115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

A New Ocean in the North: 

Perils and Possibilities 

OCTOBER 5, 2017 

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

Washington: 2018 
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

202–225–1901 

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm 

Legislative Branch Commissioners 

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners 

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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A New Ocean in the North: 

Perils and Possibilities 

OCTOBER 5, 2017 

Page 

PARTICIPANTS 

Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe .............. 1 

Julie Gourley, Senior Arctic Official, U.S. Department of State ................................................ 2 

Iina Peltonen, Embassy of Finland in the United States ............................................................ 5 

Rear Admiral Michael F. McAllister, Commander, 17th Coast Guard District, U.S. Coast 

Guard ........................................................................................................................................... 7 

Melanie Bahnke, President and CEO, Kawerak, Inc. .................................................................. 10 

Mark Smith, CEO, Vitus Energy ................................................................................................... 14 

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A New Ocean in the North: 

Perils and Possibilities 

October 5, 2017 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

Washington, DC 

The briefing was held at 3:32 p.m. in Room G11, Dirksen Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC, Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation 

in Europe, moderating. 

Panelists present: Paul Massaro III, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and 

Cooperation in Europe; Julie Gourley, Senior Arctic Official, U.S. Department of State; 

Iina Peltonen, Embassy of Finland in the United States; Rear Admiral Michael F. 

McAllister, Commander, 17th Coast Guard District, U.S. Coast Guard; Melanie Bahnke, 

President and CEO, Kawerak, Inc.; and Mark Smith, CEO, Vitus Energy. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, thank you all for coming today. Good afternoon, ladies and 

gentlemen. Welcome to today’s briefing on Arctic infrastructure and environment. My 

name is Paul Massaro, and I am the policy advisor for economic and environmental issues 

at the Helsinki Commission. I’d like to thank the Senate Arctic Caucus, Senate Oceans 

Caucus and Congressional Arctic Working Group for co-hosting this event with the 

commission today. 

The Arctic is a topic of increasing interest to the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe, or the OSCE. This organization has a mandate to monitor economic and environmental issues within this region, which includes all eight of the Arctic 

nations that make up the Arctic Council, the primary international forum for discussion 

of Arctic issues. It is the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, however, that has been most 

active on the Arctic and the OSCE context. This assembly has a special representative 

on Arctic issues and has passed resolutions dealing with the Arctic in the past at a 

number of its summer meetings. 

The Arctic is clearly a region of growing global importance. It is resource rich and 

looks to become a route through which goods can be transported more efficiently. It is also 

a region of enormous biodiversity and environmental importance. As the Arctic gradually 

becomes more accessible, so do our opportunities to reap the benefits of its sustainable 

development. Our briefing today will examine the importance of the Arctic to U.S. policymakers both for its economic viability and environmental implications. In addition, it will 
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analyze the challenges we face in playing a leading role in the region and unlocking its 

economic potential. 

We are grateful to have such distinguished panelists with us today. I look forward 

to hearing your thoughts on this developing issue. First, we have Julie Gourley, who was 

at our last briefing as well, who joins us from the State Department. Julie is the current 

United States senior Arctic official, a position she has held since 2005. She is also the 

primary U.S. representative to the Arctic Council, where she manages the State Department’s Arctic Council portfolio and helps forward U.S. foreign policy interests in the 

region. 

Following Julie, we have Iina Peltonen who joins us from the Finnish Embassy to 

the United States, where she is an external economics officer. In her current position, she 

works on Arctic issues, focusing specifically on the environmental and energy issues. 

We’ll then hear from Admiral Michael McAllister, who is the Commander of the 17th 

Coast Guard District. He is responsible for Coast Guard operations throughout Alaska, 

which include protecting life and property, enforcing federal laws and treaties, and preserving living marine resources. His knowledge of the U.S. Government’s engagement in 

the Arctic will be beneficial to hear. 

Next we have Melanie Bahnke, who joins us from Alaska. Melanie is the president 

and CEO of Kawerak Inc. She is a tribal member of the native village of Savoonga and 

is a passionate advocate for Native American rights in Alaska. 

Finally, we will hear from Mark Smith, the CEO of Vitus Energy and a third-generation Alaska resident. He began as a deckhand with Smith Lighterage in 1973 and eventually purchased the family business in 1987. Since selling the original company, Mark has 

been active in Alaska’s energy and transportation industry. We will conclude with Q&A 

session. 

I’d like now to give the floor to our first panelist, Julie Gourley, who will discuss the 

State Department’s outlook on the Arctic and our role in the region’s development. Julie, 

the floor is yours. 

Ms. GOURLEY. Thank you, Paul, for inviting me back to the Helsinki Commission. It’s 

nice to be here. 

This is a great topic, and it’s a nice time to talk about it a little more in-depth now 

that the United States has passed the Arctic Council chairmanship on to Finland, and 

we have a little more space to think and breathe now and think deeper thoughts about 

the Arctic. 

So about infrastructure, which is a particularly interesting topic in that region—a hot 

topic right now—it’s getting a lot of attention in the Arctic Ocean, frankly, as everyone 

in this room probably knows, because the ocean is much less frozen than it used to be, 

and the ice that is there is thinner, and it’s easier to break with ice-strengthened ships. 

So that means there’s more stuff going on in the Arctic Ocean than in modern human 

history. 

When any of us would sit around talking about infrastructure, you would normally 

think of roads and bridges and telephone lines, and the electricity grid, and pipelines and 

so forth. And that’s stuff we take for granted. But the state of infrastructure in the Arctic 

is very different from that, and very much less robust. 

So, for example, with diminishing sea ice, shipping in the Arctic Ocean is starting 

a little bit of an uptick. Which does not mean that the Arctic Ocean, which has a couple 
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of very famous shipping routes—the northern sea route over Russia and the northwest 

passage over Canada—are seeing anywhere near the level of shipping that the rest of the 

world is. But with respect to past shipping patterns, especially in the northern sea route, 

there is quite a bit more activity. 

But there’s very little infrastructure in many parts of the Arctic—in Alaska, in 

northern Canada, in the northern Arctic regions of Russia and in Greenland—to actually 

support large-scale commercial shipping in the Arctic. For example, there are very few 

deep-water ports. And there’s certainly a lot of talk about developing one in Alaska, possibly in Nome. I think our Kawerak will probably talk about that a little bit more. The 

main one that is the most familiar to people is the one in Murmansk, Russia. And the 

rest are the bulk of the deep-water shipping capacity and port capacity is along the Arctic 

coast in Russia. 

For another thing, highway and railroad infrastructure is sparse in those same areas. 

Now, I’m not talking about the five Nordic countries, which are a completely different 

situation. But certainly in Alaska, Canada, and Russia, again, there’s not a lot of road 

or highway or railway infrastructure to support deep-water ports, which means that 

there’s not really any ability to support commercial-scale container shipping. So the shipping that is going up a little bit, certainly a lot for the northern sea route but not a lot 

compared to the rest of the world, is mostly bulk shipping—for example, gas hydrates 

going from the Barents Sea around over to China. 

Russia is actively marketing the northern sea route, north of its Arctic coastline, as 

both a shorter route between Europe and Asia, and a safer one that’s free of piracy and, 

at least for now, the traditional kinds of criminal activity, like human smuggling and 

arms trafficking and drug trafficking, and so forth. Although the number of voyages in 

the northern sea route has actually increased quite a bit in the last decade, the shipping 

activity is still very insignificant compared to the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, which 

are sort of the main shipping lanes that the northern sea route is sometimes compared 

to, and that people are looking to as a model for the future of shipping in the northern 

sea route. But I think people like Caitlyn Antrim in the audience know that that’s way 

in the future. 

So the infrastructure situation is quite a bit different in the Nordic states, the five 

Nordic states, where just this week, actually, there’s been new interest in building an 

Arctic Corridor Railway that would connect Northern Europe with Russia’s Arctic deepwater ports, and it would eventually connect to the China Belt and Road initiative that 

you may have heard about. But the idea—and maybe Iina will know something about 

this—is that it would connect Rovaniemi, Finland with Kirkenes, Norway, a port city on 

the Barents Sea, and then tie into other deep-water ports along the Russian coast, and 

then eventually tie in with China, which would give China much more direct economic 

ties to the Arctic than it has now. 

