Joint letter from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, US Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and over 60 other organizations to Congress March, 2006 – “The legislation that has passed both the House and the Senate would restrict disturbances of the land to 2,000 acres in the 1.5 million acre coastal plain. The coastal plain is not wilderness and was therefore not designated as a Wilderness Area when Congress expanded the refuge to 19 million acres in 1980. The coastal plain contains the Inupiat village of Kaktovik, roads, and former military installations. The eight million acres designated by Congress in 1980 as Wilderness Areas are far to the south and will not be affected by oil and gas production in the coastal plain.”
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