It is an understatement to say that there is support for the Law of the Sea Convention in the state of Alaska. Three governors (including Sarah Palin) and three senators (two republican and one democrat) have endorsed the Convention, and the Alaskan state legislature endorsed joining the convention by overwhelming bipartisan margins earlier this year.

This week, the Anchorage Daily News stepped forward with its own endorsement of the LOS Convention. One hopes that in a contest between tangible benefits to Alaska and the nation and the unsubstantiated and ill-founded fears inflamed by unilateralist and isolationist groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the John Birch Society, US leaders in the Senate and the White House can step forward in the same way as leaders in Alaska have done.

Thursday's Anchorage Daily News brings enlightened self interest to the debate (or, at present, the lack of debate) over whether and when the Senate should act on the Law of the Sea Convention that has been before it for 15 years and under active consideration since 2003. After recognizing the resources that could be enclosed by a US claim to the extended shelf under the provisions of the LOS Convention and reviewing the history of the Convention before the Senate, the paper concludes "BOTTOM LINE: Alaska needs the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty."

Our view: Racing to resources
Alaska prospects uncertain as U.S. sits on the sidelines

(09/11/09 17:19:27)
Friday's front page carried a heart-warming example of international cooperation between the U.S. and our Canadian friends. Icebreakers from the two countries are doing joint surveys of the high arctic ocean floor. They're looking for geographic features that might enable the nations to make territorial claims that extend beyond the 200-mile limit now recognized in international law.

If the arctic holds rich resources beneath the international ocean floor, this is how the U.S. would claim our rightful share.

Only one problem for the U.S.: We won't be able to make any new claims to arctic ocean territory until we ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.

Every other arctic and industrialized nation has officially approved the treaty, which was first concluded in 1982 and revised to meet U.S. objections in 1994. At first the U.S. accepted all aspects of the treaty except for those saying how seabed mining in international waters would be administered and regulated. The 1994 revision cured U.S. objections. Since then the call to ratify the treaty has garnered impressive political support.

President George W. Bush supported ratification. The American Petroleum Institute did too. So have environmental organizations and the official U.S. commission on ocean policy. The Pentagon has said ratifying the treaty will be helpful to national security.

The treaty has won strong support in votes on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Conservative Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana was an enthusiastic supporter when he chaired the committee.

Here in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, the fifth-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, supports ratification. So does her Democratic counterpart Mark Begich. Republican Gov. Sean Parnell recently endorsed ratification as well.

So what's keeping the Senate from doing the right thing?

In 2004 Sen. Richard Lugar described the opposition this way: "Concerns have been expressed primarily by those who oppose virtually any multi-lateral agreement."

In other words, it's the crowd that thinks cooperating with other countries is a step toward one-world government.

But as Sen. Lugar has noted, the oceans beyond 200 miles are international territory now. The U.S. can be part of international agreements to manage those areas, or we can stay home and pout about having to cooperate with other countries. The treaty would give the U.S. a strong role in managing resource development in distant ocean waters. Those issues would not be handled through the United Nations General Assembly.

Sen. Lugar has described the treaty this way: It "expands the ability of American oil and natural gas companies to drill for resources in new areas, solidifies the Navy's rights to traverse the oceans, enshrines U.S. economic sovereignty over our Exclusive Economic Zone extending 200 miles off our shore, helps our ocean industries create jobs and reduces the prospects that Russia will be successful in claiming excessive portions of the Arctic." In the race to stake potentially valuable resource claims in the high arctic ocean, the U.S. is way behind. As soon as Congress finishes work on health care, the Senate should ratify the Law of the Sea treaty.

BOTTOM LINE: Alaska needs the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty.

It is also worth noting that Alaska's most recent governors (2 republican and 1 democrat), three current and recent senators (again, 2 republican and 2 democrat) and the entire legislature (by a vote of 34 to 4 in the Alaskan House and 15 to 2 in the Senate) have called for approval of the LOS Convention.