So with respect to economic development, in recent years there’s been a lot of focus 

on that in the Arctic region, again, because the sea ice is melting and the permafrost is 

thawing and things are opening up in that part of the world. Things like offshore oil and 

gas development, cruise tourism, deep seabed mining, perhaps commercial fishing one 

day, in addition to deep-water port development and commercial shipping, which is why 

plans like the Arctic Corridor Railway are starting to be made. 

Another critical area of infrastructure in the Arctic is intel communications, and 

that’s not something people normally think about when you think about infrastructure, 
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especially in the Arctic where you’re immediately thinking about ports and ships and 

roads. The lack of telecommunications infrastructure in the Arctic is why we, in the 

United States, initiated new work in that area in the Arctic Council during our recent 

two-year chairmanship period for the Arctic Council. And Finland has taken it over. So 

it’s continuing on these next two years under Finnish leadership. 

I’ll say just a little bit about that. Many telecom technologies are already in use today 

in southern parts of the Arctic. And those kinds of technologies vary based on the user 

needs. The communications over the northernmost part of the Arctic north—way north, 

way up and into and over the ocean—are only possible with limited capabilities, such as 

radio and satellite technologies. But that’s kind of all there is up there now. 

So as a result, it’s important to note that no single technology alone will meet all 

the telecommunications needs in the Arctic. The solutions to the connectivity gaps around 

the Arctic will vary along with the needs of the end-user community. And that is exactly 

what’s going on right now in the Arctic Council—our two years looked at sort of the whole 

infrastructure picture and the enormous gap that is in the Arctic. And now we’re looking 

more at who the end-user community is, who the individual end-users might be and what 

their actual needs are. 

For example, there are fiber optic cables being laid in parts of the Arctic. I think 

people in this room probably have heard about the Quintillion Project that’s, I think, going 

from Japan over to England and around through the Bering Strait and over the northern 

part of Alaska, which is allowing Alaskans to tap into this fiber optic cable and, for the 

first time ever, be able to have broadband in the northern areas, in Barrow, for example. 

It’s pretty exciting. It’s a real game changer for northern Alaska that fiber is actually now 

being laid in the water and they’ll be able to tap into it. 

The purpose of the Quintillion Project is mainly to link the financial markets in 

Europe and Asia through the much shorter route, which will—even though it’s in milliseconds of time that are saved—the timeliness of connectivity between the markets is 

huge for financial markets. So that’s the main purpose for this cable being laid. But of 

course, it has this added benefit of being able to provide a lot more connectivity in the 

Arctic. 

But as they’re installed, opportunities like that will happen. The satellite industry 

is doing the same thing, and looking similarly to the Arctic for new constellations. I think 

the Iridium constellation, which is quite old and has been up there for a long time is one 

of the companies that is looking to the Arctic and I believe is also working with the IMO 

on search and rescue capability through satellite technology. So there’s broadband, and 

there’s satellite all being built up on the Arctic now. 

With the increase in shipping traffic, there’s also a demand for on-board telecommunications services for business needs, such as navigation aids and data transfer 

and vessel tracking. There are also customer needs onboard ships, such as for email and 

internet access. So with increasing ship traffic, there will continue to be increasing 

demands, not just for commercial capabilities, but for search and rescue backup and support to offshore development activities. 

Search and rescues, in particular, is another area the Arctic Council focuses on, and 

the needs therein. And not only in Coast Guards practicing and keeping fresh in how to 

operate in that environment, but also how to take advantage of existing telecommuni-
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cations, which are pretty thin up there, but which will be improving as time goes on and 

as this task force and the Arctic Council continues. 

So I’ll stop, but the bottom line is really that economic development can’t happen in 

any significant way without supporting infrastructure. And that’s really why it’s one of 

the very main topics, one of the top, top topics being talked about in the Arctic right now. 

And infrastructure itself is a form of economic development. So it sort of has this double 

benefit in the Arctic. And in a region like that in the world, where there’s very little infrastructure now, of creating jobs by its very creation and also creating jobs by being in place 

and supporting other kinds of human activity. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Thank you very much, Julie. It’s always so exciting to hear you 

speak. I love this idea of an Arctic Corridor Railway, especially how it connects with the 

One Belt One Road initiative of China. One of the things I also focus on at the commission 

are the OSCE Asian partners. And all of the Asian partners are very concerned, to say 

the least, about China’s project. At least, they’re paying very close attention to it. And 

also this idea of the milliseconds saved for financial markets. This is the kind of thing 

that really got me into Arctic issues to begin with, is these exciting types of projects. 

On another note, I wanted to let everyone know that we are expecting Senator Sullivan to drop by at some point and make a few remarks. I’d ask that panelists take a 

short pause when he comes in. He’s running a very tight schedule and we’d be very 

excited to have him come speak shortly. With that, I’d like to hand it over to Iina. 

Ms. PELTONEN. Great. Thank you for the invitation to this event. And this is a great 

opportunity to contribute to this discussion as a representative of the current chairmanship of the Arctic Council. I’m just so happy that you are keeping the Arctic on the 

agenda, because we think that the Arctic is, nowadays, more important than ever for all 

of us, because what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic, as our president says. 

Well, first, I would like to say a couple of words about the background of Finland 

and the Arctic. Well, of course, because Finland is located in the Arctic region, the Arctic 

is obviously an important region for us. And it’s not only regional issue, but it’s a mindset 

of viewing for all of us. And about the Arctic Council, the whole genesis of the Arctic 

Council goes back to Rovaniemi, a city on the Arctic Circle in Finland. Almost 30 years 

ago the first ministerial meeting of the Arctic countries, focusing on environmental protection in the Arctic led to the Rovaniemi process, and eventually the establishment of the 

Arctic Council 1996. 

Well, in Finland we have been actively working on our national Arctic strategy in 

the past few years. And the key areas in that strategy, they are ranging from foreign and 

the EU policies, Arctic know-how and business, of course, sustainable development and 

infrastructure, for instance. Finland is, at the moment, the chair of the Arctic Council, 

but also of the Arctic Economic Council. But I’m going to focus on our chairmanship in 

the Arctic Council. 

Well, now having assumed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from the U.S. in 

Fairbanks in May, our mindset and minds are even more concentrated on the Arctic, more 

than usual. And we appreciate a lot the achievements of the U.S. chairmanship. And we 

are happy with the very smooth transition. And continuity is the key word in the work 

of the Arctic Council. And we would say that a Finish chairmanship is like a continuation 

of the U.S. chairmanship. Of course, not in every detail, but in many issues. 
6 

But now we are doing our best to guide the Arctic cooperation forward as a region 

of peace, stability, and constructive cooperation. And that spirit is also reflected in the 

title of our chairmanship program: Exploring Common Solutions. And as I said, for us, 

the Arctic is not only a regional issue, but something that is very intimately linked with 

the fundamental questions of global order, common challenges and solutions. This is why 

our chairmanship program also refers to two major international milestones of the past 

years—the Paris climate agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. And they 

form an umbrella under which therefore stated priorities of our chairmanship. And now 

I’m going to tell you a little bit about them, one by one. 

First, there’s environmental protection. That’s our first priority. And environmental 

protection has been the core of Arctic cooperation from the very beginning. It is directly 

reflected in the health of the ecosystem and human well being. And if you will allow a 

clumsy idiom in this context, the Arctic is very much like the canary in the coal mine 

of climate change, like an early indicator of where we are headed globally. We have, of 

course, now the current discussion on the Paris agreement here in the U.S. But for us 

Finns, and also the EU, the implementation of the Paris agreement remains extremely 

important. We think urgent action on mitigation and adaptation is really needed. And all 

common solutions we are able to find in the Arctic. They really are going to be helpful. 

