mission 2007
team
research
sources
progress journal
about me
Am working on speech outline for Mission presentation. Also, I constructed a basic web site for the presentation tem. Check it out here.
After working till three in the morning, we finally pulled together the cost-benefit analysis of the drilling situation in ANWR. I helped resolve this issue by coming up with a model so we could predict the clean-up cost of an oil spill based on its volume. This model is available in Team 8's final report, and it was found using regression techniques and statistical tools.
Working with the cost-benefit analysis team, I am working on finding the income multiplier that will allow us to calculate the benefit of the drilled oil to society. I know this multiplier has to do with MPC (marginal propensity to consume), but I need a number for MPC for either America or the global community. Should be difficult to find, but I'll see what I can come up with.
I finally found some information about the cost of environmental litigation. I will be forwarding this information onto Team 8 as soon as possible.
A flood of costly lawsuits raises questions about motive (Knudson, Tom - 2001)
There is no central repository for environmental lawsuits. But information obtained by The Bee from the Department of Justice using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and from federal courthouses around the nation shows that:
* During the 1990s, the government paid out $31.6 million in attorney fees for 434 environmental cases brought against federal agencies. The average award per case was more than $70,000. One long-running lawsuit in Texas involving an endangered salamander netted lawyers for the Sierra Club and other plaintiffs more than $3.5 million in taxpayer funds.
* Attorneys for environmental groups are not shy about asking for money. They earn $150 to $350 an hour, and sometimes they get accused of trying to gouge the government. In 1993, three judges on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington were so appalled by one Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund lawyer's "flagrant over-billing" that they reduced her award to zero. "Even a perfunctory examination of (the lawyer's) time entries would show that she billed on a Brobdingnabian scale," wrote the judges, referring to the giants in "Gulliver's Travels" to drive their point home.
* Lawyers for industry and natural resource users get paid for winning environmental cases, too. When California water districts won a follow-up suit over the splittail last year, their law firms submitted a bill for $546,403.70 to the government. The Justice Department was stunned.
"Plaintiffs have failed to exercise any billing discretion," wrote U.S. Attorney Matthew Love in a January brief. "They seek compensation for excessive, duplicative and redundant tasks ... charge their normal hourly rates for (routine) activities such as telephone calls, letter writing (and) review of files."
* Since 1995, most cases brought have not been about dams, nuclear power or pesticides, but about rare and endangered species. That flood of suits has turned judges into modern day Noahs who decide which species are saved -- and which aren't. But the judges -- guided by law, not science -- aren't always the best-equipped to make biologically correct decisions.
* Suing on behalf of species is a specialty niche. Four law firms filed more than half of all such suits from 1995 to 2000. A whopping 75 percent of those cases were lodged in six states: California, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. One kind of case -- over "critical habitat" -- has so swamped the Fish and Wildlife Service that it has halted the biological evaluations necessary to add new species to the federal endangered species list.
* Lawyers don't just bill for legal work. They also submit claims for lobbying, talking to the news media and flying and driving to and from meetings and courthouses.
"This has become a cottage industry," said Elizabeth Megginson, former chief counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Resources. "And it is being paid for by you and me, by taxpayers.
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To help with the cost-benefit analysis that Team 8 is carrying out, I have been trying to find information about the actual cost of litigation in similar previous cases (ie Prudhoe Bay). This has been rather difficult, and I have been unsuccessful when I sarched for this information on MIT Libraries' page, Google, and ProQuest. I will continue to search while emphasizing that this litigation must be factored into the ultimate report on drilling in ANWR.
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As we near the completion date for Mission 2007, it becomes more and more important for me to summarize my work in a concise form that can be integrated into our team's decision. To accomplisht this goal, I went through my research and wrote a paper outlining the background of the environmentalist movement, specifics of Alaskan environmentalists, and a general conclusion about what would happen if drilling was allowed in ANWR.
Alaskan Environmentalists - Research Conclusions (.doc)
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Through estimation techniques* based on reported statistics, I have determined that between three and five percent of Alaskans are registered environmentalists, and another twenty to thrity percent are "very concerned" with the environment.
