acres inside its boundaries. There is no shortage of park and open space in the municipality. There is no public policy purpose in the 21st Century not to permit these very limited Federal reversion extinguishments.

Passage of this act would cost the Federal Government nothing, but would aid the citizens of Anchorage by allowing lands to be put on the city's tax rolls. I am introducing this bill now, joined by my Alaska colleague and former Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich as cosponsor, to foster action, hopefully, early in this 113th Congress.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would potentially help in solving a significant unemployment problem in my home state of Alaska. Today, joined by my colleague, Senator Mark Begich, I reintroduce the Niblack-Bokan Mountain Mining Area Road Authorization Act to permit road access to two proposed multi-mineral mines on southeast Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska.

Prince of Wales Island, formerly the main area for timber activity in Southeast Alaska, has fallen on hard times during the past decade. In 1990, when Alaska's timber industry in total harvested more than 1.1 billion board feet of timber, Prince of Wales was the center of activity. In 1994, for example, timber jobs accounted for 32.8 percent of all wages on the island. Six years later, with total regional harvests having fallen to about 350 million board feet, timber accounted for less than 19.8 percent of wages on the island, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Today, with total harvests of timber being just above 100 million board feet a year in the region, just 35 million board feet being harvested from federal lands in 2011 and just about 50 mmbf sold in 2012, and timber jobs statewide having fallen from about 4,000 to just over 400, Prince of Wales has been particularly hard hit. According to the State, timber jobs have fallen by more than 1,700 positions on the island.

As of November of last year, the unemployment rate on the island was ``down'' to 12.1 percent, compared to 13.8 percent in November 2011, partly because of the outmigration of some of the unemployed. Those rates are nearly 5 percent higher than the national average.

While the Viking Lumber Co. of Klawock remains the largest private- sector timber employer on the island, the island, the third largest in the United States, is badly in need of new employment opportunities. Fortunately today's high metal prices are encouraging a resurgence of mineral development on the 2,231 square-mile island.

Currently, Heatherdale Minerals of Canada is considering reopening the Niblack Mine, a gold, copper, zinc and silver deposit. The company is in advanced exploration and development study of the estimated 9 million-ton mine, forecast to cost $150 million to $200 million to reopen. The mine, likely to last at least 12 years, is forecast to produce 1,500 tons of ore per day and require 130 workers at the mine site, and another 60 to 70 at a processing mill, which could be located near the site, or perhaps in Ketchikan, AK, 40 vessel miles away.

The Niblack property is also close to another mineral deposit that is in the advanced stages of economic feasibility review, the Bokan Mountain Rare Earth Elements, REE, mine. Bokan Mountain, being considered for opening by Ucore Inc. of Canada, likely will employ 170 workers. It, too, will involve an investment of $221 million for the mine and processing plant to process the heavy rare earths, REEs, that the site contains. Both mines currently estimate they could be open within three to four years, depending on final economic reviews and current permit approval timeframes. Bokan Mountain is located about 28 air miles south of Niblack and can be accessed by boat by traveling down the relatively protected Moira Sound to the end of South Arm, or by an about 50-mile road that would branch off of a road to the Niblack mine.

The two mines could produce substantial numbers of high-paying jobs for the residents of southern Southeast Alaska. Niblack, for example, predicts the average salary for mine workers at its facility will be $80,000 a year, compared to the current median income in Craig of $48,594 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The problem of getting those jobs to people who need them is one of logistics.

There currently is no road access to reach either mine site, both likely to be supplied by boat from Ketchikan, AK. That means that potential workers on Prince of Wales Island will need to travel by boat or more likely by airplane to Ketchikan, in order to turn around and take a mine boat back to the island to report for work, a costly, time- consuming, often unpleasant and sometimes dangerous process given sea conditions in Southeast Alaska. Or they will need to pilot their own small boats to the mine site, a hazardous process given that reaching Niblack from the community of Thorne Bay to the north, a site that is located on the island's road system, will require a daily 60-mile one- way boat trip down perilous Clarence Strait, a difficult water body during fall, winter and spring storms, when seas can easily top 17 feet waves.

But the problem could be solved, if a road could be extended the roughly 29 miles to connect the Niblack mine, by means of existing logging roads, to the state highway system on the island. Such a road will involve at least 2.5 miles of logging road reconstruction and the construction of 26.3 miles of new road. Those roads, if built to existing logging road standards, are estimated to cost $7.075 million, the cost certainly rising if the roads are built to Federal Aid Urban Highway standards. The issue is that 18.3 miles of that new construction is across federal lands in the Tongass National Forest and, more importantly, across areas classified as inventoried roadless under the 2001 U.S. Forest Service roadless rule, as it was reimposed on the Tongass in 2009.

Looking at the topography of the area, located inside the Eudora inventoried roadless area, the road would begin at the Haida, Hydaburg, Native village corporation's West, Cholmondeley, Arm sort yard and head Southeast through the Big Creek Valley and climb to a mountain pass at the roughly 1,400-foot elevation. From there it will drop onto land owned by the Kootznoowoo Native village corporation of Angoon and follow existing logging roads that lie on the western side of the South Arm. The route then runs south and parallels South Arm on the west side until the southern end of the bay is reached. Then the route follows the shoreline of the south end of the South Arm until the far southeast corner of the bay is reached, the location of existing cabins and a State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game fish weir. From this point, there are two potential route alternatives: the 1A route continues to run in a southerly direction through a mountain pass of slightly more than 500-feet elevation passing two unnamed lakes. Once it reaches the shoreline of Dickman Bay, the road turns in a more easterly direction and runs across the south end of Kugel Lake and Luelia Lake, and the north end of Kegan Lake. From the 900-foot elevation pass on the west side of Luelia Lake, the route continues to run in an easterly fashion and must cross 1,200- and 1,400-foot passes before the route turns north to reach the Niblack mine at tidewater. That total route is 26.3 miles of new construction and a total distance of 28.8 miles. There is an alternative, Route 1B, early in the route corridor to reduce the elevation and add switchbacks required to reach the first pass, an alternative that would add 1.9 miles to the road.