If I mention one concrete example of this work, Finland is currently exploring practical 

ways to reduce especially black carbon emissions. 

And another priority is connectivity. This is directly a continuation from the U.S. 

chairmanship. And the same priorities are also in the work of the Arctic Economic 

Council. And as Julie said, well-functioning communication networks and services are a 

lifeline for human activities. And it is also needed for economic development. The Arctic 

is no exception in this. As I said, we continue the Arctic Council’s work on this and 

explore ways to enhance the connectivity and availability of program services in the 

Arctic, together with the indigenous peoples, local communities, the private sector, and 

researchers. Of course, this includes all technologies, meaning satellite connections and 

cables, for example. 

And our third priority is meteorological cooperation. And this is something really 

under the auspices of the Arctic Council. We think improved cooperation in meteorological 

research, observation and services are highly valuable in many sectors, not least in maritime transportation and public safety. Getting better data coverage and better forecasts 

will improve our ability to manage climate and water-related risks and benefit us all. And 

of course, we work closely with the World Meteorological Organization with this. And it 

will probably not hurt that the director-general of WMO is currently a fellow Finn. 

And then our fourth priority is education. And education is something we Finns value 

very highly. It is also an essential building block in sustainable development, and also 

local involvement. We find creating fair educational opportunities improve the resilience 

of local communities and the region as a whole. We want to make sure that all children 

in the Arctic have access to and will receive a quality education. In this work, we emphasize teachers and their work. Therefore, Finland already proposes to strengthen the network of educational specialists, in cooperation with the University of the Arctic. Developing modern teaching methods will be at the core of this effort. 

And in addition, it has something to do also with Julie and you, colleagues, when 

you go to the Arctic Council meetings. I just want to mention that Finland also decided 

to arrange all the Arctic Council meetings in an environmentally friendly way. And that 
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means in practice that Julie and her colleagues, they don’t have any paper meeting material, for example. They just have to eat or they also have some local food, as much as 

possible. And there’s no unnecessary transport. And actually, in Finland these environment-friendly meeting arrangements are not so familiar either. So the ministry for foreign 

affairs of Finland and WWF Finland, they developed together guidelines for this. And this 

is something new also for us. 

But in the end, as I said, those four priorities are our themes. And if you want to 

read our chairmanship program, this is also an environmental-friendly thing that we don’t 

have paper copies, but you can scan the QR code here and download it from the internet. 

And you can find it in Finnish, Swedish, English of course, and Russian, and Sami 

language. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you very much, Iina. And I too am a huge fan of low paper 

events. I know our communications director is here. Perhaps we can try out a barcode 

thing in the Helsinki Commission in the future. It’s very exciting technology. Well, thank 

you so much for going through your priorities, Finland’s priorities, for the Arctic Council 

chairmanship. And very happy to hear that we have so much in common. Should be an 

exciting chairmanship. 

Admiral McAllister, the floor is yours. Thank you. 

Adm. MCALLISTER. All right. Well, good afternoon, everybody. I’m going to talk a 

little bit on infrastructure needs from the perspective of the U.S. Coast Guard and how 

we work in the international or global environment to address civil Coast Guard-related 

missions, given infrastructure constraints. 

So just as a quick introduction, I’m honored to lead about 2,500 Coast Guard men 

and women in Alaska that work in the U.S. Arctic providing safety and security and 

environmental protection, of what we call stewardship operations, really around the clock, 

every day of the year. 

And I’m going to continue this theme of discussion about infrastructure, but I’m going 

to stretch the definition a little bit, because when I looked it up in Dictionary.com the 

definition I got was underlying foundation or basic framework as of a system or organization. That’s pretty broad. But it gives me an opportunity to talk about things beyond just 

traditional physical infrastructure and public works. So I’m going to talk a little bit about 

things like informational infrastructure, mobile infrastructure, shared and collective infrastructure, and governance and policy as infrastructure concerns. To try to keep it within 

bounds, I’m going to talk specifically about infrastructure as it relates to increased maritime traffic, which Julie described in her remarks. 

Let me start with the strategic perspective a little bit. There have actually been a 

lot of strategic-level studies that list infrastructure needs, things like the White House’s 

national strategy for the Arctic region. The Committee on Maritime Transportation and 

Security did a 10-year prioritization of infrastructure, which was a very good work. The 

Coast Guard has its own Arctic strategy, which lists infrastructure needs that are relevant to an organization like the Coast Guard. And then the Council on Foreign Relations 

put out a bit recently on Arctic imperatives reinforcing U.S. strategy on America’s fourth 

coast, which talks a lot about infrastructure needs as well. So this is not necessarily a 

new body of work. We’ve been thinking about these things for a long period of time. 
8 

And there’s some commonality amongst all these different strategic works, things like 

deep water or safe harbors, search and rescue capabilities, oil spill capabilities, communications, what we call maritime domain awareness, navigation and bottom mapping or 

hydrography. But if you put all together, it’s a very long list of national needs. And it 

will come at great national expense. So it’s important for us to prioritize, to identify what 

needs to be done first in order to provide for safe and secure uses of the Arctic. I was 

at an event recently, and I believe it was Senator King from Maine who said, this is necessary work as the Bering Strait—you know, that is the narrow waterway between Alaska 

and Russia—becomes one of the most strategic places on Earth with the increasing traffic 

through the northern sea route and northwest passage. I think it’ll be many years before 

we see that come to fruition, but certainly the trends are all in that direction. 

So what are our infrastructure needs in the U.S.? What should our priorities be? And 

how do we work across nations to get there? I’m going to provide you my thoughts as an 

operator, a practitioner, using the Coast Guard’s Arctic strategy framework. 

The first thing that we need and are working on trying to get is informational infrastructure. And primarily from a Coast Guard perspective, that’s what we call maritime 

domain awareness, knowing what’s going on out there. And our general model for gaining 

and using maritime domain awareness is we collect it, we fuse it, we analyze it, and we 

disseminate it. And there are shortfalls, really, in all of those. 

Julie has already mentioned things like satellite shortfalls. And there’s some great 

work being done out there, both on the government side and on the commercial side, to 

put additional satellite capability into polar orbits. And you know, just as an example, 

we, the Coast Guard, are now working through our Department of Homeland Security to 

put small satellites into space to help improve the detection of emergency position indicators for search and rescue, as an example. And so it’s an exciting world ahead, but there’s 

very little capability there today. About 4.7 percent of the U.S. Arctic bottom—the ocean 

bottom—is mapped to today’s standards. And so the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Association [NOAA] is using all of its resources, along with Coast Guard resources, 

commercial resources, to try to get them on a path where they can do accurate mapping 

for more of the U.S. Arctic. 

As Iina said, environmental sensors are a big issue for us. Just as a kind of a data 

point, the weather and ice forecasts that we get in the U.S. Arctic typically are good for 

about two to three days, whereas in the lower 48, Washington, D.C. as an example, 

they’re accurate for about five to seven days. Just the lack of sensors in the region makes 

it more difficult for us. And I would certainly tell you that weather is more important 

in the U.S. Arctic, where everybody attempts to work around the weather constraints in 

order to operate. 

Vessel tracking: We use automated identification systems, but those only apply to 

large vessels, so we can’t necessarily track well small vessels. And that’s a gap that we 

need to fix in our maritime domain awareness. And then there’s human sensors as well, 

trying to gain the traditional knowledge of members of coastal communities and include 

that in our work. We need to be able to fuse that through some sort of common operating 

picture. And we need decision support tools in order to take all this information—a vast 

amount of information—and make good decisions from it. 

But it doesn’t end with decision making at a government level. We need to be able 

to disseminate that information and tailor it to individual users. And I think Iina had 

mentioned that as well. You know, I can share it with Coast Guard ships, but it really 
9 

needs to be shared with commercial fishermen. It needs to be shared with masters of vessels who are on long voyage routes. It needs to be shared with subsistence hunters so that 

they can use this information in a way that helps them perform their missions, their 

duties, their activities in a safe and secure manner. I’ll argue that governance is an important part of infrastructure as well. There’s been some progress made on commercial vessel 

safety, as an example, with the release of the polar code recently. And frankly, we already 

work pretty well across nations to harmonize some different rulesets that we have. 

