149 



Testimony for the Hearing Before the 

 U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 



August 15. 1992, Fairbanks, AK 



Dr. Donald D. O'Dowd, Chairperson 

 Arctic Research Commission 



THE CHALLENGE AND THE OPPORTUNITY 



The United States is an Arctic nation, yet most American people do not think of 

 Arctic Alaska as a part of the United States in the same way that they think of the 

 distinctive geographical regions of other states. 



People, however, live in the U.S. Arctic - and have lived there longer than 

 anywhere else on the continent. Moreover, the economic dependence of the United 

 States on Arctic mineral and living resources is increasing. Twenty-six percent of U.S. 

 domestic oil production is currently extracted from the Alaskan North Slope, 

 representing 1 1% of the total national petroleum usage. The Bering Sea offers one of 

 the richest fisheries in the worid; nearty 28% of the total U.S. commercial catch and 

 10% of the worid's supply of fishery products are obtained there. A zinc/lead mine 

 that has the potential of becoming the worid's largest began operations in northwest 

 Alaska in 1990. U.S. coal reserves north of the Arctic Circle may exceed the total 

 resen/es of the entire lower 48 states. Deposits of strategic minerals in the U.S. Arctic 

 are abundant, but their extraction is not yet economical. 



In tiie new Russian Republic over half of the land area is arctic and subarctic 

 and much of this landscape is underiain by various forms of frozen ground. 

 Economic development of the Russian North has been their government's objective 

 for many years, and huge quantities of oil, gas. minerals and timber have been 

 extracted from the north. The current extraordinary political changes occurring in 

 Russia have made two facts dear to the West. First the long-term economic and 