There is another alternative route, Route 2A, that leaves from the same location and runs on the same route until the south end of South Arm. The second route then turns in a northerly direction and continues to follow the eastern shoreline of South Arm, Cholmondeley, for roughly 1.5 miles. The route then turns in an eastern direction and climbs through a mountain pass of about 900-feet elevation. From this pass, the route descends into the existing road system on Kootznoowoo lands near the south shores of Miller Lake. At the eastern terminus of these existing roads, the new route picks up again and continues in a southeast direction along the south end of Clarno Cove and Cannery Cove until Cannery Point is reached. From there the route turns into a southerly direction and climbs to another mountain pass of roughly 1,000-feet elevation. The route then follows the hillside to the west of Niblack Lake and meets another mountain pass of the same elevation and then descends in a southerly direction along the west side of Myrtle Lake to reach the Niblack Mine and tidewater. That route involves 24.6 miles of new construction, 6.1 miles of road reconstruction and involves a total length of 30.7 miles, thus costing more. It involves, however, constructing only one

pass higher than 1,200 feet, compared to 3 on the first route, but may have more environmental impacts given its route along Cannery Cove and Niblack Lake.

An additional road, running to the Bokan Mountain mine, would branch from the Niblack road and then run south to the Bokan mine site.

I mention the two detailed routes, and the third branch route, only to indicate that substantial work has been done to select a potential road corridor to the Niblack/Bokan Mountain mines and to make clear that I am not prejudging the route with the fewest environmental impacts. I am leaving that to the Forest Service to decide after an environmental assessment or impact statement is undertaken. The legislation I am introducing simply says that the Forest Service should permit development of a road along one of the two routes and the third branch route, picking the route that both minimizes the costs, while also minimizing the effects on surface resources, prevents unnecessary surface disturbances and that complies with all environmental laws and regulations.

These roads, I need to point out, will not set a precedent in any way weakening the inventoried roadless rule's implementation in Alaska, regardless of how I feel about that rule. Under the original regulations governing roadless areas in Alaska issued by the Clinton administration in January 2001, Section 294.12(b)(7) permits roads to be built across inventoried roadless areas if needed ``in conjunction with the continuation, extension or renewal of a mineral lease on lands that are under lease by the Secretary of the Interior. . . . Such road construction or reconstruction must be conducted in a manner that minimizes effects on surface resources, prevents unnecessary or unreasonable surface disturbance, and compiles with all applicable lease requirements.''

The patents on the Niblack property and on the Bokan Mountain deposit certainly predate the creation of the roadless rule. The mines were discovered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Modest copper production occurred between 1902 and 1908 at Niblack and modern exploration on the 2,000-acre site began in 1974, some 150 patented claims being in place at the mine. Development/ production on the uranium/REE deposits at Bokan Mountain began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.

The point is that Niblack and Bokan Mountain are certainly real prospects that offer the likelihood of real employment for many who are unemployed on Prince of Wales Island, if they simply can access the sites from their homes in Craig, Klawock, Hydaburg, Thorne Bay, Kasaan, Whale Pass and even Coffman Cove, located on the northeast end of the island. The need for these jobs has prompted the City Council of Craig to formally request Congress to accelerate the approval of a road corridor to the mines. Such a road could be built by the mines, but more likely funded and built by the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities at state expense, not federal expense. A road could also allow a power line to be built to either or both mines, allowing non-carbon producing hydropower to power the mines, rather than them relying on expensive diesel generation for energy. That would reduce greenhouse gas production and benefit the environment.

It makes no sense in a state that already contains 58 million acres of formal wilderness, and in the Tongass National Forest contains nearly 6.4 million acres of parks and wilderness areas, to bar construction of a road that does not cross any wilderness areas but could provide a good income to more than half of all of the people, 281 people, unemployed on the island as of November 2012, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

I would hope that this Congress would look favorably on allowing these roads to this mining area, so that residents on the island can get the jobs they so desperately need in the years ahead.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to clear the title to three small parcels of land owned by the Municipality of Anchorage, AK, my home State, so that the land can be put to more productive uses in the future.

At different times between 1922 and 1991, Anchorage, AK, received a number of parcels of land from the Federal Government, including these three parcels of land, located in downtown Anchorage, comprising 2.65 acres in total. They were conveyed to either the former ``City of Anchorage'' or more recently the ``Municipality of Anchorage.'' They were transferred by the Federal Government to the local government for a wide variety of specific purposes, but all were transferred for the overarching purpose of helping the then nascent City of Anchorage, which was, and largely still is, surrounded by Federal lands, have sufficient land resources to provide municipal services to the growing community. For reasons that made sense decades ago, all of the deeds for these properties contain reversionary clauses, that should the land not be used for various general ``municipal purposes'' their ownership would revert to the Federal Government. The problem is that in each case, the tracts are no longer useful for the purposes originally intended, the lands are not needed by the Federal Government, the public purpose for which the reversion clause was put in place has long ago been fulfilled, and in case they were to be returned to the Federal estate, it would cost the Federal Government substantial sums to maintain the properties or prepare them for future sale.

These small tracts are not practical for the Federal Government to repossess for several reasons: the Federal Government is barely able to manage all the land it currently owns in Alaska, including in Anchorage, let alone adding small tracts to burden its responsibility. After more than 50 years since the Statehood Act, and 42 years since the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act's passage, the State and our Native People still have not received final patent to all their lands. The public purposes for which the Federal reversionary clauses were put in place have been met. These clauses were added to insure that during its earlier, developmental stages, Anchorage would use the Federal land conveyed to it to build the city and the municipal and public infrastructure of the community. After decades of dedicated public use of these properties, the ``public purpose'' basis for the clauses has been fulfilled. For these properties, my legislation addresses the question of how long is long enough for a reversionary clause to have served its purpose, by recognizing that after decades of living up to its obligations under what are now outdated restrictions from the last century, it is time to let the City move forward with its vision for the new one. The commercial use of the properties will add to the public municipal treasury, and to the Federal treasury, hence continuing the public benefit of the lands, albeit in a different way.

In 1922 the City of Anchorage received a number of properties around Anchorage for municipal/school purposes. One of the properties was the 1.93-acre site in Block 42 downtown that since the early 1980s has been the site of the William A. Egan Convention Center. With the completion in 2010 of the larger Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center, the tract is surplus to municipal needs, and could best be utilized for sale to the private sector that would then be best able to afford the cost of conversion of the property for future use, adding to the Federal income tax base and local property tax base.

The second tract is a lot of .48 acres at Seventh and I Streets downtown, currently being used as a municipal parking lot. The land, obtained by the city as part of a 1982 land exchange that cleared the site for a major office building across the street, is too small for municipal or Federal office space use, or for park construction, but might be properly sized for a commercial enterprise. It is zoned for business, but cannot be used for business that

would contribute to the local property tax base or Federal income tax base, because of the inability of the Municipality to sell the property due to the Federal reversion clause.