So as an example, when the cruise ship Crystal Serenity, which was the first really 

large cruise ship to go through the northwest pass, first proposed their route, we worked 

side-by-side with the Canadian Coast Guard and with Transport Canada, their equivalents to the U.S. Coast Guard—to ensure that the rules that we were going to apply to 

ensure that that ship made that transit safely were harmonized between the two countries. And at the end of the day, it was frankly Canada that had the more conservative 

or more stringent requirements that led to all of the safety features—or many of the 

safety features that the Crystal Serenity put in place in order to ensure that that inaugural cruise was going to be as safe as it possibly could be. So that’s how we work across 

governments to take the highest level of safety and security that we can manage together. 

We’re doing a variety of other things. I know Melanie is probably aware of this, as 

is Mark, but we’re trying to manage our waterways in a smart manner as well, because 

only a small percentage of waterways are mapped accurately. For example, we recently 

set up a safe transit route through the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, and into the 

Chukchi Sea. It’s a route that has been surveyed. And we told folks: If you stay inside 

this route you can be assured that you will have good, safe water, and that you are 

avoiding conflicts with subsistence activities, with migrating marine mammals, as an 

example. And so it’s a route that addresses many different concerns in the best possible 

way. We’re about to present that through the International Maritime Organization for 

their consideration, and then it will become a global set of recommendations. 

There was some mention of fisheries. Actually, there is viable commercial fishing 

going on in the U.S. Arctic. It’s actually at the state level. Salmon is a commercial 

fishing—it was exempt from that particular moratorium. But it just demonstrates how 

commercial fishing is a sustainable activity in the Arctic. And so we need to bring the 

right governance structures to ensure that that can be managed in a sustainable way. 

It’s good to have good governance, to have good policies, but you also need effective 

presence. And this is where the kind of traditional infrastructure and hardware comes in. 

We in the Coast Guard use a mobile infrastructure approach. We send ships, we send aircraft, we send people during open water seasons into the Arctic to ensure that we have 

a good presence. They are providing the nation’s sovereign presence. They’re visible and 

they’re out there and they have law enforcement capability, they have defense capability. 

And they’re the United States flag in our exclusive economic zone, on our extended continental shelf and our territorial seas. 

With the recent discussion on ice breakers and recapitalization of ice breakers, those 

ships will allow us to conduct Coast Guard missions throughout the year in any ice conditions. So that’s an important capability for us to have. Unmanned systems are being 

tested and offer great promise as well. And then there’s the supporting infrastructure. 

Communications was something that Julie mentioned. The ability to stage and receive 

ships, even if it’s on an emergency basis, speaks to the need for ports. Don’t necessarily 

need to be transshipment ports, but they need to provide some level of services. 
10 

And then let me finish up with partnerships. And Iina mentioned this as constructive 

cooperation. And for the Coast Guard, partnerships are important. We need to be able to 

pool our resources to respond to significant events. So as an example, recently we conducted an exercise called Arctic Chinook. It was done under the Arctic Council Search and 

Rescue Agreement. And it focused on a cruise ship incident where the cruise ship was 

many hundreds of miles from the nearest hub city. And it involved transporting people 

from the water to shore, taking care of them on shore, moving them to a hub community 

where they could get some level of first aid, and then onward movement to a metropolitan 

area where hospitals would be able to get the advanced aid. 

One of the capabilities that we demonstrated there was something called an Arctic 

Sustainment Package. Again, in a remote area you might not have landing strips. You 

might not have anybody there. The Department of Defense dropped tents, pararescuemen 

with EMT or first aid capability, vehicles, on the beach. And they were able to provide 

the first level of care for people who were in an exercise term, injured during this particular event. Canada has these Arctic packages. The U.S. has some of them. And really, 

if there’s a cruise ship event out there, we’re going to need all of them working together. 

And so it was actually a pleasure to have the Canadian Air Force participate in that exercise with us. We had observers from Russia. I believe we had some from Finland, Norway, 

and, of course, Canada. 

And I would be remiss if I didn’t say an important part of our partnerships is about 

tribal engagement. Anything that we do in terms of infrastructure needs to be respectful 

of our tribal interests. And, as Julie had said, it needs to provide an opportunity for 

sustainable economic development from a local perspective as well. 

In closing, I’ll offer that infrastructure is necessary. We do need to think more 

broadly about it. It’s not just about the public works. And we need to establish this infrastructure, particularly for maritime safety, security, and environmental protection, in 

advance of need. And that may be hard. That’s a catch-22 because a lot of people are 

reluctant to do it until they see the traffic. So the catch-22 is the traffic—it needs to precede the traffic. And that partnerships will remain critical to our achieving our collective 

goals. 

Thanks very much. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, thank you very much, Admiral McAllister. I particularly like you 

quoting Senator King. It’s for those reasons, the Bering Strait becoming the most strategic 

area in the world, things like that, that the commission staff felt it necessary to hold a 

briefing like this. It seems like this issue is emerging very, very quickly. And in fact, 

although you say—and I completely agree—that we need to establish this sort of thing 

in advance of need, we’re already behind in many aspects on what is needed. 

So with that said, I’d like to turn it over to Melanie Bahnke. Thanks so much, 

Melanie. 

Ms. BAHNKE. Thank you, Paul. 

Distinguished leaders and guests, thank you for the opportunity to join you today. 

It is an honor to share our people’s infrastructure priorities in the Arctic. I am Melanie 

Bahnke, originally from St. Lawrence Island, located in the center of the Bering Strait, 

where you really can see Russia from our houses. I serve as a president and CEO of 

Kawerak, a consortium of 20 Federally recognized tribes representing our region’s 15 

communities. Kawerak has twice convened leaders from our communities to identify prior-
11 

ities related to a changing climate and the increase of shipping through the Bering Strait. 

That input is what informs my testimony today. 

The U.S. is an Arctic nation. And for us, the Arctic is our homeland. The ocean’s 

abundance of marine life has sustained our communities for thousands of years, and we 

intend to be here for the next 10,000 years and beyond. We are witness to one of the 

largest marine mammal migrations on Earth. The well-being of our communities as we 

live our native ways of life is entirely dependent on our marine ecosystem. Change for 

us is constant. The impacts of colonization have had lasting impacts on our communities. 

The reality of our climate and ecosystem changing and increased shipping in the Arctic 

adds another layer of urgency to ensure that we native people do not become an endangered species. 

For the U.S. to ensure that our value system as a nation and the rule of law drive 

the future of the Arctic, it is imperative for the U.S. to prioritize and prepare for engagement with the people of the Arctic in a very real and meaningful way. I would like to 

remind this commission of the U.S.’s special relationship with its indigenous communities, 

as defined by our history as a nation and the body of Federal Indian law that makes up 

our relationship as Federally recognized Indian tribes. It is the responsibility of our 

leaders in Washington honor and uphold that government-to-government relationship that 

we share. 

With that in mind, I have several recommendations and thoughts for your consideration. Number one is basic human needs. Our hearts go out to the states and the territory 

of Puerto Rico whose communities were devastated by natural disasters. We all understand the Federal Government’s role in repairing infrastructure when this occurs. This 

same level of responsibility exists for government to bring infrastructure to areas of the 

U.S. in places where it is nonexistent. Some of our communities are, just like people in 

Puerto Rico, obtaining drinking water from streams. Many indigenous communities in the 

Arctic still lack the most basic infrastructure that is enjoyed throughout the rest of the 

U.S., namely water and sewer and adequate housing stock. 

I would like to express appreciation to the agenda that Finland has outlined as it 

takes over chairmanship of the Arctic Council. The focus on the implementation of the 

Polar Code, as well as the well being of our Arctic communities in the areas of health, 

water, energy, and infrastructure is good news to us. Let me shed some light on the very 

real human issues with the lack of community infrastructure that we face in our region. 

