Resource Development Council: statewide group for governor's bill to boost production.

• Author: Barbour, Tracy
• Position: Associations

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Resource Development Council for Alaska Inc. has a history that stretches back more than 35 years. It was originally formed as the Organization for Management of Alaska's Resources in 1975. After three years of working to obtain a trans-Alaska oil pipeline, the organization assumed the RDC appellation to reflect its broader agenda of education and advocacy on all resource issues in Alaska.

Today, the statewide nonprofit links a variety of interests together to encourage a strong, diversified private sector in Alaska and expand the state's economic base through the responsible development of its natural resources. RDC is comprised of individuals and companies from Alaska's oil and gas, mining, timber, tourism and fishing industries, as well as Native corporations, local communities, organized labor, industry support firms, financial institutions, utilities, land and air carriers and many other entities.

RDC's current membership includes 250 companies, many of which have thousands of employees that are also members of RDC. It also has about 190 members at the individual level. These members all work together under the slogan: Growing Alaska through Responsible Development.

MAJOR ISSUES

The primary concern for RDC's members, regardless of industry, is the ongoing decline in the output of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, according to RDC President Tom Maloney. "TAPS is now running at one-third capacity in what I would call a self-induced production decline," he says. "Although 17 billion barrels of oil have been produced in Alaska over the past 35 years, at least 40 billion barrels likely exist in the Alaska Arctic. More than half of that quantity is in the federal offshore and most of the remaining oil is in federal onshore areas such as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Meanwhile, there are an estimated 5 billion barrels remaining to be produced in State producing fields and an additional 2 billion barrels in known or possible State fields."

Tapping into the federal oil will require access to highly promising federal areas such as the outer continental shelf, Maloney says. However, gaining entrance into these areas is currently hotly debated in Washington, D.C., and environmental groups have launched a wave of litigation to prevent exploration. Yet, the long-term sustainability of TAPS and Alaska's economy will largely depend on some combination of oil production from...