Political Quotes

“The decision to allow oil and gas development in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife has significant impacts on our effort to make a success of the very directive of Congress in ANCSA. Our self determination is at stake. It is fundamentally unfair, dishonest, and potentially unlawful to deny us the right to see our land and the small area of the Coastal Plain opened to exploration of development. Congress made a deal with our people and we have tried hard to play by the rules. Now it is denying us that progress. By locking up ANWR, the Inupiat people are asked to become museum pieces, not a dynamic and living culture. We are asked to suffer the burdens of locking up our lands forever as if we were in a zoo or on display for the rich tourists that can afford to travel to our remote part of Alaska. This is not acceptable. The Inupiat of the North Slope have lived and subsisted across the Arctic for thousands of years.”