The population in the Bering Strait region is roughly 10,000, with continued growth at 

10 to 20 percent every decade. Over 20 percent of the homes in the region are overcrowded, with multiple generations or multiple families living under one roof. Some families sleep in shifts due to the limited floor space and overcrowded homes. 

Too many homes are dilapidated, substandard and unfit for the Arctic environment. 

My home community of Savoonga faces the highest overcrowding rates of any census area 

in Alaska, 61 percent. These are statistics that we are not proud to share, because for 

us these are not statistics. They are our family members and extended family. Five 

communities in the Bering Strait region remain unconnected to running water and sewer. 

One in three infants require hospitalization in communities without running water and 

sewer. As a developed nation in the world, this reality in the United States Arctic is, for 

us, unacceptable. It is where the rubber meets the road. 

President Trump has zeroed out funding to address what we call a silent sanitation 

crisis in rural Alaska. We have requested a congressional hearing to examine water and 
12 

sewer regulatory issues through the Alaska Federation of Natives, and look forward to 

working with members of our delegation on that front. We also look forward to engaging 

in knowledge sharing across the Arctic to address our common challenges. 

Number two, erosion, natural disaster preparedness mitigation and response. The 

Governor of Alaska has on more than one occasion declared disasters in our region due 

to extreme weather events. The lack of shore ice protection, compounded by changes in 

the weather that brings extreme winds, is resulting in erosion of our coastal communities. 

Five communities in our region are listed as being in imminent danger. Infrastructure is 

needed to protect these communities from literally falling into the sea. Disaster preparedness mitigation and response mechanisms are needed. And this requires investments in 

infrastructure. For some communities, relocation is the only option. 

Number three, oil spill preparedness and response. While I would like to commend 

the Arctic Council’s work on oil spill preparedness and response, we remain very concerned at the community level that we have yet to prepare and train for such an event. 

Commandant Zukunft of the United States Coast Guard clearly expressed at an Arctic 

naval conference this summer that it would be impossible to recover from an oil spill in 

the Arctic environment. His words are very concerning to us, and we appreciate his honesty, as we are aware that oil exploration will continue under Russian waters and as the 

Trump Administration explores opening U.S. offshore exploration. 

Our communities are on the frontlines. And in the event of an accident happening— 

whether it’s a shipping accident from a tanker transporting petroleum materials or the 

risks that may occur with exploration—we urge the United States to make an investment 

in preparing our communities to respond. During the Cold War, the Alaska Territorial 

Guard served as the eyes and ears of the United States, ready to serve when asked. Men 

from our rural communities in Alaska continue to serve in the U.S. military at higher 

rates than any other ethnicity in America. 

I would like to suggest the establishment of an Arctic Territorial Guard that perhaps 

is embedded with the U.S. Coast Guard with a specific mission to ensure ship to shore 

communications occurs and that our local community members are training and prepared 

for oil spills and other disaster response. We can no longer be in a position just hoping 

nothing goes wrong, given the nearest Coast Guard assets are several thousand miles 

away. We need an ongoing commitment to work with and ensure that we’re prepared at 

the community level. 

Number four, transportation systems. The Arctic is in need of a deep-draft port and 

harbor system. The increased shipping through the Bering Strait is a reality, not just a 

projection. We lack a deep-draft port that has been developed. Our communities are accessible only by small aircraft and summer barges. We lack a ferry system. The U.S. used 

to provide a barge, the North Star, to provide basic necessities to rural Arctic communities. A supplement to the Bypass mail system is needed to provide equity in the cost 

of living and doing business for Arctic communities, one that takes into consideration 

reducing the cost of shipping heating oil, gasoline, and building materials, for example. 

Intermodal transportation systems must be funded. 

Number five, hunter safety and access. Among our primary concerns with an 

increased presence of commercial traffic through the strait is the safety of our hunters, 

as well as the safety of our marine mammals. While the Coast Guard and NOAA have 

identified necessary improvements that the U.S. must take, it is imperative that these 

systems are funded and developed to facilitate real-time communication between vessels, 
13 

our communities, and hunters. Internet connectivity will be enhanced with the upcoming 

Quintillion fiber optic cable implementation through the Bering Strait region. But current 

plans only include connecting a few hub communities, such as Nome. Our other coastal 

communities are in need of enhancement to allow connectivity with the rest of the globe. 

Ship-to-shore communication infrastructure from the Bering Strait to the Canadian 

border is needed. An investment in our local communities to provide information to 

passing traffic on ice and for information sharing between hunters and larger vessels is 

needed. The use of drones, managed by our communities, can inform both communities 

and ship traffic to reduce the potential of conflicts. Ultimately, we must continue to work 

with the shipping industry, with regulators and our Russian neighbors to establish 

marine mammal avoidance protocol during the fall and spring migrations. Kawerak has 

published subsistence-use maps as a first step. However, additional research is needed to 

develop baseline information about the natural resources in the Arctic. We recommend 

establishing an Arctic research facility located in the Bering Strait region so that development in the Arctic is informed by science and local knowledge. 

Number six, economic development opportunities. The increased shipping in the 

Arctic brings with it the opportunities for economic development. Our rich natural 

resources and culture can provide a window to jobs and a path out of poverty. As people 

who bear the most risk, our people should also stand to benefit from economic development opportunities in the Arctic. Government can help by providing the startup resources 

and technical expertise to facilitate sustainable development opportunities, including 

tribal enterprises that create eco tourism facilities and other economic development 

opportunities. The cruise ship Crystal Serenity has twice voyaged through the Arctic. Our 

tribes could benefit from a hand up, not a hand out, to boost economic development in 

this poverty-stricken region. We want to be participants in the global economy, but this 

will require investment by both the public and private sectors. 

In closing, while the Bering Strait is considered an international strait, which all 

ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage which shall not be impeded, the 

region is our homeland where Inupiat, Siberian Yupik and Central Yupik communities 

have lived for thousands of years. We inherently have the right to live our way of life 

and urge that this shall not be impeded. President Trump revoked President Obama’s 

executive order, 13754, that provided for a level of protection and formalizing engagement 

with our communities in the Bering Strait on the issues of natural resources protection, 

erosion, and preparing for increased shipping and the need for infrastructure in our 

remote communities. We urge this Congress to take action, restoring Executive Order 

13754. And if this is not possible, at least be informed by our work on the order as you 

prepare for policymaking in the Arctic region. 

The Arctic is our homeland. In the Bering Strait, the U.S. and Russia are neighbors. 

We are family, separated by national borders and the international dateline. It is my hope 

that leaders of the Arctic nations that define the boundaries of the Arctic remember that. 

We are communities that neighbor each other in an extreme environment. And if Arctic 

infrastructure is to be responsibly developed, it will take partnerships internationally and 

locally. The First People of the Arctic must be afforded participation in this process. 

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to share infrastructure priorities from the 

perspective of indigenous people whose homeland is the Arctic. [Speaks in a native language.] 
14 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, thank you very much, Melanie, for coming all the way here from 

Alaska today and for a very real picture of what’s going on in these Arctic communities. 

I’d like now to hand the floor of to Mark. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. I’d like to have some good provocative discussion here in the Q&A, so I’m going to rush through my points because here 

at the tail end a lot of folks have touched on the points that were also in my remarks. 

Just a brief background; my great uncle was in the original gold rush, and from 

there, followed the economy down to the red gold in Bristol Bay, and was part of the 

salmon industry. And that’s where I grew up, in the family homestead in Bristol Bay, part 

of a tug and barge company that really got its start in the fisheries business, and then 

as the Federal Government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs specifically started investing 

in basic schools and other village services, the U.S. Post Office came in, that was the 

origin of the family company. So a lot of the transportation businesses that got started 

really were through a Federal infrastructure investment. 

So from the private sector, you know, my punch line and my remarks will basically 

be driven down to the fact that as a pioneer state we really look to the Federal Government to help us provide a lot of the basic infrastructure that provides safety and economy. 

