Alaska wins statehood

Swanson River field on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula convinced Congress the oil industry could provide economic basis for statehood

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

Alaska’s fight for self-determination is nothing new; in fact, even the quest for statehood set the stage for a bitter fight in Congress. The threat of filibuster hung over Senate debate on the issue.

“When we got statehood, we went around the rules of the House. We went right to the floor; we had a bill considered and voted on without going through the rules committee. When we went to the Senate, we had to get the Senate to vote on that bill without amendment,” said former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who served for six decades in the American public sector, beginning with his service in World War II.

In 1952, Stevens’ law career took him to Fairbanks, Alaska, where he was appointed U.S. Attorney the following year.

In 1956, he returned to Washington, D.C., to work in the Eisenhower Interior Department, where he played an important role in bringing about statehood for Alaska.

Alaska statehood had vociferous opponents; just as ANWR’s 1002 area drilling does today.

“People like Strom Thurmond held us up for days upon days with amendments, delaying us, but we finally got people to vote them down,” Stevens said.

In effect, senators were challenged to not filibuster the bill, he said.

The statehood strategy took three years to work out.

The Swanson River field on southern Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula convinced Congress that the oil industry could provide the economic basis for statehood and Alaska became the 49th state in 1959.

“The Swanson River discovery provided the economic justification for statehood for Alaska,” said Bill Egan, Alaska’s first elected governor.

In 1968, state petroleum revenues had doubled in six years to $52 million.

In 1976, a Constitutional Amendment passed by Alaskans established the Alaska Permanent Fund to receive at least 25 percent of petroleum royalties.

In 1977, Prudhoe Bay production began with the completion of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and soon reached 1.5 million barrels per day.

In 1977, the Alaska Permanent Fund received its first deposit of dedicated oil revenues: $734,000.

In 1979, the state of Alaska received $821 million in petroleum revenues, the state’s annual budget exceeding $1 billion.

In 1983, the Alaska Permanent Fund made its first investment in the stock market, and later that year, in directly held real estate.

Today, more than four decades after the Fund was established, the value has topped $60 billion.