The third site at the corner of H Street and Christiansen Drive, .24 acres in size and obtained by the city in 1963, again is too small for municipal or Federal office space, and unneeded for park space, but might be of use for a retail establishment given its location near a municipal parking facility. Likewise, it is zoned for business/ commercial, but cannot be used and potentially contribute to the local and Federal tax bases due to the Federal reversion requirement. It currently sits vacant and idle.

In all cases, the best municipal use of the lands would be for sale to provide revenues to the Municipality of Anchorage that could be used for provision of municipal social services. In each case, reversion of the lands to the Federal Government would result in Federal ownership of tracts unneeded for Federal purposes, but lands that would produce greater conveyance and management costs to the Federal treasury than are likely to be recovered through fair market sales.

The Municipality of Anchorage and its Mayor Daniel Sullivan have asked that the reversionary clauses be repealed on the three tracts, the city absorbing all costs connected with surveying, recording and other costs connected with the properties. In these cases, lifting of the reversionary clauses on three of the literally thousands of acres conveyed to Anchorage, partially as a result of the Alaska Statehood Act, makes for good land use, and economic and public policy sense for both the local government and the Federal Government. The Municipality of Anchorage has already established 223 parks containing 82 playgrounds and 250 miles of trails, encompassing 10,946 acres inside its boundaries. There is no shortage of park and open space in the municipality. There is no public policy purpose in the 21st Century not to permit these very limited Federal reversion extinguishments.

Passage of this act would cost the Federal Government nothing, but would aid the citizens of Anchorage by allowing lands to be put on the city's tax rolls. I am introducing this bill now, joined by my Alaska colleague and former Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich as cosponsor, to foster action, hopefully, early in this 113th Congress.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan Recreational Fishing and Hunting Opportunities Act.

My bill is cosponsored by my friend from West Virginia, Senator Manchin, and is a commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation. It enjoys support from over 39 separate organizations from the hunting, shooting, recreational fishing and wildlife conservation community. In addition, my staff has worked diligently with environmental and conservation organizations such as the Wilderness Society and the National Parks Conservation Association to alleviate their concerns with previous versions of the bill by removing references to the Wilderness Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Furthermore, this legislation specifically exempts National Park Units, National Wildlife Refuges and land held in trust for the benefit of Native Americans.

Our bill would acknowledge the importance of hunting and fishing on our BLM lands and in our National Forests by requiring hunting and fishing to be recognized activities on those lands. We are talking about traditional American activities, and they are activities that deserve the same consideration as other traditional uses of our public lands. Our legislation would establish an ``open unless closed'' policy for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting on BLM and Forest Service land. It is important to note, though, that this would not give these activities special priority, but merely level the current playing field between these traditional activities and other uses of our public lands.

I would like to thank Senator Manchin, an original cosponsor of this bill, for his and his staff's hard work in moving this bill forward. It is our hope that this bill will receive quick but careful consideration as many sportsmen across this country have been eagerly awaiting passage of this measure for quite a long time.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the bipartisan Recreational Fishing and Hunting Opportunities Act.

My bill is cosponsored by my friend from West Virginia, Senator Manchin, and is a commonsense, bipartisan piece of legislation. It enjoys support from over 39 separate organizations from the hunting, shooting, recreational fishing and wildlife conservation community. In addition, my staff has worked diligently with environmental and conservation organizations such as the Wilderness Society and the National Parks Conservation Association to alleviate their concerns with previous versions of the bill by removing references to the Wilderness Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Furthermore, this legislation specifically exempts National Park Units, National Wildlife Refuges and land held in trust for the benefit of Native Americans.

Our bill would acknowledge the importance of hunting and fishing on our BLM lands and in our National Forests by requiring hunting and fishing to be recognized activities on those lands. We are talking about traditional American activities, and they are activities that deserve the same consideration as other traditional uses of our public lands. Our legislation would establish an ``open unless closed'' policy for recreational hunting, fishing and shooting on BLM and Forest Service land. It is important to note, though, that this would not give these activities special priority, but merely level the current playing field between these traditional activities and other uses of our public lands.

I would like to thank Senator Manchin, an original cosponsor of this bill, for his and his staff's hard work in moving this bill forward. It is our hope that this bill will receive quick but careful consideration as many sportsmen across this country have been eagerly awaiting passage of this measure for quite a long time.

I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the bill we just passed out of the Senate, a bill to aid the victims of Superstorm Sandy, is important. It is important when we are faced with a disaster--whether it is a hurricane, whether it is an earthquake, whether it is a drought, whether it is a flood--that we step forward and find those ways that we can help citizens who have faced immeasurable loss. The effort that has gone back and forth between two bodies now, and will, hopefully, move forward, is one which will certainly help to address the needs of those families who lost so much in Superstorm Sandy.

I think we all recognize this was not the only disaster this country faced last year. In my State of Alaska we faced a fish disaster. For those of you who are from States that do not rely on your fisheries as a source of income, a source of jobs or a source of daily sustenance, you might think: Fish disasters; well, that is not really much to talk about. That is not a true disaster.

In my State, when fisheries have declined to the extent we have seen--the loss of the Chinook salmon on the Yukon River, the Kuskokwim River, the Upper Cook Inlet--this has a dramatic impact on our State's economy, a dramatic impact on the livelihoods of so many Alaskans. Whether they be commercial fishermen, sport fishermen, our subsistence- based fisheries, our fisheries communities, those businesses that are dependent on our salmon fisheries, these were all impacted this past year.

As I had gone around the State, basically from about midsummer through the end of the year, everywhere I went, whether I was in an urban center such as Anchorage, Homer, or down in Seward, up in the Matanuska Valley, or out in the rural parts of the State up along the Yukon, out along the Kuskokwim out in the southwest, people were talking about two things: People were talking about our cost of energy because our energy costs remained the highest in the Nation, but they were also talking about fish. Pretty basic stuff: fuel, fish, and food. When we had a disaster this summer, it was an imperative around our State.

We, in September of this past year, had an official declaration from the Secretary of Commerce--actually the Acting Secretary of Commerce, Rebecca Blank--that recognized this fish disaster, and this is a disaster that is statutorily authorized by section 308 of the Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act and section 31 of the Magnuson- Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

These are designations that are statutorily authorized. These are not earmarks. They are not to be labeled as pork or something special for an area. These are disasters subject to a statutory authorization, a process that has been clearly laid out. They are authorized in law for fish failures that require affirmative action from the Secretary of Commerce. The Secretary has taken that action. Congress then needs to do its part by funding for these disasters.