And that economy is with better ports and with sharing infrastructure development that 

is done on a sustainable and local business. 

Just starting off with some of the needs, the Arctic does need basic shipping services, 

as relates specifically to the private sector and international shipping. There is very little 

that we see coming across the northern route and the northwest passage that has anyplace to stop. Even the Crystal Serenity that you mentioned does not have a port it can 

go to. It has to anchor offshore. So if there is any true trouble or any needs for repairs 

or anything in an emergency basis, that ship actually has nowhere to go. Literally, once 

it gets up to Barrow it’s 1,000 miles from the nearest place where it can tie to a dock. 

So that’s sobering, as I think everyone looks at the international aspect of shipping. 

From a more local level, my company serves the communities that Melanie was referencing. And it is, it’s—I’m going to say—a third-world situation, where there are no 

improvements. We literally hit the beach with tank barges to offload fuel and other vitals. 

And I’m sure that Admiral McAllister knows that if you talk to anyone in the civilized 

world about running a tank barge ashore, they’ll scream and say how that can be. But 

in Alaska, that’s a necessity. And we have to build and accommodate, and we have to 

watch the weather, and we have to have very specific local knowledge in our captains to 

be able to do that safely. 

Another point is that just as far as seeing any other repair services for us, again, 

we’re literally 1,000 miles. So if we have a major repair that we need to do to any of our 

vessels, it is about a 20-day round trip out of the arena. So we’re looking for the Federal 

Government to possibly put in a major port where we can get a cluster of services that 

will ultimately reduce our costs of operating in the environment and reduce, in turn, the 

cost that the villagers in the Bering Sea area have to pay for such services. 

The second topic I wanted to touch on is how these projects happen. And typically, 

in contracting, a project will be put out and bidders will bid on it, and we’ll have what 

we would call an outside contracting firm come in, provide the infrastructure, bring in 

all of the parts, the pieces and the labor to do that infrastructure, and then leave. And 

ultimately, that’s probably the most cost-effective way of doing infrastructure develop-
15 

ment, but it’s probably not the best way for Alaska, because we want to include those 

people that provide services on a local level to participate at a higher level. So if we can 

do infrastructure development in more of a slow-motion and ultimately get to the point 

where we have a satisfactory product, it will have a much more impactful benefit on the 

local level than we do when we go through traditional contracting routes. 

This ties into the second point I have as far as being sustainable. And as a private 

sector individual, I want to see healthy communities, communities that have growth, 

communities that have hope, and where investment is made. And again, that only is going 

to happen if we have improvements in infrastructure—even maintenance of infrastructure 

that has been put in historically and yet still needs improvement. 

This is also part of the oil and gas experience. We saw Shell come in and put nearly 

$7 billion into northwest Alaska. And the truth is, my company literally didn’t see a dollar 

of that and that’s, to me, quite remarkable because everything that happened with Shell 

that came in, and that tremendous amount invested, as Melanie mentioned, there’s 10,000 

people in the Bering Straits area, how many people, again, didn’t see a dollar of that 

development. I think that there is a variety of things that we can do as a government 

that can help make sure that when we do have infrastructure development, that we do 

have resource extraction, that there’s some way for more benefit to the local communities. 

A final point—again, mainly addressed to the Polar Code and the other vessels that 

will transit our area and our Arctic—we need infrastructure to just comply with the Polar 

Code. A couple of the items that are notable is just making sure that there’s no waste 

discharged overboard in the Arctic, that we have a place to pump slop tanks—again, 

things that are usual for port services in the civilized or developed world are not available 

in Alaska. So we see vessels that come into port and they have an expectation of what 

those port services are and they just literally don’t exist. 

One of the things that both public, private, state and municipalities can do is to start 

developing those basic infrastructures that allow vessels transiting there to comply with 

some of the regulations that are currently being adopted for the Arctic. 

A final note on charting. I appreciate the admiral hitting on charting. I love to get 

on a soapbox and talk about NOAA. NOAA does a good job of doing very high-definition 

charting, but what they tend to avoid is actually the most critical part of Alaska navigation, and that is the transit between the ocean and the coastal communities. So we have 

good ocean charting, but very poor charting at the interface between the coast and the 

ocean. So river entrances, those areas where we need to transit, where we need good data 

when we deliver fuel to Savoonga, for example, we need to get as close as we possibly 

can to literally float hose across the surf line and into the community. And those are the 

areas that NOAA tends to avoid. They have actually said they don’t care about anything 

less than 4 meters in depth. And my response is, I don’t care about anything greater than 

4 meters of depth because we operate shallow-draft equipment. 

There’s a lot of things that we would like to communicate from Alaska to the folks 

here in Washington and others that make decisions about how money gets spent and what 

it’s focused on in Alaska. I, again, look forward to questions. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, thank you so much, Mark. 

And Mark and Melanie, thanks a lot for bringing a local perspective in here. Obviously, the Helsinki Commission generally sees things from a foreign policy direction and 
16 

that’s the impetus for me behind this as a foreign policy guy. But I think one thing that 

I definitely got out of both of your testimonies is that the foreign policy and the domestic 

policy are very much intertwined in this case in a huge way in that Bering Strait area. 

With that in mind, let’s enter that robust Q&A question that you talked about, Mark. 

Let me begin with a question and then we’ll open it to the audience. That question is 

about something that has been mentioned by all of you as sort of a side entity and something, of course, that is very central to the commission’s work, and that is the Russian 

Federation and their investment in the Arctic. 

I guess we all know, from a Coast Guard perspective, that Russia has an enormous 

fleet of icebreakers. We know about the Northern Sea Route Administration which escorts 

vessels in that area, sometimes without really giving them a choice, and all sorts of other 

stuff. They’ve made major investment in that area. And I was wondering, and maybe let’s 

start with Julia and anybody else that would like to comment on this—what implications 

does that have for U.S. infrastructure development in the Arctic and for the infrastructure 

development in the Arctic of other Arctic nations? 

Ms. GOURLEY. Well, that’s a good question, Paul. I can’t help but think that the more 

activity is happening in Russia, the more it will sort of incentivize the other Arctic coastal 

states to invest in the region, too. 

But it’s not always, I guess, clear, so Russia puts out its intentions and how far it’s 

actually going to be able to go. I mean, investing in the Arctic is extremely expensive and 

the Russian economy is not as great as it once was. So there are great intentions and 

great plans, but I guess we’ll see how far Russia can actually go with it. They certainly 

do have a much larger icebreaker fleet than we do. And Admiral McAllister knows that 

better than anyone. 

I think it’s probably a good thing on the economic development side that Russia is 

investing a lot and it’ll probably end up helping the other countries along and sort of 

moving the ball forward. But on other fronts, geopolitically speaking and militarily 

speaking, I wouldn’t even venture a guess. 

Admiral McAllister may be able to speak to that more. 

Mr. MASSARO. Iina, would you like to say anything to that? We’ll just move down the 

line. You can so no, by the way. [Laughter.] 

Ms. PELTONEN. I’m not going to say no. 

Mr. MASSARO. That’s what I like to hear. 

Ms. PELTONEN. As you know, Finland is located next to Russia. 

Mr. MASSARO. Right. 

Ms. PELTONEN. And we are used to living with our neighbors the last more than 70 

years also peacefully, and hopefully the next years are going to be even more peaceful. 

Well, we are seeing that any economic investments in the Arctic areas in Russia are, of 

course, very good investments. And as Julia said, it is very expensive and we all know 

the Russian economy is not in the best position at the moment. And the Arctic Council 

is still doing some projects in Russia because the infrastructure in the Arctic areas in 

Russia, they are quite old and they are also not so environmentally friendly. So we are 

not worried. 

Mr. MASSARO. Well, if Finland is not worried, then it must not be that big of a 

problem. 
17 

Ms. PELTONEN. Yes, we are absolutely going to continue our constructive cooperation 

in the Arctic Council with Russians because while the Arctic Council has been the international forum where all the Arctic states have done very constructive cooperation all 

these 21 years now. And we are going to continue, hopefully continue and try to explore 

solutions to continue that cooperation. 

