Resources Review
We'll have a lot resources issues on the table next session. From the oil tax questions to fish, and water to otters, I'm studying up.
Ten days ago, the Department of Natural Resources did a briefing on North Slope oil & gas fields. Have you ever been on that conference call where the presenter keeps forgetting people are on the phone and points to the screen to make their points? And every other question you have to break in and ask who was speaking? I STILL learned a lot about the geology (and I'm following up on the stuff I couldn't track.)
Then last week I heard from experts and had some fascinating conversations at the Resource Development Council conference. Two of the most interesting were about where economies and communities overlap. Many resource developers talk about a "social license"—the need to engage with a community and increase local input and support for a project quite separate from getting air and water permits. But former Juneau resident (now NANA vice president) Lance Miller went beyond that. He suggested developers think about whether their projects serve a "social purpose." That means planning resource development in ways that benefit Alaskans and our state over and above profit from extraction. Working in the mining industry, he suggested several he sees, from making renewable power possible to infrastructure for residents. It wasn't the central focus of his talk, but his idea set a lot of minds working.
I was still mulling it over when I talked with a woman from Norway who was there as part of an Arctic Economic Panel. A number of Europeans talked to RDC about the future of the pan-Arctic ocean economy—from Russian oil extraction to new shipping routes, renewable power to the rapid expansion of fisheries in the Arctic and the global economics of it all.
It's really valuable to get an outsiders' view on Alaska. Some of the Norwegians clearly see Alaska as having a classic colonial economy—where non-local interest owners extract things of value for export and exert disproportionate impact over local decisions. Where the military is an outsized portion of the economy, and conversations are steeped in the idea of being 'exotic.' One Scandinavian pointed out it's very rare for colonized places to change that basic structure. It takes conscious, sustained effort.
I see the need to diversify our economy—and continually expand Alaskans' control over our state—as key to Alaska's future. That means investment in education, in infrastructure, and in means of self-sufficiency like renewables. It means while resource extraction will stay important, it can't be the only thing we invest in.
Long before I met him or interned in his office, Ted Stevens once argued Alaska's most valuable resource in the future should be enriched minds. It's time to really pursue that vision. It will bring us value-added seafood, software, and I-don't-know-what-else That's the point: We can't know what comes next, so we need smart people with the tools to take advantage. It's hard to see that in a legislature focused on budget cuts, but we have to find the way.