I mentioned at the outset that some of my colleagues might not appreciate the importance of these fish disasters. But, again, these disasters are no less important than disasters for which we provide for other industries, such as drought disaster or drought assistance for our farmers. I think the Acting Secretary, when she signed these fisheries designations, recognized them for essentially what they are: fish droughts, fish droughts in our rivers and our oceans. She responded to the fisheries disasters not only in my State of Alaska, but she also moved forward with disaster determinations for Rhode Island, for New York, for Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Mississippi. The disaster declaration the Acting Secretary advanced opens the door, then, for the financial assistance from the Federal Government.

You might notice those funds were not included in this disaster relief bill. That does not mean I will back down from attempting to do my best to make sure the disaster that Alaska faced with its fisheries, and that so many of our other States faced with their fisheries, that these needs will not be addressed.

We didn't advance it in this package. It is important that the Sandy provision move forward, and that is why I eventually cast my vote in support of it. I know many of my colleagues--the Senator from Rhode Island is with me tonight. I know the Senator from New Hampshire is very concerned about it. The Senator from Maine is very concerned about it. I think it is fair to say we will continue our efforts to ensure the disasters that our fishermen have faced will be addressed as is statutorily provided in law. We will work to find that funding to make sure that disasters, however they present themselves in this country-- whether it is storm, flood, drought, hurricane, or earthquake--are addressed.

I commit to working with my colleagues to continue to find those sources of funding so we address these revenues.

I note that my colleague from Rhode Island is here, and I know he too wishes to address this important issue.

I think we have 33,000 miles of coastline, not to be bragging on a coastline. But what is so important as part of this discussion--and my colleague Senator Shaheen has stated this--our fishermen often are not included when we think about areas of disaster. Yet, in terms of those industries, those parts of our economy that are making things happen as folks are kind of chugging along, it is our fisheries that for decades--and for centuries, as Senator Whitehouse noted--have been producing good jobs and providing a source of sustenance for our families.

Alaska is in somewhat of a unique situation in that we still have so many families who rely on their fisheries for subsistence. This is not just an income source for many. For so many in rural Alaska, this means whether or not you are going to be able to eat this winter. The situation on the Yukon and on the Kuskokwim--when those rivers were shut down to fishing, we had actions of civil disobedience, where individuals just came to the river and said: We have to put our nets in because we have to be able to feed our families. Down in the Cook Inlet region, it is not so much a subsistence lifestyle there but a commercial fishery as well as sport fishing. So sport guides who are required to be off the river cannot take that tourist who has come to Alaska for their dream fishing trip. They have to cancel that and lose their revenue, and so guides can no longer stay in place.

So Senator Shaheen is correct about the ripple effect to the economy. It affects all of our fishing communities and those who support them. So when we talk about disasters in areas and $150 million that was to be split between all of these different regions and States, it is a recognition that it is quite slight in comparison to the true loss to our economies, the true loss to our families who have suffered.

Again, I appreciate the commitment we have from so many who have been impacted that we don't give up on this. We have gone through the process, we have jumped the hurdles to get the designation that is required by our government through the Secretary of Commerce. We have done that. Now the step is for Congress to provide that funding that makes the difference. It is one thing to get a disaster declaration on paper; it is another to be able to provide the relief. And I certainly intend to push until that relief is provided not only for the families in Alaska but for those who have been impacted by fisheries disasters throughout the country.

I thank my colleague.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would officially rename Mount McKinley in Alaska, simply, Denali.

Mount McKinley is one of the most iconic geographical features in the country, and certainly Alaska. It is the tallest mountain in the United States, and we Alaskans are not all that shy about reminding folks the mountain is ours.

Here is the problem: In Alaska, Mount McKinley is referred to as something else. We just call it ``Denali.'' That is what we have always called it. Denali is an Alaska Native word, an Athabaskan word, and its meaning is fairly straightforward. The High One. All my bill does is make the name official. I know the name Mount McKinley has a special meaning of its own to some folks, specifically the good people of Ohio, the home State of our 25th President, William McKinley. My response to those people is this: You are more than welcome to go right on referring to the mountain as Mount McKinley, just as Alaskans have long called it Denali. All that is changing is that the Alaskan name is becoming, technically, correct for an Alaskan landmark.

In the big picture, this is a little bill. I understand that. But I also understand, as I know my colleagues do, that it is the little things that sometimes matter a great deal to communities. Making Denali, the name all Alaskans use anyway, the official name of America's tallest mountain means something to Alaska. Officially being able to call an Alaskan landmark by its Alaskan name means something to Alaskans.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation, the Huna Tlingit Traditional Gull Egg Use Act which represents an important step forward in allowing the Huna Tlingit people access to enjoy their traditional subsistence activity of gull egg collection.

The collection and consumption of gull eggs is an integral part of the culture of the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska, and eggs were gathered at rookeries long before Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve's establishment in 1925. A Legislative Environmental Impact Statement was completed in 2010 regarding this proposal to allow limited harvests of gull eggs in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, and the preferred alternative authorized the implementation of a cooperative management program for gull egg collection and emphasized a traditional harvest strategy for the collections.

My bill will authorize this harvest of gull eggs at five nesting areas on two separate days each calendar year within the Park. This would allow a large number of tribal members to interact with their traditional homeland and provide an opportunity for as many as 12 young people to participate annually and spend time with elders learning about traditional egg harvest practices in addition to other aspects Tlingit culture.

This bill is widely supported throughout the environmental and conservation communities, as well as the Alaska Native community. The harvesting of gull eggs would only have minor effects on the gulls, but the cultural benefits that would be realized by the Native community would be great.

It is my hope that this bill will receive quick but careful consideration as the local tribe members have been eagerly awaiting passage of this measure for quite a long time.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation that represents an important step in the conversion to renewable energy sources in rural Alaska and towards honoring the first individual to reach the summit of our Nation's tallest peak, Denali.

Today I introduce the Denali National Park Improvement Act of 2013, comprised of three important provisions relating to Denali National Park and Preserve.

The first provision is the Kantishna Hills Renewable Energy Act.

