and prudhoe bay is about 80 miles to the west of where you would be in the 1002 area. when i take members up that want to see the area, we will fly up ba --d horse.prudhoe -prudhoe bay, which is the original field built 40-plus years ago. i actually worked in the bay when i was just out of high school -- excuse me, yes, it was just out of high school, i was in college. i worked constructing the pipeline, i spent a full summer, it was extraordinary. you see, that development, that is what people would call the elephant find. that is what changed the state of alaska in terms of revenues to the state. then you have what would be described as more satellite fields that spoke out in state areas, further to the west. what we are seeing now with the level of exploration and the signs they are seeing between the satellite areas and the state lands and the opportunities within the npra, the national petroleum reserve, which is further to the west of the 1002, that's where you seeing some pretty strong development right now. >> what would you say to people who are concerned abou

what you see when you come in to prudhoe bay and the dead horse area is a mature developed, oilfield that was developed using the technologies from 45 years ago. it's a much bigger footprint. you then go out to the difference in the alpine field or what they're doing at cd5 and you look at the footprint and how we have reduced the footprint and so many times over people can't even believe that is the salt you're talking abo about? is this all your working office? the small grandma pat is hosting this level of exploration activity? the reason they're able to do it is because the changes in the technology that come about in the past four decades plus. one well that can type down and spoke out in an area up to 8 miles in radius and that is what our technology is doing a hand delivering to us. you don't see it on the serum service and the caribou don't see it on the surface and the people who live in the region can't see it on the surface but this is what you're trying to do. we don't want to come in and take the land to take the land and that is not part of anybody's plan. we want to be

these are the oil fields of prudhoe bay that fill the famous pipelines.s of barrels elsewhere, nature lovers have long argued there is no need to drill here and for decades, that argument held, until -- >> one day, a friend of mine who's in the oil business said, is it true that you have anwar in the bill? i said, i don't know. who cares? what is that? he said, well, with you knyou k tried. every single president tried. i said, you've got to be k kidding, i love it now. he talked me into it. >> reporter: december's tax cut bill also opened anwar to drilling, thanks to alaska's senator lisa murkowski, who slipped in the provision, knowing that it would only need 51 instead of 60 votes to pass. >> it is wrong for those, from the outside looking in, who have taken a nice trip into an area and said, this must be protected. >> reporter: but conservation t conservationists point out, there is already a huge glut of american oil. >> and oil companies are laying people off up here, right, because prices are so low. >> oil companies have been laying people off, an

permanent fund dividend and gas royalty from the oil that most of the author comes through the original prudhoe baypipeline, fast and investments that, the origins of it. >> guest: exactly, exactly. set aside by the governor four years ago for the money didn't go to waste and alaskans would feel invested. instead of paying a state income tax, people get a check of the afternoon with the counsel. it comes on the oil industry. the idea that anyone could ever get the oil industry out of alaska, you are starting from way past square one because everybody essentially is paid to support the oil industry. you can go out and shoot your own food, but no one i know if his ever said no, don't say me that check every year. that sort of schizophrenia is very hard to get over and, of course, this has ramifications now because it was so as alaska serengeti, the arctic national wildlife refuge of the north, they are planning to start drilling up there soon. the fundamentalist have kept that they for 50 years but thanks to last years tax cut deal, their planning on drilling up there very soon. >> host: mark, the st

so on north slope, on the north slope, the two big fields are kaparak and prudhoe bay, they're just gigantic fields. on the north slope it's put into a pipeline that runs 800 miles south across the middle of alaska to the port of valdese on prince william sound. and there it's loaded onto oil tankers and shipped to markets on the u.s. west coast. i think the exxon valdez was headed for long beach. it was carrying about 53 million gallons of oil, so it lost about 20% of its cargo. and the rest is history, sadly. >> can we actually talk about what, what happened on that day? >> sure. the tanker left valdese a little bit before midnight and sailed out of valdese and through prince william sound, and at 12:04 a.m. on the 24th of march, which was good friday, it hit bly reef which was a well known and well-marked navigational hazard in prince william sound. what had happened before earlier in the day, there had been reports of icebergs in the tanker lanes. so the captain requested permission to deviate from the tanker lanes to avoid these icebergs in case they were still there. so it's a fairly t

modern oil industry that we know today got its start in 1967 1967 when it was a huge oil strike at prudhoe bayeline begin operating in 1973 and that's when the taker traffic in prince william sound begin. so about 16, 15 years passed before this spill. the oil industry and alaska from the day oil was discovered had an enormous mind share in the statement was instantly recognized as the biggest source of funding for state government. for a long time it was the only source that mattered. the oil industry produced money so fast into state coffers one of the jokes was even the alaska legislator couldn't waste at all. some of it was accumulated and will recall the permanent fund. a lot of it was spent on state services. so the oil industry besides generating all this money took an acute interest in politics because they are always interested in taxes, ending regulation. so over time that influence over the legislature became enormous and it was almost mandatory to be oil friendly, to get elected to the legislature in the state. >> who were some of the big companies operating out of your? >> that bi