*To come up with a good approximation of how large a percentage of Alaskans are environmentalists, I used estimation. Using the number of Alaskan members Ms. Scanalon said her environmental group had as a base point, I decided that most solely Alaskan groups would have about 700 to 1,000 Alaskans in their ranks. I next found that the number of Alaskan environmental groups was between 20 and 25 from looking at the Alaska Coalition web site. Finally, I found the number of total Alaskans, given by the 2001 census, and used this to find a range of what percentage of Alaskans were registered environmentalists. The number of "very concerned" was found by subtracting from one hundred percent the percent of Alaskans who said they would support drilling.
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Are
Some Environmentalists More Equal Than Others?
(Clinton Whitehurst, Jr. PH.D.) |
| -Asserts that there are three different types of environmentalists. |
| -Largest group "are the men, women, and children of every ethnic, religious persuasion and represent every social-economic group." They recycle, teach their children not to litter, dispose batteries safely, help with neighborhood clean-ups, and protect the wilderness in small ways. |
| -Second, smaller group "is more active and dedicated to environmental causes." They arrange environmental awareness events, give campaign help to candidates who have the same views as them, and are against "urban sprawl." Importantly, "they respect the law and have no problem living and working with those with whom they may disagree." |
| -Third and smallest group "crave[s] the recognition and attention that they would not otherwise get in the work-a-day world." and claims the environmentalist movement is solely theirs. They reject data that does not support their conclusions, and they criticize/condemn those who do not support their positions. When they are proven wrong on an issue, they quickly leave it behind and move on to something new. Sometimes their actions lead to destruction and waste, and they do not always resepect the law. This group gives the environmental movement a bad name. |
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Kelly Hill Scanalon, the Arctic coordinator for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, graciously replied to my e-mail with answers to specific questions I posed about the environmentalist viewpoint and possible future actions. For the purposes of Mission, her answers to the last few questions (how her group would react to any drilling in the Arctic) are particularly significant.
Q: How many citizens of Alaska are active (and nonactive) members of your group? Has the number of members specifically from Alaska increased since the ANWR issue was taken up by the press?
A: Of our 1,150 members, about half of them are from Alaska. I think the Arctic Refuge issue, in particular, brings a lot of national members to our organization. Alaskan members are definitely interested in the refuge, and campaign heavily against drilling. However, we also deal with other issues that are important to Alaskans (mining, boreal forests). The refuge is a big draw, though.
Q: Of these members who are residents of Alaska, how many of them actually live in or near the Refuge? Are there any Gwich'in or Inupiat people in your organizations?
A: Many of our members are involved with the Refuge, especially through work. Some of our members own guiding companies, or work for them. Other members work for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game--all of which do extensive work in the Refuge. We also work closely with an organization called the Gwich'in Steering Committee. This is the organization comprised of members of the Gwich'in Nation (in the U.S. & Canada) who are actively pursuing "wilderness" designation/protection for the Coastal Plain area in which the Porcupine Caribou Herd calve. We also have student (graduate and undergraduate) members that conduct research in the refuge.
Q: What kind of specific actions is your group taking in the ANWR issue? Besides requesting members e-mail/call their representatives in Washington, are you coordinating any activities in Alaska to raise awareness?
A: We actually travel to Washington, ourselves, on occasion, along with helping some of our members go there to meet with members of Congress. We coordinate local events in Fairbanks such as an annual "Run for the Refuge"--a 5k/10k run which culminates with a celebration of the refuge. We also sponsored Subhankar Banarjee's visit to Fairbanks this fall. He presented a slideshow of his work (he's the photographer whose exhibit was moved into the basement of the Smithsonian after one of his pictures was held up on the Senate floor during a debate over the refuge). We have articles in our newsletter about the Refuge and current actions in the area. Additionally, we do slideshows for organzations in town, or people visiting town. Next week I'll be doing an arctic education program with our local Girl Scouts. We work as part of the Alaska Coalition--an organization comprised of environmental groups throughout Alaska, and in Washington, DC to approach the refuge issue on a local, state and national level.
Q: Has there been any significant action taken against you group by the oil corporations or government?
A: No specific actions such as lawsuits or anything like that.
Q: If drilling is allowed in ANWR, will your groups drop the issue or continue to protest?