Mr. MASSARO. Fantastic. 

Admiral McAllister, would you like to comment? 

Adm. MCALLISTER. Russia has actually been making investments in a variety of different areas that are of interest to us. As an example, they’ve been investing in LNG ships 

that are ice class, capable of moving LNG year-round in any ice condition. And they’ve 

obviously been investing in military capabilities. They’ve already got an extensive ice 

breaking fleet and they’re expanding that fleet. They’ve been investing in research. We 

see research vessels not only from Russia, but from a variety of countries that are in the 

Arctic. Many of those the Department of State permits because they cooperate and 

research to do work in the U.S. exclusive economic zone. 

We should look at this activity for its opportunities, not necessarily any threats that 

it might pose. As an example, with the increasing Arctic traffic of all types, the Coast 

Guard recently reached out to our Russian counterparts in the Marine Rescue Service 

that does oil spill response and we asked them if they’d like to update the 1990 agreement 

that we have between the United States and Russia called our Joint Contingency Plan, 

and they jumped at the opportunity, said yes, we should update it and we should exercise 

it. And so we’re on a track to be able to exercise that. It’s a bilateral agreement between 

the United States and Russia, because as more traffic moves through, whether it’s on the 

Russian side or the U.S. side, the oil doesn’t care. If spilled, it’s going to end up in both 

our nation’s waters and we need to be able to work cooperatively to both prevent that 

from happening in the first place, and if it does happen to be able to respond. 

So we look at a lot of the things that are happening there as opportunities to leverage 

the cooperative relationship we have with Russia and many of our civil missions. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great, thanks so much. 

Melanie, would you like to say anything to that? 

Ms. BAHNKE. From an Alaska Native perspective, where we’re totally reliant on our 

marine mammals, the marine mammals and the currents also don’t care about our geopolitical boundaries. And we need to find the balance between development with disregard 

to the environment versus locking everything up. 

And on the U.S. side, we might develop all of these wonderful regulations to protect 

our environment, but we have no control over what’s happening on the Russian side. And 

so as tensions between the United States and Russia heighten, we’re concerned that 

opportunities for cooperation become diminished. We saw an international Search and 

Rescue Agreement developed. With the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement, it’s 

concerning because we’re unsure of how we’re going to make sure that the marine mammals that cross the geopolitical boundaries are protected, the natural resources are protected, but also that we develop responsibly. 

I think joint investment in infrastructure in the Arctic by the Arctic nations is an 

avenue that should be explored. We talk about how many icebreakers Russia has like we 

have to make sure that we’re competing with them, but why not cooperate in the shared 

use of these icebreakers, for example? I think that’s an avenue where there’s potential 
18 

for the Arctic nations to come together and talk about co-investment in infrastructure in 

the Arctic. 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you. 

Mark, you got anything for that? 

Mr. SMITH. I do. But again, not to spend too much time, I have the pleasure actually 

of leasing a couple of Russian tankers, of bunkering in the Russian Far East. And I have 

to say that my dealings with the Russian companies have been very straightforward. And 

as we look right across, and I’m delighted to hear Melanie’s perspective as well, there literally are divided families. The Bering Sea is actually a community, and if it wouldn’t 

have been for the Cold War, I’m sure we’d be much closer. I’d love to see more open trade 

with our folks and much more open communication. 

We have an entire market there where we do much of the same thing. The Russians 

actually do a few things better perhaps than we do in serving some of their ports. They 

certainly are more supportive with their icebreaker fleet. So I’ll just echo there that there 

is a reason behind some of the icebreaker fleet along with the fact there’s a very material 

part of our entire energy reserves that are above the Arctic Circle. And as we continue 

to consume petroleum over the decades, we’re certainly going to see a lot more development and ice breaking and Arctic experience are going to play heavily in that. 

Mr. MASSARO. Yes, go ahead, Admiral. 

Adm. MCALLISTER. I did want to add in, I think all of us have talked about the Arctic 

as a place of cooperation, and I certainly think that’s true. I will tell you, from a regional 

Coast Guard perspective, I actually meet with my Russian counterparts routinely on fisheries management, particularly high-seas illegal fishing, oil spill response, search and 

rescue—the Arctic Council sponsored an exercise, Russia participated in that as well—and 

on managing our waterways, as Melanie mentioned. The submission that we’ll have to the 

International Maritime Organization on our waterways suggestions may actually be 

jointly sponsored by the United States and Russia. So there’s actually good cooperation. 

But with the global political situation as it is, the U.S. needs to be able to protect 

its sovereign rights. I think that’s where this icebreaker issue comes in; you can’t protect 

your sovereign rights during an era of cooperation or an era of conflict if you don’t have 

access to the region, and icebreakers provide you that access. And whether that access 

is for civil missions or defense missions or research or some other future need, it provides 

you the critical access that the mission needs. 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you. 

Oh, Iina. 

Ms. PELTONEN. Well, now I’m speaking as a representative of Finland, not a representative of the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, but we are taking all these arctic 

issues very seriously. And we have actually a couple of solutions with the icebreakers. 

[Laughter.] I just want to mention we need this LNG-powered icebreaker in two years. 

It costs $150 million. And we are ready to cooperate with the U.S. 

Mr. MASSARO. Is this a sales pitch? [Laughter.] Right here before your eyes! Great, 

great, well, thank you so much, Iina. 

Questions? 

Go ahead, please. 
19 

QUESTIONER. My name is Caitlyn Antrim. I’m with the Rule of Law Committee for 

the Ocean, and I got interested in the Arctic because we wanted to know who owns what 

and who has to negotiate with who. 

I’ve had a particular interest in the Russian development of their Arctic bases. I’m 

not talking from a security perspective, but being able to put 125 people throughout the 

winter in a place where they aren’t crowded together, where they can actually live an isolated but normal life, whether something like that could provide a needed presence on the 

Arctic coast, provide service for helicopters if they’re needed, a staging area for emergencies, public health, other government services, and a place for situs from NSF projects. 

I haven’t heard anything of that concept being discussed in the United States, but looking 

at what Russia did makes me think maybe we should. 

And I’d like to hear more about that possibility from an American infrastructure 

point of view, starting as a government operation, but it might expand far beyond that. 

It’s a long way from Anchorage to the north coast of Alaska and only takes a little bad 

weather to keep you from being able to get there. I’d like to see if you’ve heard any talk 

of that, if you think it’s a good idea, bad idea, too expensive? 

Mr. MASSARO. Anyone you’d like to direct your question to? 

QUESTIONER. Potentially the admiral and Melanie, because I see some of the 

opportunities for some of the things you raised by having a presence there. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. 

Let’s go ahead and start with Admiral McAllister then. Thank you. 

Adm. MCALLISTER. We actually run an annual Arctic operation called Arctic Shields. 

We’ve been running that for about eight years now, where I press forward helicopters and 

ships and people on land to be able to carry out Coast Guard missions when there’s open 

water or ice-congested, but not totally ice-covered water. We actually have a fair amount 

of experience doing that. As an example this last summer, I put about 25 people and 2 

helicopters in Kotzebue and they conduct search and rescue missions throughout the 

region. 

We haven’t necessarily found the need to be there during the winter when the ice 

prevents movement on the water. So from a Coast Guard perspective, maybe that’s a 

future need, but it’s not necessarily a current need. But what you describe is certainly 

possible. In fact, industry is doing it right now. If you went up to Prudhoe Bay, 

Deadhorse, that’s an industry-led, year-round operation which we could draw a lot of lessons from in terms of how to have the appropriate infrastructure for future operations 

that demand it. 

Mr. MASSARO. Melanie? 

Ms. BAHNKE. Not too sure I really understood what you were saying is happening 

over in Russia other than that they’ve put in place a remote station where 125 people 

are. Is that correct? So I guess I would argue that in the Bering Strait we have 16 such 

staging areas: Nome, which has a population of 4,000, and 15 outlying communities 

ranging down to little Diomede in the middle of the Bering Strait with a population of 

80. I would prefer that we look at those as staging areas and invest in infrastructure in 

those communities. 

