One of the most storied lands in our nation’s National Wildlife Refuge System is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. President Dwight Eisenhower began the bipartisan legacy of protecting this wondrous area for future generations of Americans when he set aside 8,900,000 acres as the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter continued this bipartisan legacy by expanding the Arctic Refuge and designating much of the original refuge as Wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Those areas of the Refuge designated as Wilderness are permanently protected from oil development and other harmful activities.

However, not all 19.6 million-acres of the Arctic Refuge are protected as Wilderness: part of the Coastal Plain of the Refuge, also known as the “1002 Area,” totaling 1.5 million acres, is outside the Wilderness boundary. To permanently protect all of Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge, Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN) introduced the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act, HR 39.

HR 39 will “preserve the Arctic coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, as wilderness in recognition of its extraordinary natural ecosystems and for the permanent good of present and future generations of Americans”. This Act designates the “1002 Area” of the Arctic Refuge’s Coastal Plain as a component of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

The senate equivalent to HR 39 is the Arctic Wilderness Act (S 2316) which was introduced into the senate by Senator Lieberman (CT-I) and 25 original senate cosponsors. This is the largest number of original cosponsors this legislation has ever received.