A: If drilling is allowed in the Refuge, I'm sure there will be litigation of some type (although there is nothing planned, at this time). There will have to be an Environmental Impact Statement done before drilling can begin. The EIS process requires public input, so we would definitely comment upon that. We don't even want to think about drilling happening, but if it does we will be right in there to make sure all environmental regulations are followed.
Q: How likely do you realistically think it is that the oil companies will be kept out of the 1002 area?
A: I think there is a lot of momentum behind the movement to keep oil companies out of the area. This is definitely a national issue and it is thanks to national attention and key Senators from states other than Alaska that we have kept drilling out of the Refuge thus far. It seems that this is more of a political issue than an actual wanting the oil issue.
Q: If your group had to accept a compromise solution with a limited amount of drilling allowed, what specific limitations would you put on the oil drilling?
A: You know I have to tell you that we wouldn't accept a compromise on this issue! In reality, if even a little bit of the Coastal Plain is opened for drilling it would essentially mean the whole thing would be open because it wouldn't be economical to only allow it in a small section on the western side. So, we don't want to see it opened at all.
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On Friday, I called and talked with representatives from three different Alaskan environmental groups. While an ice storm in Fairbanks meant that many of the offices were undermanned and not many of the head people were present at any of the groups, I managed to leave voicemails with the groups. I also e-mailed the groups and am expecting to hear back from them this Monday.
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Subhankar Banerjee - Wildlife photographer who spent his life savings to spend fourteen months in ANWR documenting the wildlife in all the seasons. His pictures are taken from a neutral perspectives, though they have been politicized by Senator Boxer in the March 8, 2002, debate in the Senate. They will be on display in the Smithsonian (w/ abridged captions) and in art galleries around the country.
These photos are the most recent photos of this "white wilderness" and show that there is biological viability in the land, contrary to what many of the corporations and pro-drilling groups argue.
Subhankar presented a slideshow and narrative at MIT last week, allowing us to question him about what he saw in ANWR.
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My next "mission" is to perform informational interviews with people involved with the state PIRGs and other environmental groups. I have already started compiling contact information but will be calling and e-mailing groups this weekend and early next week. Hopefully, these personal antecdotes will provide me with a more first-hand understanding of my topic.
I have finally found some environmental groups that are solely concerned with Alaska. These two web sites are maintained by two different groups who work together to prevent the "dirty four" (main oil companies) from drilling in Alaska. I found some of their videos and commentary to be very biased, but their reports tended to be very informative.
SaveTheArctic.com
A project of state Public Interest Research
Groups |
| HEART OF ARGUMENT: "You can't have development and wilderness—it's either one or the other. No matter how well done, oil development will industrialize a unique, wild area that is the biological heart of the Refuge." |
| ANWR is "the only unspoiled part of America's Arctic that we have left and deserves the highest level of protection." |
| "Drilling the Refuge would destroy a culture [Gwich'in] that has flourished for 1,000 generations in return for oil that would disappear in less than a single generation." |
| Also on this site are several good critiques and counterpoints to the typical pro-drilling arguments. These cite the facts that drilling a messy business, the oil found in ANWR won't reduce America's dependence on OPEC, and the jobs created by the industry will only be temporary. |
| This group is waging both a political and corporate campaign against oil drilling: |
| --POLITICAL: A broad and diverse coalition of religious, labor, environmental and investor groups is working together to protect the Refuge. A House-Senate conference committee has been appointed to reconcile the two energy bills [House one passed last summer, but Senate one failed by a 54-46 vote]. "The state PIRGs are urging the conference committee to go along with the Senate and keep Arctic drilling out of a final energy bill. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has said that the Senate will not accept an energy bill that includes drilling in the Refuge." On the site, the group also cites the fact that labor realizes this drilling will not create sustainable jobs, and so the labor unions do not support big oil. Also, the coalition between religion and environmental groups was also mentioned. |