The Kantishna Roadhouse, owned by Doyon Tourism, Inc., is located 100 miles inside Denali National Park and Preserve. The settlement of Kantishna was founded in 1905 as a mining camp near the juncture of Eureka and Moose Creeks. Gold in the region brought a flurry of prospectors in the early days, but as the gold began to run out, so did interest in mining the Kantishna Hills. The original roadhouse at Kantishna was built in the early 1900s, serving as a private residence, a community center, post office, and informal hotel accommodations for those who visited Kantishna in Denali Park.

The Roadhouse, like many structures within Denali National Park, is entirely off the grid and generates all of

its electricity needs with a diesel generator. As a result, all guests and supplies, including diesel, are trucked through the park to the Roadhouse over National Park roads. The construction of the micro hydro project would allow the Roadhouse to cut down their diesel usage by approximately 50 percent, which would result in a decrease in diesel truck traffic on the Park Road, improved local air quality, and less sound pollution in this remote area, as well as reduce disturbance and vehicle impacts on park wildlife, allowing for an enhanced visitor experience for tourists within the National Park.

My bill will authorize the National Park Service to exchange roughly 10 acres of National Park land for an equivalent amount of land currently owned by Doyon Tourism, and would allow the National Park Service to obtain the highly desired Galena tract of land, located just off the Park Road in the Kantishna region. Doyon Tourism would obtain land over which the hydro project would be implemented. In the interim period, prior to completion of the land exchange, the National Park Service will issue a permit to allow Doyon Tourism, Inc., to construct the micro hydro unit.

I want to emphasize how important I believe that this bill is. The benefit to the citizens of Alaska, especially rural Alaska, of reducing their dependence on expensive diesel generation through access to renewable and clean sources of energy is enormous. This type of Micro- Hydro project within Denali provides an excellent blueprint for others around the State to follow suit.

The next portion of my bill will allow a natural gas pipeline to be placed inside Denali National Park. I am reintroducing legislation that I first offered in 2009 and that passed the Senate, but not the House of Representatives in the 112 Congress, which will authorize a right- of-way for construction of an Alaska instate natural gas pipeline to run along the State's main highway from Fairbanks to Anchorage. This bill will provide a right-of-way for a natural gas pipeline near the shoulder of the Parks Highway for the roughly 7 miles that the highway runs through Denali National Park and Preserve.

I wish to explain why I am introducing the bill now, and why, rather than being an infringement on Alaska's most famous national park, the measure is actually the favored route by many in the environmental community to bring natural gas from the foothills of Alaska's North Slope to Southcentral and coastal Alaska.

While many in this body have heard about plans for a large-volume natural gas pipeline to run from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields to the Lower 48 States, the project for which many in this body voted to approve a loan guarantee, tax credits and permitting improvements in 2004, there is concern that the big pipeline will not be finished in time to get gas to Southcentral Alaska, gas that is vital for electric generation in Fairbanks, Anchorage, the Mat-Su Borough and Kenai Peninsula. Currently electricity in Alaska's southern Railbelt, as it is called, is largely generated by burning natural gas that has been produced since the 1960s from the gas fields in Cook Inlet, south of Anchorage. But production from Cook Inlet, while the province theoretically holds far more gas, has been falling for years, currently by about 10 percent annually. A major fertilizer plant near Kenai, for example, had to close in 2007 because there was not enough natural gas being produced to allow it to obtain the raw product it needed for urea production at a reasonable price.

While there are contract issues and storage concerns involving getting sufficient gas quantities for Railbelt utilities starting as early as next year, there are serious concerns about the ability of the region to produce sufficient gas for electric generation and home heating for Alaska's most populated area as early as the winter of 2014-15, and especially by the winter of 2015-2016.

To provide a new, reliable natural gas supply, one proposal, is the so-called ``bullet'' gas pipeline that involves constructing a relatively small diameter-natural gas line, probably 24-inches in size, to run from Alaska's North Slope region, past Fairbanks along the Parks Highway, and terminate near Wasilla, Alaska. This pipeline would tie into existing transmission systems and would bring about 500 million cubic feet of gas a day to Southcentral Alaska. This project could be completed well in advance of when a larger-diameter pipeline might be in service to deliver 4 to 4.5 billion cubic feet a day to Lower 48 markets or a different project could bring between 3 and 4.5 billion cubic feet a day to tidewater in Alaska before the gas could be liquefied for water-borne deliveries. Given the pace of planning for construction of a larger line project, it is unlikely that a larger Alaska natural gas pipeline will be able to deliver gas until 2022 or later 6 or more years too late to aid Southcentral Alaska's growing need for natural gas.

There are several potentially competing proposals for a small- diameter, in-state gas pipeline. I have just described the ``bullet'' line proposal along the Parks Highway. A second proposal would run a similarly sized pipeline along the Richardson and Glenn Highways to the east, also tying into existing transmission systems near Palmer, Alaska. There are advantages to both routes, the Parks route delivering gas to communities along the Parks Highway while perhaps providing clean natural gas to Denali National Park, while the Richardson/Glenn project would help provide economic activity to differing towns, such as Delta and Glennallen to the east. Now there is a third proposal by Fairbanks Pipeline Co. based on the assumption that routes for either of the two larger ``bullet'' lines won't be available in time to meet gas demand. That project would build a ``mini'' 12-inch line from the North Slope to Fairbanks to supply the Interior with natural gas and not attempt to provide any gas for use in southern areas of the state.

It is not my desire to prejudge the outcome of which project or route should be selected, since that decision will be made by Alaska state regulators and financial markets. It is my desire, however, to reintroduce legislation that would clear the lone legal impediment to planning for the Parks Highway route, that being how to get the gas economically through the mountainous central region of the State past Denali National Park and Preserve.

According to a 2008 analysis of routing options through this area, there are three feasible routes for a pipeline through or around the roughly 10-mile bottleneck of the Nenana River Canyon and Denali National Park and Preserve. The shortest and most logical route follows the existing highway through this entire area, 7-miles of which passes through Denali National Park. This route causes the least environmental and visual impact due to its location in an existing corridor, and provides a route that is easily accessible for routine pipeline maintenance. A second feasible pipeline route diverts from the highway to stay outside of the national park boundaries on the east, but in so doing skirts along a steep hillside that dominates a park visitor's view. A third route proposed in 2009 would travel far to the west around the national park, increasing costs, and potentially moving natural gas closer to proposed mineral ventures in southwest Alaska. Either of the latter two proposals will create a new disturbed corridor in remote locations, and will cause pipeline operation issues and reliability challenges due to the remoteness and the ruggedness of the routes. The route that avoids the park to the east is estimated to cost twice as much as the route along the highway and through the park. The western route's cost has been harder to quantify.

