§15906 North Slope Science Initiative

Summary

The Secretary of the Interior must set up a long-term program called the North Slope Science Initiative to coordinate the collection of scientific data about land, freshwater, and ocean ecosystems on Alaska’s North Slope. The program must make a science plan that: finds and ranks what information is needed for inventories, monitoring, and research about the effects of past, ongoing, and expected development and environmental change; figures out what regulators, land managers, local governments, and the public need to know; focuses on the most urgent resource and ecosystem questions; coordinates studies to avoid duplication, share money and expertise, and keep data high quality; finds gaps not covered by agency science programs in effect on August 8, 2005 and makes a plan to fund them; keeps good scientific methods; preserves and improves access to research and local and traditional knowledge; and makes sure research is checked by peers. The Secretary must work with federal, state, and local agencies and may make cooperative agreements with the State of Alaska, the North Slope Borough, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, and other federal agencies to coordinate and fund projects. The Initiative must have a technical advisory panel of no more than 15 scientists and experts from diverse backgrounds (for example, industry, subsistence users, Native Alaskan groups, conservation, wildlife managers, and universities). A report describing the Initiative’s studies and findings must be published no later than 3 years after August 8, 2005 and then every year after that. Money can be appropriated as needed to run the program.