The first topic selected by the subcommittee was the question of the problems of transporting Arctic energy to market. Discoveries of signigicant oil and gas deposits in Alaska and in the Mackenzie Delta and the Arctic Islands of Canada represent a major new North American energy development. But while these discoveries are large in an absolute sense, they are a relatively limited factor in the total world energy picture. Arctic energy will not solve North American energy problems, but it could provide a modest contribution in the form of additional time in the search for long-run solutions.