We have advocated for and continue to advocate for the U.S. Coast Guard to have 

more of a presence and establish a station in our region. And we support their Arctic Strategic Plan, and it’s just a matter of funding them. Their presence is needed year round. 
20 

Just because international vessels aren’t traveling through the Bering Strait during the 

winter doesn’t mean that there isn’t activity out there during the winter months. I’m not 

sure if I answered your question, but I think there are 16 staging areas in the Bering 

Strait region that we could look at and a Coast Guard station is very welcome. 

Mr. MASSARO. Can we take other questions? 

QUESTIONER. Hi. My name is Mary Harrington. I’m with the State Department and 

I work on the Russia Desk. And this question is directed towards Julia and Admiral 

McAllister. 

I was wondering if you could comment on the Law of the Sea Treaty and whether 

the fact that the United States hasn’t signed it holds us back in terms of our engagement 

in the Arctic. 

Thank you. 

Adm. MCALLISTER. You want to take a shot at that first? You’ve probably got the 

more in-depth experience with it. 

Ms. GOURLEY. It’s the other half of my office. [Laughter.] 

Well, as far as I know, I don’t know that the position of the U.S. Government has 

changed, although I’m walking on thin ice here. But as far as I know, we still support 

the accession to the treaty. I’m looking at Teresa Hobgood, who’s our congressional liaison 

and knows everything, to make sure I’m not saying anything wrong. But I guess it still 

remains to be seen—there hasn’t been an official pronouncement made yet. 

Adm. MCALLISTER. I’ll simply offer, the Coast Guard’s position is that we should 

accede to the treaty. We think it’s important from a variety of perspectives. It is the 

framework that allows us the types of freedom of navigation that we enjoy on a routine 

basis. It allows us to be at the table when other nations submit claims for the Extended 

Continental Shelf. If and when we want to submit our own claim from a U.S. perspective, 

we’ll need to be a signatory to the treaty to do that. 

And I understand that concerning a lot of this and other provisions, we follow them 

under customary international law to begin with, so that’s been the argument that we 

don’t necessarily have to sign on for this. But I think the more global conflicts in the maritime realm we see, the more important it becomes for us to have the credibility of being 

a signatory to the treaty when we try to uphold its provisions. 

Mr. MASSARO. Other questions, please. 

QUESTIONER. Hi. Alyson Azzara from the Maritime Administration. This question is 

for Mark. 

You talked about federal investment in infrastructure. Is there an appetite from the 

private sector to also invest in your needed components and the structures or to co-invest 

in things that you think are critical for the region? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, but I have to say the appetite is small, and that relates to another 

comment that Melanie made. So, 10,000 residents in the Bering Straits area, perhaps 

50,000 in the arena. You may have heard folks gently and sometimes stridently complain 

about the cost of fuel in the Arctic, and that’s directly related to the expense. And so to 

put the burden of developing very expensive infrastructure on the private sector that I 

operate in, you’re really putting it on a very small base of consumers. These consumers 

also happen to be some of the poorest demographic in the United States. So there 

absolutely is not the appetite or even the capacity for me to charge my consumers enough 

to build important infrastructure. It has to be 99 percent based on something greater. 
21 

Mr. MASSARO. Thank you. 

Any other questions? 

Yes, please, Melanie. 

Ms. BAHNKE. Alyson, not that I represent industry, but as a person that lives in a 

region where infrastructure investment is needed, I think the Federal Government could 

play a role in enticing the appetite of industry by way of tax credits. There are other 

mechanisms such as disadvantaged business zone, investment enticement. Within the 

native community, Alaska Native corporations when provided a hand up, not a handout, 

have risen to the top. There’s a list of top 49 businesses in Alaska and a big portion of 

that is made up from Alaska Native corporations. And I think ANCs should be considered 

as a potential partner in any public/private investments that will improve infrastructure 

in our region. 

I mentioned earlier that our hearts go out to Puerto Rico, for example, right now, 

and we all get government’s role in responding to repairing infrastructure when it comes 

to natural disaster. But I think we do really need to take a look at that responsibility. 

The U.S. has claimed authority over our region. We’re part of the U.S. Alaska is not a 

territory, we’re a state, not that that makes it any better than Puerto Rico, but there is 

an obligation for government to create infrastructure where it’s absent, not just to play 

a role in repairing it when it’s been devastated. 

So that’s my comment to your question. There might not be an appetite right now 

by industry, but I sure think that the government could invite them to dinner. 

Mr. SMITH. Just to follow on, too, Alaska really is a pioneer state. If you think about 

the American West 150 years ago, that’s where we are. We have a bunch of island economies that are not connected with roads. We don’t have electrical interties. We live a very 

isolated existence and there’s just not a possibility, even if industry did have the appetite. 

It’s just the scale isn’t appropriate at this time. 

And it truly is that once you have a transportation infrastructure it allows any economic opportunity to be amplified. When you have a way of getting your goods, your services, and your resources that you’re extracting or harvesting to market, you’re going to 

stimulate economic activity. So it’s something that’s going to have to see a national investment on. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great, thank you. 

OK, I have one more question. As a guy that’s coming from outside the Arctic bubble 

and having just begun working on these issues, I guess working on them for almost about 

one year now, I was hoping maybe Julia or Admiral McAllister could take this on, maybe 

somebody else. 

It seems to me like there are just so many different federal agencies working on this 

issue, just so many have a piece of it. I was wondering, is the approach integrated? Are 

there better ways to go about this? To what extent is it a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen 

issue, if at all? 

Ms. GOURLEY. You’ve asked one of the most important and common questions asked, 

Paul, by lots of people out there. And actually, the last administration did attempt, a 

couple of the agencies who play in the Arctic, the Arctic Research Commission and I’m 

trying to remember who else, to put together an organogram of all of the agencies. There 

are at least half-a-dozen executive branch departments and all of their subagencies, 
22 

together it’s 25 to 30. To piece it all together and connect all the dots was very challenging. And it’s a fascinating-looking chart, actually. 

I don’t know that there are too many cooks in the kitchen, because the fact that there 

are so many agencies actually doesn’t equate to too many bodies or too much disruption. 

We actually function amazingly well at the working level. We have monthly collaboration, 

and the last administration had a higher-level similar interagency body at the political 

level. And it’s all worked amazingly well for as many cooks as there are in the kitchen 

here. 

Personally—and I’m not saying this with any bias, but just purely from observation 

through the Arctic Council and working with the other Arctic states—I feel like the U.S. 

Government weirdly enough hangs together better and has more coordination than most 

of the other states. Which is odd, given how big we are, but we actually do collaborate 

quite well. That’s not to say we couldn’t do it better. We certainly could always do things 

better, but it’s a pretty small federal community, even though it’s a large number of agencies. And it’s pretty well-integrated. We’ll have to see how it continues. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great to hear. 

Admiral, do you have anything to add? 

Adm. MCALLISTER. I’ll just add, from a regional or a local level, because that’s where 

I spend more of my time, that we look to have the collaboration bodies as well, because 

that’s the point of delivery of various services. Just as one example, we were able to set 

up not too long ago an Arctic Waterways Safety Commission that brings together a variety 

of Alaska Native communities to advise not only the Coast Guard, but all federal agencies 

on issues as they relate to this increase in traffic and maritime issues. 

And Julia’s right. I mean, even at the regional or local level, some agencies are more 

engaged than others. But we, at least within the Coast Guard, make it a point to work 

collaboratively with our other federal agencies, with our state equivalents and with the 

tribal interests to ensure that we’re not duplicating effort and that we’re closing the most 

important gaps first. And that’s sometimes the best we can do. 

Mr. MASSARO. Great. Well, thank you all so much. We’ll conclude the briefing there 

and thank you all for coming. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 5:01 p.m., the briefing ended.] 

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