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NSAR Tribal Consultations and Stakeholder Outreach meetings for Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy, Round 2, Anchorage (Mar. 3), and Juneau (early April, TBD) The Department of Energy, Office of Indian Energy is announcing the second round of tribal consultations and stakeholder outreach meetings on the National Strategy for the Arctic Region (NSAR), Ten Year Plan to Accelerate Renewable Energy Deployment in the Arctic Region. For additional information, visit www.energy.gov/indianenergy. Tribal leaders and stakeholders are encouraged to provide comments on the draft Ten Year Plan, submitted to IndianEnergy@hq.doe.gov, or by fax to (202) 586-1534 (by March 21, 2015).
 Today's Congressional Action:
The House and Senate are in session. The House and Senate are working to finalize the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill to fund operations for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2015.
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Media
 House Could Vote Tuesday on Funding Homeland Security. The House could vote Tuesday on a bill that averts a partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and funds the agency through September, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told GOP lawmakers in a closed-door caucus meeting. The legislation has already passed the Senate and would not include language reversing President Obama's executive actions on immigration, as conservatives have demanded. Obama has indicated he would sign the bill. The Hill
Cleanup Planned This Spring for 6 Arctic Legacy Wells. Cleanup work is scheduled to start this week on six of the legacy oil wells that were drilled and abandoned decades ago on federal land in Arctic Alaska but not properly secured before they were abandoned, the Bureau of Land Management said on Monday. The wells are among 136 drilled between 1944 and 1982 in the vast land unit now known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The wells, intended to search for oil and gas and gather information about geologic conditions in general, were drilled by the U.S. Navy and other federal agencies. Alaska Dispatch News
 Navy Deploys Drones Under Arctic Ice Ahead of Increased Ship Presence. The Navy has deployed underwater drones beneath the ice in the Arctic Ocean to assess how quickly the ice is melting and understand how soon the U.S. and Russia will be competing for strategic waterways in the region. The drones are measuring the temperature and salt content to help scientists develop more accurate computer models with which to predict the anticipated future pace of melting ice, Martin Jeffries, science advisor to the Office of Naval Research, or ONR, told Military.com. DOD Buzz
Nearly $1 Billion Needed to Modernize Rural Sanitation Systems. Members of the Legislative Bush Caucus were told last week in a "Lunch and Learn" session on rural sanitation that almost a billion dollars is needed to build, replace, and maintain rural sanitation systems. Last year the state put about $9 million and federal agencies put $51 million toward rural sanitation in Alaska. The combined $60 million is less than half of allocations 10 years ago. KTOO
[Canadian] Feds Seeking Feedback from Provinces Ahead of Climate Change Talks in Paris. Canada's contribution to a major United Nations climate change conference later this year will be heavily dependent on actions by provincial and territorial governments. Provincial governments confirm Environment Canada has been collecting greenhouse-gas reduction measures from across the country as the federal government works toward an end-of-March deadline to ante up for the summit in Paris. Global News
 BOEM Collecting Comments on Proposed OCS Lease Sale in Arctic, Cook Inlet. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held an open house in Anchorage Monday seeking comments on the draft proposed off-shore lease sales for 2017 to 2022. The draft proposal includes sales in the northern Cook Inlet, the Beaufort and the Chukchi Seas. The three lease sales in Alaska are planned for the end of the five-year period, in 2020 to 2022. Regional BOEM director James Kendall says the scheduling is intentional. Alaska Public Radio
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Legislative Action
No Arctic legislation was formally considered yesterday.
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Future Events
2015 Public Policy Forum: Predicting and Preparing for a Changing Arctic. March 4, 2015 (Washington, D.C.). The Consortium for Ocean Leadership will host a forum on a changing Arctic. One panel will discuss the state of knowledge in predicting major changes occurring in the Arctic as well as identifying research and observational gaps. The second panel will consider the science needs of commercial and community stakeholders living and working in the Arctic.
Confirmed speakers:
Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Angus King (ME), USARC Chair Fran Ulmer and Commissioner David Benton, NSF Director France Cordova, USCG VADM Neffenger, and USN RADM White, among others.
Registration required.
US Arctic Research Commission's 103rd Meeting, March 4-5, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). U.S. Arctic Research Commission will hold its 103rd meeting in Washington, District of Columbia, on March 4-5, 2015. The business sessions, open to the public, will convene at 9:00 a.m. The focus of the meeting will be on Arctic policy issues, and on programs and research projects affecting the Arctic. The agenda is available here.
PNWER...Pacific NorthWest Economic Region's Arctic Caucus meeting, March 5, 2015, (Washington, DC, USA). More info to come.
United States Arctic Opportunities Hearing, March 5, 2015 (Washington, D.C., USA). The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to evaluate opportunities for the United States to build on its status as an Arctic nation for the betterment of the nation and those who live in the Arctic.
Arctic Ambitions IV: Trade, Commerce, Investment. March 10-11, 2015 (Anchorage, Alaska, USA). This unique international event brings together corporate executives and senior government officials from around the Arctic region and the world. It focuses on trade, commerce and investment and serves as an excellent networking venue to promote your business interests in the region. Speakers include US Arctic Research Chair Fran Ulmer.
Arctic Summit 2015, March 12, 2014 (Oslo, Norway) The Economist is hosting the Arctic Summit 2015 where discussions will focus on whether commercial interest in the Arctic is a bubble about to burst. There are discounted registration fees are available for NGOs, government, academics, charities and students. There are also discounts for groups of 3 or more people.
