ABSTRACT
This chapter provides and describes the actors with a stake in natural resource management in Alaska. It shows how the policy process in this realm - and, indeed, policy making processes more generally - can be interpreted in terms of the interaction of competing interests. The public policy process and regime as they stand therefore possess a number of mechanisms for making choices when interests are multiple and conflicting. At the federal level, the agency with primary responsibility for hydrocarbon management on the outer continental shelf is the Bureau of Land Management, under the authority of the Secretary of the Interior. Responsibility for continental shelf resources in the Alaska State Legislature is shared by its Senate and House Resources Committees, though equally active has been the House Interim Committee on Oil and Gas Leasing Policy. At center stage among non-governmental actors one finds the oil industry; its supporting players include Alaska's boom-oriented business community more generally.
