WASHINGTON - Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) wrote to Interior Secretary Jewell today asking that she finalize the Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and include a recommendation that the pristine coastal plain be designated as wilderness to protect the biological heart of the refuge from oil and gas exploration and drilling. In November 2011, more than 70 members of the House and Senate wrote to then-Interior Secretary Salazar asking for a wilderness designation recommendation for the coastal plain in the CCP.
“We must permanently protect the pristine wilderness of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," said Rep. Markey, the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Natural Resources Committee. “The Interior Department issuing a management plan for the Refuge that recommends a wilderness designation will help ensure that we protect this special place for future generations."
Reps. Markey and Fitzpatrick are also the bipartisan cosponsors of legislation, H.R. 139, to permanently protect the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge by designating it as wilderness. “We introduced this legislation to protect this special area that is the biological heart of the Refuge, to honor our agreement with Canada on the protection of the Porcupine caribou herd, to protect the subsistence lifestyle of the Gwich’in people, who depend on the herd for their survival and consider the Coastal Plain of the Refuge to be “the sacred place where life begins", and to formally recognize and protect the Coastal Plain as America’s most spectacular wilderness," they write in the letter.
They also point out that renewed calls for surveying activities in the Arctic Refuge would be illegal without additional Congressional action. A 2001 memorandum by the Interior Department Solicitor prepared for Secretary Babbitt in response to a letter from Rep. Markey made it clear that any new surveys or drilling must be authorized by Congress.
