Forty-ninth state of the United States, known for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
“Seward’s Folly” no longer has a place—if it ever did—in the lexicon as a nickname for Alaska, given the actual and potential reserves of Alaskan oil and gas, not to mention the abundance of coal. The oil field at Prudhoe Bay, discovered by Atlantic Richfield in 1968, has the potential productive capacity of 10 billion barrels—twice as much as the next-largest field ever found in the United States, that of East Texas in 1930. As of 2000, the oil output of Alaska equaled 20 percent of the nation’s yield.
During the global oil boom between 1973 and 1985, Alaska gloried in its oil revenues—so much so, in fact, that its legislature abolished the state’s income tax in 1979, when oil prices neared their peak.
At the same time came the wrangling between oil companies and environmentalists over the proposal to build a pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope 789 miles to the port of Valdez. In support of this objective, a consortium of oil companies formed, known first as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and then as the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. The companies in the consortium saw the proposed pipeline as the most desirable way of solving a major problem—transporting the oil from Prudhoe Bay to distant markets.
Environmental activists protested the plan. They forced the national government to implement the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which called for an impact statement to precede the issuance of permits. A federal district court upheld this initiative by environmentalists when it forbade the secretary of the interior to issue the necessary permits.
The legal battle continued from August 1972 through April 1973, and in April 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a court of appeals decision, which delayed further the issuance of permits. At the insistence of environmentalists, the court of appeals had applied a provision of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, which limited rights-of-way across public lands to widths of 50 feet. The oil companies wanted widths up to three times that distance.
Congress then intervened. After a period of protracted debate, a bill finally cleared the Senate, then the House. Signed by President Richard Nixon in November 1973 under the title Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, it permitted construction—the result being the completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline by 1977, which constituted an economic boon.
For the future, Alaska looks to further development of its petroleum resources, the mining of metals, tourism, and overseas trade with Asia as bases for prosperity. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the administration of President G. W. Bush stepped up efforts to gain support for its proposal to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, but the Senate rejected the measure April 18, 2003. New initiatives have been proposed to drill on Native American lands, but their future remains uncertain.