Polar Shelves and Shelf Break Exchange in Times of Rapid Climate Warming, March 15-20, 2015 (Lucca, Italy). The GRCs provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The guiding principle of a GRC is to encourage communication and discussion of ideas and new unpublished results at the very frontier of a particular field of research, by bringing together outstanding scientists from academia, industry, and government, ranging from senior experts to Ph.D. students. With the increasing impacts of reduced sea ice and warming seawater conditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic, this conference can act as a forum for potentially transformative discussions for interdisciplinary, international and compare/contrast evaluation of polar sciences. In addition, the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will precede the GRC to provide a forum for graduate students and post-docs to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas with experts in the different polar fields of science.
Sweden-U.S. Planning Workshop on Joint Arctic Research Using the I/B Oden, March 30- April 1, 2015 (Stockholm, Sweden). The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic Section is supporting a 'Planning Workshop on joint Arctic Research using the Swedish Class 1A Icebreaker Oden.' This workshop is held in collaboration with the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) and the Swedish Research Council (Formas and VR). The US delegation will be led by Drs. Patricia Matrai (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences) and Peter Minnett (RSMAS, U. Miami), as workshop co-organizers with Dr. Caroline Leck (Stockholm U.). This workshop will bring together those with research and operational/ logistical interests in the Arctic and will discuss a baseline for establishing a new, longer-term collaborative relationship among U.S. and Swedish scientists for Oden-based research in the Arctic Ocean.
Leadership, Diplomacy and Science: Resolving the Arctic Paradox" April 13-14, 2015, (Medford, MA, USA). The 4th annual Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy International Inquiry on the Warming Arctic will convene high-level decision makers from diplomatic and security circles, cutting-edge energy and science researchers, and social, environmental and business stakeholders to investigate solutions to the Arctic Paradox and promote a sustainable future for Arctic inhabitants within a "High North, Low Tension" policy framework. Special appearance: the North American debut of the Arctic Circle Assembly's panel "Rising Stars: Young Arctic Energy Researchers". For more information: WarmingArctic@Tufts.edu
Arctic States Symposium, April 17-19, 2015 (Charlottesville, VA, USA).
ARCTIC STATES, a three-day symposium at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, brings together an international consortium of leading designers and colleagues from allied disciplines to posit the role of design in the rapidly transforming region, and generate critical discussions by sharing recent work that will trace, critique and speculate on its past, present, and future.
Arctic Science Summit Week, April 23-30, 2015 (Toyama, Japan). The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) is the annual gathering of the international organizations engaged in supporting and facilitating Arctic research. The purpose of the summit is to provide opportunities for coordination, collaboration and cooperation in all areas of Arctic science. The summit attracts scientists, students, policy makers and other professionals from all over the world.
The Polar Geography and Cryosphere, April 21-25, 2015 (Chicago, IL, USA). The Polar Geography and Cryosphere Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers will host its annual meeting in Chicago to consider: current topics in human-environment interactions; current topics in politics, resource geographies, and extractive industries; current topics in Antarctic research; advances in cryosphere research; high latitude environments in a changing climate; an mountain ice and snow.
6th Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations, July 14-16, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). Program in development...check back soon. To see the programs from prior symposia, click here.
2015 ESSAS Annual Science Meeting, June 15-17, 2015 (Seattle, WA, USA). This symposium, to be held at the University of Washington, is intended for interdisciplinary scholars who will be prepared to discuss their research in the sub-arctic North Atlantic, sub-arctic North Pacific, and the Arctic Ocean that bears on the issue of how changes in sea ice are likely to affect these marine ecosystems. The symposium will also consider the people who depend upon these ecosystems and how they may be able to cope with the changes in the ecosystem goods and services that are coming. These goods and services include the availability of transportation corridors, the availability of subsistence foods, and the opportunity for commercial fishing. To put the present day in a longer perspective, the symposium will include a session on the paleo-ecology of people in sub-arctic and arctic regions that were forced to adjust to changing sea-ice conditions in the past.
Polar Law Symposium (8th) will be held in Alaska ( Sept. 23-24, UAF; Sept. 25-26, UAA). It's sponsored by UAF, UAA (and ISER), UAA Justice Center, UW Law School. Abstracts due 3/15/15. This year's conference theme is, "The Science, Scholarship, and Practice of Polar Law: Strengthening Arctic Peoples and Places."
2015 Arctic Energy Summit, September 28-30, 2015 (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA).The Institute of the North's 2015 Arctic Energy Summit builds on our legacy efforts to address energy as a fundamental element of the sustainable development of the Arctic as a lasting frontier.Central to this concept is a focus on providing pathways for affordable energy development in the Arctic and for Arctic communities.
The Call for Presentations ends this Friday.
The Polar Oceans and Global Climate Change, November 3-6, 2015 (La Jolla, California USA.) The American Polar Society will host this Symposium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. A flyer with a partial list of presenters is available on the Society's website (americanpolar.org) and from the Society's Membership Chairman by email.
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External links in this publication, and on the USARC's World Wide Web site ( www.arctic.gov) do not constitute endorsement by the US Arctic Research Commission of external Web sites or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities, the USARC does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. These links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this newsletter and the USARC Web site.
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