| --CORPORATE: "As part of its efforts to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from environmentally devastating drilling, the state PIRGs are waging a corporate campaign against the oil companies—BP, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil and Phillips—pushing to open the Refuge to oil exploration. This action has taken the form of shareholder resolutions, reports documenting the dirty and dangerous track record of the oil industry, and human rights campaigns organized by the indigenous peoples whose lives are threatened by oil drilling." By increasing awareness about the issue, these groups caused 11% of BP's shareholders to vote in favor an environmentally-friendly resolution they drafted. The reports the state PIRGs have written on why oil drilling isn't even profitable for the oil companies are available, but the facts in them are not sourced. |
| Also on this site were some very biased media publications. These videos are definitely written from a green viewpoint: |
--The Arctic Video: Note how the video contrasts pictures of healthy wildlife and pristine wilderness on sunny days with shots of the oil industry disturbing and destroying nature on darker, dreary days. |
| --Captain Caribou: Definitely makes issue into clear-cut battle between the "good" environmentalists and the "bad" big oil companies. Very biased |
| This site has lots of information, but no sources for the information it contains. Like most other environmental sites, it suggests that people concerned about the issue write their representatives. To make this easier and more convenient, the site even contains a pre-fabricated letter that people can just sign and send via e-mail. |
Save
Alaska A project of the Alaska Wilderness
League |
| This site, which is apparently maintained by a Washington, D.C. based group, contains a lot of information about different environmental campaigns in ANWR. Their information on ANWR is suprisingly similar (if not identical) to the information presented in the PIRG site mentioned above. This shows that information and awareness about the issue is spreading because people are gathering information from pre-existing cites, phrasing it in their own words, and reposting it on the web. |
| Good maps of Alaska and the 1002 region are available on this site. |
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A classification of the current environmental movement:
| -Clinton's election after Republican control of the White House led many people to stop supporting environmental groups b/c they thought a more liberal position would be adopted. |
| -The environmental groups experienced a fundraising crisis and became dependent on foundation grants from such organizations as Pew Charitable Trusts, which meant they had to endorse the groups extreme, hard environmental line. |
| -The current environmental movement is therefore much more radical and less compromising than in 1992. |
| -If "the Bush administration push[es] for oil drilling in ANWR, environmentalists will so demonize the administration that the opportunity for decentralized demonstration projects will be lost." |
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Found some articles that argue against the environmentalists' positions, so I can now see where the weaknesses in their arguments lie. It seems that more people may support drilling in Alaska than support the environmental side of things.
| Fully 75% of Alaskans, including the 90,000 member Alaska Federation of Native Peoples, support the Bush energy plan of drilling in ANWR for oil. Labor unions, including Teamsters, also support the plan because of the many new jobs it will be bring. This site also contains a list of common "charges" brought by environmentalists against drilling and ten-second responses. Be warned that it is a Department of Public Policy Research web site and is therefore more biased than most; it is also from 2001. |
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| Local Alaskan groups who oppose drilling include the Alaskan Wilderness League and the Northern Alaskan Environment Center. |
| "Fair to say that opposition to ANWR oil exploration is one of those rare issues where you can find consensus among all or most environmental groups" |
Can reduce arguments down to three or four specific points: |
1) Amount of potentially recoverable oil is insufficient to meet any real oil shortage or reduce American dependence on foreign oil. |
2) Only trying
to preserve very small portion of Arctic wilderness. |
3) Alternative
and more environmentally friendly means of meeting United States
oil needs are readily available. |
4) "Wildlife
Refuges and wilderness areas are important biological, recreational
and scientific areas for the entire American public." |
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While looking for articles abut Alaskan environmentalists, I came across this article written by a member of The Independent Review. This organization is basically a group of intellectuals who do nonpartisan research on "hot" political topics. The article talks about how the fact that ANWR is a public land rather than a privately owned area is a big factor in the debates. My comments are in ( ) below.
