§3145 Wildlife resources portion of study and impact of potential oil spills in Arctic Ocean

Summary

The Secretary must work with the State of Alaska and Native Village and Regional Corporations to study how oil and gas exploration, development, production, transportation, and other human activities affect wildlife on those lands. The study must look at animals such as the Arctic and Porcupine caribou herds, polar bear, muskox, grizzly bear, wolf, wolverine, seabirds, shore birds, and migratory waterfowl. The Secretary must also talk with the proper Canadian agencies, especially about the Porcupine caribou herd. Congress found that Canada discovered commercial oil and gas in the Amalagak region of the Northwest Territory and is exploring ways to move it to Asia, including moving oil across the Beaufort Sea to tankers that would travel through the American Exclusive Economic Zone into the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas and then the Bering Straits. Because those seas are vital to Alaska Native subsistence, U.S. lease sales and exploration are ongoing there, and an Arctic oil spill could seriously harm people and the environment, the Secretary of the Interior, with the Governor of Alaska, must study how to recover damages, make contingency plans, and coordinate actions for an Arctic oil spill and send a report to Congress by January 31, 1991. The Secretary of State, with Interior, Transportation, and the Governor of Alaska, is asked to begin treaty talks with Canada on these issues and must report to Congress on those efforts by June 1, 1991.