Anchorage - Former President Carter urged President Clinton on Wednesday to designate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain a national monument, which would almost certainly block oil and gas drilling there.

Former President Carter says the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act has helped fuel the state's booming tourist economy by protecting its wild lands and natural beauty. (BOB HALLINEN/Anchorage Daily News)

"The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be designated without further delay as a national monument," Carter said during a crowded luncheon celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Carter's comment, which was met by loud applause from the pro-environment audience at the Anchorage Marriott Downtown, marked the first time the former president has publicly asked Clinton to turn the coastal plain into a monument. Carter, who said he planned to personally talk with Clinton about the designation, said it would continue the work he and others started in the 1970s to protect Alaska's wild lands. He signed the act into law on Dec. 2, 1980.

ANILCA, one of the nation's most sweeping pieces of conservation legislation, declared 104 million acres in Alaska to be national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests or other federal conservation units. It tripled the acreage of the nation's protected wilderness and doubled the size of the national park system.

Carter lobbied hard for the law and claims it as one of the greatest accomplishments of his administration. But he lamented Wednesday that the final compromise bill did not adequately protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, in the state's northeast corner, is regarded as the most promising onshore site in America for a major oil discovery, capable of producing billions of barrels of oil. Environmentalists and the Clinton administration say the area is precious for wildlife and as an arctic ecosystem and should be protected.

Oil companies and Alaska political leaders have long argued the area can be developed without hurting the environment.

Deb Moore of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in Fairbanks holds a sign outside the Anchorage Marriott Downtown hotel stating: "Alaskans for the Arctic Refuge, Keep it wild." (Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News)

During his speech, he urged Alaskans to write to Clinton asking him to create an Alaska monument and to tell him that "we are just as interested as he is in his legacy" as a pro-environment president.

"This is something the president can do" before he leaves office, Carter said. "I wouldn't depend on the next four years."

Marilyn Heiman, special assistant in Alaska to the secretary of the Interior, said she has had no indications that Clinton will designate any national monuments in Alaska, but she said she hadn't been able to talk to anyone in Washington, D.C., after Carter's speech.

"Environmentalists are pushing one way. The state and development interests are pushing the other way. We'll have to weigh that in the next four months," she said.

Gov. Tony Knowles opposes making the coastal plain a monument. He did not attend the luncheon Wednesday because he had other commitments, said spokeswoman Claire Richardson. "Such a move would circumvent the public process," Richardson said. "The governor has personally expressed this view to President Clinton and to many others. He thinks we can do oil development right" in the coastal plain.

U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska, also in Anchorage this week, said he was not surprised by Carter's pitch. He said it undermines the former president's own statements that the law struck a balance between land protection and resource development.

"Now he wants to change the deal," Murkowski said. "I welcome the president to Alaska, but I think he has a short memory of what he said at the time."

The law doubled the size of the arctic refuge and established 8 million acres of wilderness inside it, but it deliberately kept the coastal plain open for development and left the question of drilling there up to Congress, noted Carl Portman of the Resource Development Council.

From the start, Alaska's congressional delegation and others criticized the lands act as unnecessarily locking up lands to resource development. But Carter and others who spoke Wednesday portrayed the legacy of ANILCA differently.

The lands act hasn't ruined Alaska's economy as opponents claimed it would, Carter said. Instead, he said, the law has helped fuel the state's booming tourist economy by protecting its wild lands and natural beauty.

"Tourists now bring in more wealth to the state than fishing or timber," he said but noted that Alaska should be careful about how it develops that economy. People value wilderness, he added, and don't want to spend all their time in Alaska on a ship where they only see each other and then get off in small towns to visit trinket shops. People come to Alaska for solitude, Carter said.

When asked why he thinks the coastal plain should now become a monument, Carter said the area hasn't turned out to be as important for national energy needs as it was once thought to be. The oil companies don't need the oil, he said, and monument status would protect a beautiful and fragile area that is important for Native subsistence.

Carter said he has visited Alaska five times before this trip. During one of those trips, he and wife Rosalynn traveled to the refuge and watched in awe as the Porcupine caribou herd thundered past. On this trip, he will spend two mornings bird-watching in Anchorage and also plans several days of fishing in Lake Clark National Park.

Before Carter spoke, he was presented with awards and gifts. One was a beaded Gwich'in baby belt presented by a Gwich'in representative, Norma Kassi. She also urged protection of the arctic refuge because of the importance of the land and the caribou herd to indigenous people.