Besides being less expensive to construct and operate, the pipeline along the existing, previously disturbed Parks Highway right-of-way, could well allow electricity generation for the park facilities at Denali to come from natural gas. And for the first time reasonably priced compressed natural gas, CNG, could become available to power park vehicles, another environmental benefit of the Parks Highway route. Currently National Park Service permitted diesel tour buses travel 1 million road miles annually taking visitors into the park. Converting the buses to operate on CNG can significantly reduce air emissions in the park. A third benefit is that for the pipe to cross the Nenana River, not far from the park's entrance, will require a

new bridge to be built that could carry not just the pipe, but provide a new pedestrian access/bicycle path for visitors that today need to walk along the heavily traveled highway rather than on separated, pedestrian path toward visitors attractions and nearby hotels. In all probability the installation work will be conducted in the shoulder seasons to make sure there are no visitor dislocations for tourists visiting the park.

For those reasons and others, a group of eight environmental groups: The National Parks and Conservation Association, the Alaska Conservation Alliance, the Denali Citizens Council, The Wilderness Society, Cook Inlet Keeper, the Alaska Center for the Environment, the Wrangell Mountain Center and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance in 2009 generally supported the granting of a gas line right-of-way through Denali Park, along the existing highway right-of-way.

The granting of a permanent 20-foot easement, and probably a 100-foot construction easement, is not precedent setting. The National Park Service already has granted a permit for an installed fiber-optic cable along the same basic alignment for an Alaska communications company. Obviously the exact right-of-way will have to be delineated to avoid the existing cable and to accommodate park goals, such as routing around a vernal pond viewing area located along the general right-of- way. Just earlier this year the 112 Congress gave approval for a similar bill that allows a gas line to pass through Glacier National Park in Montana.

I am proposing this bill simply to authorize the right-of-way for a Parks Highway route soon so that the decision on which route is best for the state and its citizens--if the ``bullet line option is chosen-- can be made based on greater certainty in the cost estimates and the timing for a project. Removing the uncertainty of permitting and regulatory delays will at least permit the Parks Highway route to be on a level playing field with the Richardson and Glenn Highway or other potential projects. The State of Alaska in 2010 finished a preliminary study of the project and continues to consider whether to permit and finance a ``bullet'' line project, compared to other options, including importing liquefied natural gas or building other renewable energy project to attempt to meet Southcentral power needs in the future. But approval of the right-of-way would remove a key unknown and allow the decision on which project makes the most sense for all Alaskans to be made without fear that right-of-way acquisition delays could inflate costs unreasonably.

If the Parks route is chosen and the project proceeds, then the national park may well benefit from the environmental benefits of natural gas and compressed natural gas being more readily available for park activities, cutting air quality concerns, and improving pedestrian access--depending upon final economic considerations involving the cost and location for a gas conditioning plant.

In 2009 when this bill was first introduced, it was modified after initial introduction to meet all concerns voiced by the environmental community and congressional staff and the National Parks Service. The version being reintroduced in this joint bill was approved unanimously by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and added to the American Clean Energy Leadership Act that passed from the Committee on June 17, 2009, and again on Dec. 17, 2011. The provision, according to the Congressional Budget Office, had nominal--less than $5,000 in cost impacts--when scored.

I truly believe there are no environmental issues with this legislation. I think anyone who has ever traveled on the Parks Highway in Alaska through Denali National Park would agree, and I hope it can be approved by Congress early in the 113 session given the increasing severity of the need for power generation in the Alaska Railroad in coming years.

The third and final section of my bill is the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station Renaming Act.

The Talkeetna Ranger Station, which is the home of Denali National Park's mountaineering rangers, sits just about 100 miles south of the entrance to the park. Of course, the landmark that's most commonly linked to both the park and the ranger station itself happens to be the mountain that features a summit which represents the highest point in North America: Denali. In fact, anybody who intends to attempt a climb of Mt. McKinley is required to first stop at the Talkeetna Ranger Station for their permit and mountain orientation.

It is only fitting, then, that we honor the memory of Alaska Native Walter Harper by forever linking his name with this specific ranger station. It was Mr. Harper that 100 years ago next year became the first person to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley.

My bill is a simple one, and it is not likely to gain much notice outside of Alaska. Within my home state, however, this small gesture means a great deal. Alaskans, like the people who call any other state home, are proud of the historical accomplishments of their fellow Alaskans. Walter Harper was one such Alaskan, and his feat is one that will always be remembered.

Certainly, officially designating the Talkeetna Ranger Station--the very building where any hiker today planning to climb Mt. McKinley is required to first stop--the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station is a fitting tribute to the man himself, as well as his spot in our state's history books.

June 7 of next year, 2013, will mark the 100 year anniversary of Mr. Harper's historic climb. It would truly be special for Alaska and Alaskans to have this designation in place by that date.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would officially rename Mount McKinley in Alaska, simply, Denali.

Mount McKinley is one of the most iconic geographical features in the country, and certainly Alaska. It is the tallest mountain in the United States, and we Alaskans are not all that shy about reminding folks the mountain is ours.

Here is the problem: In Alaska, Mount McKinley is referred to as something else. We just call it ``Denali.'' That is what we have always called it. Denali is an Alaska Native word, an Athabaskan word, and its meaning is fairly straightforward. The High One. All my bill does is make the name official. I know the name Mount McKinley has a special meaning of its own to some folks, specifically the good people of Ohio, the home State of our 25th President, William McKinley. My response to those people is this: You are more than welcome to go right on referring to the mountain as Mount McKinley, just as Alaskans have long called it Denali. All that is changing is that the Alaskan name is becoming, technically, correct for an Alaskan landmark.

In the big picture, this is a little bill. I understand that. But I also understand, as I know my colleagues do, that it is the little things that sometimes matter a great deal to communities. Making Denali, the name all Alaskans use anyway, the official name of America's tallest mountain means something to Alaska. Officially being able to call an Alaskan landmark by its Alaskan name means something to Alaskans.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation, the Huna Tlingit Traditional Gull Egg Use Act which represents an important step forward in allowing the Huna Tlingit people access to enjoy their traditional subsistence activity of gull egg collection.

