The bill was originally introduced in the late 70s as the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act designed to lock up ANWR by declaring it “Wilderness” lands as defined by the 1964 National Wilderness Act.  The bill would effectively prevent any development or exploration within the 10-02 Area and impose strict usage rules on the land.  Instead of passage of the original HR.39 in the 70s, Congress passed the ANILCA bill in 1980 which expanded ANWR to its current size and created 3 distinct zones within those new borders.  These zones comprised of an 8 million acre “Wilderness” zone permanently off limits to development, a 9 million acre “Refuge” zone, also permanently off limits to development, and a special 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain zone nick named the 10-02 Area, which was designated as an area set aside for the study of oil and gas exploration.  This 1.5 million acre 10-02 area is the target of Markey’s bill and would effectively incorporated the 10-02 area into the central 8 million acre wilderness zone to the south. 

HR. 39 has been resurrected by Rep. Markey almost symbolically every new Congress but has never stood much of a chance to pass.  It is a straight up vote on ANWR and because the ANWR issue has always had a majority support in the House it continually failed.  Markey, who is strongly backed by the environmental lobby, expects his bill to do much better with the new Democratic majority of the House, Senate and Presidency.  However single subject bills still have a difficult time of passage on any issue due to the ease at which members can chose ways of blocking bills with little political cost.   Newly elected Senator Begich (D) of Alaska has said an anti-ANWR bill will pass “over my dead body”.  The option to filibuster such a bill is very real in the Senate. 

There are over 58 million acres of land in Alaska designated as “Wilderness” already and off limits to all motorized or mechanical activity including bicycling.  Many of these lands are used by Alaskan natives for subsistence hunting yet because they are unable to use snow machines on these lands natives are left unable to subsist on them.  This would be the case of the Inupiat natives of Kaktovik who subsistence hunt for caribou within the 10-02 Area of ANWR.  Markey’s bill would effectively ban the right for Kaktovik natives to gather sustenance on their traditional tribal lands.  To add to the complication of this act is the fact that 110,000 acres of land within the 10-02 Area is the private property of the Kaktovik Inupiats.  Wilderness designation by Markey would effectively ban use of these privately held lands thus bringing a constitutional rights question into the debate.

Click here to view information and a review of HR. 39.