Chat transcript
Read the transcript of our Tuesday, April 24, 2001 chat

News Release

Letters to Oil Companies:
BP Amoco | ExxonMobil | Chevron | Phillips

Biographies of the speakers:

Sarah James, a powerful Gwich'in woman, has been a voice for indigenous rights, human rights, and environmental issues for over 10 years. Since 1988 she has been a leader in the fight to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sarah's home is in Arctic Village, Alaska, the northernmost Native village in the United States. Gwich'in are caribou people, and much of their diet is based on wild caribou meat. The current proposal by the Bush administration to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil corporations for exploration and drilling will have adverse impacts on her community, including threatening caribou breeding grounds. Ms. James is a Board Member of the Gwich'in Steering Committee and the International Indian Treaty Council, member of the Arctic Village Council.

Human Rights attorney and environmental activist, Oronto Douglas, is co-founder and deputy director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria. He was a member of the legal team that defended writer, environmental activist and Nobel prize-nominated Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged along with eight others, by the Nigerian military regime in 1995. Douglas is an outspoken critic of Shell, Chevron, and other transnational oil companies for their ties with the Nigerian military and their policies leading to environmental and cultural devastation.

Bios are courtesy of corpwatch.org.

Chat Transcript from Tuesday, April 24, 2001

Welcome to our live chat with Sarah James and Athan Manuel.

Q: With the current energy crisis in California, shouldn't we be doing everything we can to ease the burden of energy costs for American consumers?

Athan Manuel, Director of the PIRG Arctic Wilderness Campaign: The USGS estimates that any oil recovered from the Arctic will not be available for at least ten years. The drilling will not have any impact on oil prices in the foreseeable future. Oil and gas prices are determined by global supply and demand factors - not the presence of absence of an individual field. Consider the history of Prudhoe Bay.

In 1976 - the year before the nation's largest oil field entered production, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil sold for $12.65 and standard gasoline averaged $0.59 per gallon. Two years later, with Prudhoe Bay adding more than a million barrels per day to domestic supply in 1978, WTI had increased by more than 15% (to $14.85 per barrel) and gasoline averaged nearly $0.63 per gallon.

During the next two years, as Prudhoe production increased, oil prices skyrocketed to $37.37, while gasoline nearly doubled, to $1.19 per gallon. In 1985, with Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk both operating at full throttle, a barrel of WTI sold for more than $28.00 per barrel and gasoline averaged $1.12 per gallon.

Q: What about the argument that new technology allows for more environmentally safe drilling - the so-called "small footprint"?

Manuel: Big Oil claims that new technology allows them to drill and leave behind only a small footprint. But their track record demonstrates that there is no such thing as a small footprint. When it comes to oil drilling the footprint is more like that of Godzilla's on a small, unassuming Japanese town.

Some of examples of Big Oil's so-called small footprint: In the last three months BP Amoco has been responsible for three oil spills in Prudhoe Bay.

On Sept. 23, 1999, BP Amoco pled guilty to a federal felony connected to illegal dumping of hazardous waste at their Endicott Oil Field near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. As part of a plea agreement BP Amoco agreed to pay $22 million in criminal and civil penalties. In 1995, the BP subcontractor working the Endicott Field was found guilty of illegally injecting hazardous waste back into the groundwater. The subcontractor was ordered to pay a $15 million fine for violating the Clean Water Act.

On Average there are more than 400 oil spills a year in Prudhoe Bay, that is one spill every 22 hours!

Q: I've heard that the caribou like the Pipeline, and that their population has increased near Prudhoe Bay?

Manuel: A member of Congress that recently visited Prudhoe Bay said looking at caribou there is like looking at them in the zoo. And while the population may have gone up slightly, caribou birth rates at Prudhoe have fallen recently. A DOI study concluded that drilling in the Refuge would harm up to 40% of the Porcupine River caribou herd.

We know that drilling in Prudhoe Bay has harmed local bear and muskoxen populations. No matter which animal we're talking about, drilling will not enhance its habitat or quality of life.

Q: What impact are shareholders having on stopping drilling?

Manuel: There is a history in the U.S. going back to the Vietnam war of shareholders pushing their companies to be more socially responsible. A more recent example is the anti-apartheid campaign. That is why we are urging shareholders of BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Phillips to push their companies to respect the rights of the Gwich'in and cancel all drilling plans for the Arctic Refuge.

Q: Ms. James, oil executives have often touted the fact that the decision about drilling in the Arctic will be done in the most democratic fashion - debate in the U.S. Congress. Do you feel that your people's views will be accurately represented by the elected officials in Washington D.C.?

Sarah James: No, we think that any kind of oil development or new technology in the Arctic is not safe for the porcupine caribou birthplace, we do not have faith in the congress, we are the people who are closest to the caribou and their way of life and we know what will affect them. People thousands of miles from for the caribou do not know as well as we do.

Q: I've heard that people in Alaska actually support drilling in the refuge. Why shouldn't we just let them decide?

James: The state of Alaska has been solely dependent of oil development, and as prices go up or down they change their mind. They need to look more long term. Oil development is a short term benefit for the companies not the Alaskans. There are 200 hundred villages in Alaska and at least half of them have realized what is at stake in the long term. The truth has not been told to the villagers, and they have only heard from the oil company, but now more and more they are realizing what is at stake. We need more alternative energy sources.

Stephanie, Activist
Q: What kind of track record do these oil companies have with indigenous peoples?

James: Even though they have never drilled in our land, we know what their motives are. They act like they are all the same. There have been oil spills, one a couple weeks ago, ones that aren't even reported, and their record is not good over all.

Manuel: Chevron has a very bad track record in Nigeria, especially using Nigerian Army forces to evict protestors from oil rigs and drilling facilities. For more information please see PIRG's Dirty Four Report.

Q: Why should this not be decided just by the Federal or Alaskan government?

James: This is human rights verse oil and they are currently ignoring our existence. We are not going anywhere and the creator put us there to take care of that part of the world and so far we have done a good job. This is our last stand. We are unified since 1988 and we have gathered every 2 years to reaffirm our position and the support for preservation is only getting stronger!

Q: Ms. James do you think your people's voice will be heard by these four corporations?

James: The corporations have all of the voice and they have no way to displace the current board of directors who are currently trying to control our fate. The corporations have tried to divide the indigenous population in Northern Alaska, but it is now quite obvious that there is no trust in this process until out lands are preserved. We are going tomorrow to the Chevron annual meeting for stockholders, but we are skeptical of their ability to have any dialogue with us.

Q: Ms. James, the Inupiat people have come out and said that they do not oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Their culture is similar to yours in terms of its subsistence nature, and a close connection the environment. Why would they endorse drilling?

James: They do oppose offshore drilling, which we support, but they do not support protecting the Refuge. They receive a lot of money and new technologies in return for the money they have received for Prudhoe Bay. They have a certain lifestyle that they have become used, and they seem to want more. On a grassroots level many of the Inupiat oppose drilling, but the ones who control the Arctic Slope Regional corporation support drilling in the refuge.

Thanks for participating in this web chat. Check out the Captain Caribou video, and please write your member of Congress urging them to support the preservation of the Arctic Refuge.