The collection and consumption of gull eggs is an integral part of the culture of the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska, and eggs were gathered at rookeries long before Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve's establishment in 1925. A Legislative Environmental Impact Statement was completed in 2010 regarding this proposal to allow limited harvests of gull eggs in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, and the preferred alternative authorized the implementation of a cooperative management program for gull egg collection and emphasized a traditional harvest strategy for the collections.

My bill will authorize this harvest of gull eggs at five nesting areas on two separate days each calendar year within the Park. This would allow a large number of tribal members to interact with their traditional homeland and provide an opportunity for as many as 12 young people to participate annually and spend time with elders learning about traditional egg harvest practices in addition to other aspects Tlingit culture.

This bill is widely supported throughout the environmental and conservation communities, as well as the Alaska Native community. The harvesting of gull eggs would only have minor effects on the gulls, but the cultural benefits that would be realized by the Native community would be great.

It is my hope that this bill will receive quick but careful consideration as the local tribe members have been eagerly awaiting passage of this measure for quite a long time.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation that represents an important step in the conversion to renewable energy sources in rural Alaska and towards honoring the first individual to reach the summit of our Nation's tallest peak, Denali.

Today I introduce the Denali National Park Improvement Act of 2013, comprised of three important provisions relating to Denali National Park and Preserve.

The first provision is the Kantishna Hills Renewable Energy Act.

The Kantishna Roadhouse, owned by Doyon Tourism, Inc., is located 100 miles inside Denali National Park and Preserve. The settlement of Kantishna was founded in 1905 as a mining camp near the juncture of Eureka and Moose Creeks. Gold in the region brought a flurry of prospectors in the early days, but as the gold began to run out, so did interest in mining the Kantishna Hills. The original roadhouse at Kantishna was built in the early 1900s, serving as a private residence, a community center, post office, and informal hotel accommodations for those who visited Kantishna in Denali Park.

The Roadhouse, like many structures within Denali National Park, is entirely off the grid and generates all of

its electricity needs with a diesel generator. As a result, all guests and supplies, including diesel, are trucked through the park to the Roadhouse over National Park roads. The construction of the micro hydro project would allow the Roadhouse to cut down their diesel usage by approximately 50 percent, which would result in a decrease in diesel truck traffic on the Park Road, improved local air quality, and less sound pollution in this remote area, as well as reduce disturbance and vehicle impacts on park wildlife, allowing for an enhanced visitor experience for tourists within the National Park.

My bill will authorize the National Park Service to exchange roughly 10 acres of National Park land for an equivalent amount of land currently owned by Doyon Tourism, and would allow the National Park Service to obtain the highly desired Galena tract of land, located just off the Park Road in the Kantishna region. Doyon Tourism would obtain land over which the hydro project would be implemented. In the interim period, prior to completion of the land exchange, the National Park Service will issue a permit to allow Doyon Tourism, Inc., to construct the micro hydro unit.

I want to emphasize how important I believe that this bill is. The benefit to the citizens of Alaska, especially rural Alaska, of reducing their dependence on expensive diesel generation through access to renewable and clean sources of energy is enormous. This type of Micro- Hydro project within Denali provides an excellent blueprint for others around the State to follow suit.

The next portion of my bill will allow a natural gas pipeline to be placed inside Denali National Park. I am reintroducing legislation that I first offered in 2009 and that passed the Senate, but not the House of Representatives in the 112 Congress, which will authorize a right- of-way for construction of an Alaska instate natural gas pipeline to run along the State's main highway from Fairbanks to Anchorage. This bill will provide a right-of-way for a natural gas pipeline near the shoulder of the Parks Highway for the roughly 7 miles that the highway runs through Denali National Park and Preserve.

I wish to explain why I am introducing the bill now, and why, rather than being an infringement on Alaska's most famous national park, the measure is actually the favored route by many in the environmental community to bring natural gas from the foothills of Alaska's North Slope to Southcentral and coastal Alaska.

While many in this body have heard about plans for a large-volume natural gas pipeline to run from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields to the Lower 48 States, the project for which many in this body voted to approve a loan guarantee, tax credits and permitting improvements in 2004, there is concern that the big pipeline will not be finished in time to get gas to Southcentral Alaska, gas that is vital for electric generation in Fairbanks, Anchorage, the Mat-Su Borough and Kenai Peninsula. Currently electricity in Alaska's southern Railbelt, as it is called, is largely generated by burning natural gas that has been produced since the 1960s from the gas fields in Cook Inlet, south of Anchorage. But production from Cook Inlet, while the province theoretically holds far more gas, has been falling for years, currently by about 10 percent annually. A major fertilizer plant near Kenai, for example, had to close in 2007 because there was not enough natural gas being produced to allow it to obtain the raw product it needed for urea production at a reasonable price.

While there are contract issues and storage concerns involving getting sufficient gas quantities for Railbelt utilities starting as early as next year, there are serious concerns about the ability of the region to produce sufficient gas for electric generation and home heating for Alaska's most populated area as early as the winter of 2014-15, and especially by the winter of 2015-2016.

To provide a new, reliable natural gas supply, one proposal, is the so-called ``bullet'' gas pipeline that involves constructing a relatively small diameter-natural gas line, probably 24-inches in size, to run from Alaska's North Slope region, past Fairbanks along the Parks Highway, and terminate near Wasilla, Alaska. This pipeline would tie into existing transmission systems and would bring about 500 million cubic feet of gas a day to Southcentral Alaska. This project could be completed well in advance of when a larger-diameter pipeline might be in service to deliver 4 to 4.5 billion cubic feet a day to Lower 48 markets or a different project could bring between 3 and 4.5 billion cubic feet a day to tidewater in Alaska before the gas could be liquefied for water-borne deliveries. Given the pace of planning for construction of a larger line project, it is unlikely that a larger Alaska natural gas pipeline will be able to deliver gas until 2022 or later 6 or more years too late to aid Southcentral Alaska's growing need for natural gas.

There are several potentially competing proposals for a small- diameter, in-state gas pipeline. I have just described the ``bullet'' line proposal along the Parks Highway. A second proposal would run a similarly sized pipeline along the Richardson and Glenn Highways to the east, also tying into existing transmission systems near Palmer, Alaska. There are advantages to both routes, the Parks route delivering gas to communities along the Parks Highway while perhaps providing clean natural gas to Denali National Park, while the Richardson/Glenn project would help provide economic activity to differing towns, such as Delta and Glennallen to the east. Now there is a third proposal by Fairbanks Pipeline Co. based on the assumption that routes for either of the two larger ``bullet'' lines won't be available in time to meet gas demand. That project would build a ``mini'' 12-inch line from the North Slope to Fairbanks to supply the Interior with natural gas and not attempt to provide any gas for use in southern areas of the state.