| To Drill or Not to Drill: Let the Environmentalists Decide (Dwight Lee - Univ. of GA Economics Prof.) |
-Answering the question of whether "the benefits of the additional oil are really less than the costs of bearing the environmental risks of recovering that oil" is obviously a subjective matter. |
| -"We constantly make decisions that sacrifice environmental values for what many consider more mundane values, such as comfort, convenience, and material well-being. There is nothing wrong with making such sacrifices because up to some point the additional benefits we realize from sacrificing a little more environmental 'integrity' are worth more than the necessary sacrifice. Ideally, we would somehow acquire the information necessary to determine where that point is and then motivate people with different perspectives and preferences to respond appropriately to that information." (Exactly our mission for Terrascope!) |
| -Environmental action groups' statements and actual actions differ, and those actions often do not protect or preserve the wilderness. For example, the Audubon Society owns a wilderness area in LA known as Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary, and they have allowed oil companies to drill 37 wells on their land to raise nearly $25 million in royalties since 1940. This allows the Audubon Society to purchase other wildlife areas to preserve and protect, and it also means that the purchasers of oil and natural gas are protecting areas from further drilling. (Ironic situation to say the least.) |
| -Other groups, such as the Nature Conservancy, have also entered into mutual relations with oil companies. The big issue is what the value of the land they own is; if they see the potential benefits of selling drilling rights to protect more valuable areas, they will do so. |
| -Drilling in ANWR is different because the land is PUBLIC. If the environmental groups allow drilling, they gain nothing and lose an important wilderness area. |
| -"Environmentalists would immediately see the advantages of drilling in ANWR if they were responsible for both the costs and the benefits of that drilling." |
| -Meanwhile, such groups can capitalize on contributions by waging "righteous crusades against evil corporations out to destroy our priceless environment for shortrun profit." |
| -Evidence for lack of environmental damage from oil drilling is overwhelming: "light footprint," frozen roads (Cites argument from anwr.org) |
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I needed to find how many people really supported the environmental viewpoint. While I plan on calling some of the agencies I found to get some numbers and see how many Alaskans declare they are "environmentalists," I did come across a good summary of many of the polls that have been taken by various groups.
Results of National Polls on Drilling in ANWR*
Consistently, a majority
of people opposed drilling in ANWR during 2001 and 2002. Several
of the poll results are outlined below: |
| Wall Street Journal/NBC (2001) - 56% of Americans oppose opening ANWR and other federally protected lands to oil exploration, even while realizing that America may have an energy problem (More pronounced opposition in west). |
| CBS News/New York Times (2001) - Opposition to drilling for oil and natural gas in Arctic has strengthened. 57% (up from 50%) of Americans disapprove of drilling while 35% (down from 42%) approve. |
| Associated Press Poll (2002) - Asked Americans “Do you favor or oppose opening up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil exploration?"; 52% opposed while 38% approved. |
| New York Times Poll (2002)
- Asked Americans “Currently, drilling for oil and natural gas is prohibited in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Do you approve or disapprove of the proposal to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil and natural gas drilling?”; 55% disapproved and 39% approved. |
*Though this summary was compiled by an environmental organization, the polls themselves were conducted by mostly neutral organizations. The only bias that could legitmately occur is in choosing which polls to report, so the overall impression given by this data may be skewed.
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| 'Greens' and Churches Join Hands in Environmental Mission (Wall Street Journal) | ||||||
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Interesting video on polar bears in ANWR. This short, opinionated film was found on the Defenders of Wildlife web site.
While finding research on the different environmental groups in Alaska proved easier than expected, deducing what specifics the groups support was more difficult to discern. All the groups I found were privately funded and most were located in Anchorage or Washington, DC. The goals of all the groups involved some form of protecting the natural resources of ANWR, and most recommended writing representatives as the most viable course of action.
After our group restated its goals as specifically dealing with Alaskan environmentalists, I decided to organize my research in such a way as to effectively highlight the different local groups involved. I have done this by arranging my data into a table which highlights some of the specifics of each group, what actions they support, and where they are getting their funding from:
Alaska Conservation
Foundation (Anchorage, AK)
|
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Alaska
Forum for Environmental Responsibility
(Valdez, AK)
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Alaska
Wilderness League (Washington, DC)
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Alaska
Wildlife Alliance (Anchorage, AK)
|
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Northern
Alaska Environmental Center (Fairbanks,
AK)
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| Trustees for Alaska (Anchorage, AK)
|
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The Wilderness
Society (Washington, DC)
|
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Last Updated 11.29.03
web master: Matt Zedler (mzedler@MIT.edu) ________________team 10: m2007-10@MIT.edu