It is not my desire to prejudge the outcome of which project or route should be selected, since that decision will be made by Alaska state regulators and financial markets. It is my desire, however, to reintroduce legislation that would clear the lone legal impediment to planning for the Parks Highway route, that being how to get the gas economically through the mountainous central region of the State past Denali National Park and Preserve.

According to a 2008 analysis of routing options through this area, there are three feasible routes for a pipeline through or around the roughly 10-mile bottleneck of the Nenana River Canyon and Denali National Park and Preserve. The shortest and most logical route follows the existing highway through this entire area, 7-miles of which passes through Denali National Park. This route causes the least environmental and visual impact due to its location in an existing corridor, and provides a route that is easily accessible for routine pipeline maintenance. A second feasible pipeline route diverts from the highway to stay outside of the national park boundaries on the east, but in so doing skirts along a steep hillside that dominates a park visitor's view. A third route proposed in 2009 would travel far to the west around the national park, increasing costs, and potentially moving natural gas closer to proposed mineral ventures in southwest Alaska. Either of the latter two proposals will create a new disturbed corridor in remote locations, and will cause pipeline operation issues and reliability challenges due to the remoteness and the ruggedness of the routes. The route that avoids the park to the east is estimated to cost twice as much as the route along the highway and through the park. The western route's cost has been harder to quantify.

Besides being less expensive to construct and operate, the pipeline along the existing, previously disturbed Parks Highway right-of-way, could well allow electricity generation for the park facilities at Denali to come from natural gas. And for the first time reasonably priced compressed natural gas, CNG, could become available to power park vehicles, another environmental benefit of the Parks Highway route. Currently National Park Service permitted diesel tour buses travel 1 million road miles annually taking visitors into the park. Converting the buses to operate on CNG can significantly reduce air emissions in the park. A third benefit is that for the pipe to cross the Nenana River, not far from the park's entrance, will require a

new bridge to be built that could carry not just the pipe, but provide a new pedestrian access/bicycle path for visitors that today need to walk along the heavily traveled highway rather than on separated, pedestrian path toward visitors attractions and nearby hotels. In all probability the installation work will be conducted in the shoulder seasons to make sure there are no visitor dislocations for tourists visiting the park.

For those reasons and others, a group of eight environmental groups: The National Parks and Conservation Association, the Alaska Conservation Alliance, the Denali Citizens Council, The Wilderness Society, Cook Inlet Keeper, the Alaska Center for the Environment, the Wrangell Mountain Center and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance in 2009 generally supported the granting of a gas line right-of-way through Denali Park, along the existing highway right-of-way.

The granting of a permanent 20-foot easement, and probably a 100-foot construction easement, is not precedent setting. The National Park Service already has granted a permit for an installed fiber-optic cable along the same basic alignment for an Alaska communications company. Obviously the exact right-of-way will have to be delineated to avoid the existing cable and to accommodate park goals, such as routing around a vernal pond viewing area located along the general right-of- way. Just earlier this year the 112 Congress gave approval for a similar bill that allows a gas line to pass through Glacier National Park in Montana.

I am proposing this bill simply to authorize the right-of-way for a Parks Highway route soon so that the decision on which route is best for the state and its citizens--if the ``bullet line option is chosen-- can be made based on greater certainty in the cost estimates and the timing for a project. Removing the uncertainty of permitting and regulatory delays will at least permit the Parks Highway route to be on a level playing field with the Richardson and Glenn Highway or other potential projects. The State of Alaska in 2010 finished a preliminary study of the project and continues to consider whether to permit and finance a ``bullet'' line project, compared to other options, including importing liquefied natural gas or building other renewable energy project to attempt to meet Southcentral power needs in the future. But approval of the right-of-way would remove a key unknown and allow the decision on which project makes the most sense for all Alaskans to be made without fear that right-of-way acquisition delays could inflate costs unreasonably.

If the Parks route is chosen and the project proceeds, then the national park may well benefit from the environmental benefits of natural gas and compressed natural gas being more readily available for park activities, cutting air quality concerns, and improving pedestrian access--depending upon final economic considerations involving the cost and location for a gas conditioning plant.

In 2009 when this bill was first introduced, it was modified after initial introduction to meet all concerns voiced by the environmental community and congressional staff and the National Parks Service. The version being reintroduced in this joint bill was approved unanimously by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and added to the American Clean Energy Leadership Act that passed from the Committee on June 17, 2009, and again on Dec. 17, 2011. The provision, according to the Congressional Budget Office, had nominal--less than $5,000 in cost impacts--when scored.

I truly believe there are no environmental issues with this legislation. I think anyone who has ever traveled on the Parks Highway in Alaska through Denali National Park would agree, and I hope it can be approved by Congress early in the 113 session given the increasing severity of the need for power generation in the Alaska Railroad in coming years.

The third and final section of my bill is the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station Renaming Act.

The Talkeetna Ranger Station, which is the home of Denali National Park's mountaineering rangers, sits just about 100 miles south of the entrance to the park. Of course, the landmark that's most commonly linked to both the park and the ranger station itself happens to be the mountain that features a summit which represents the highest point in North America: Denali. In fact, anybody who intends to attempt a climb of Mt. McKinley is required to first stop at the Talkeetna Ranger Station for their permit and mountain orientation.

It is only fitting, then, that we honor the memory of Alaska Native Walter Harper by forever linking his name with this specific ranger station. It was Mr. Harper that 100 years ago next year became the first person to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley.

My bill is a simple one, and it is not likely to gain much notice outside of Alaska. Within my home state, however, this small gesture means a great deal. Alaskans, like the people who call any other state home, are proud of the historical accomplishments of their fellow Alaskans. Walter Harper was one such Alaskan, and his feat is one that will always be remembered.

Certainly, officially designating the Talkeetna Ranger Station--the very building where any hiker today planning to climb Mt. McKinley is required to first stop--the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station is a fitting tribute to the man himself, as well as his spot in our state's history books.

June 7 of next year, 2013, will mark the 100 year anniversary of Mr. Harper's historic climb. It would truly be special for Alaska and Alaskans to have this designation in place by that date.