Alaska Dispatch by Mia Bennett.  The new headquarters for the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will open in Moscow on January 28. The new, state-owned enterprise will have a budget of 35 million rubles (about $1.1 million) and will set forth tariffs and regulations regarding "navigation safety and the prevention, reduction, and control of pollution in the marine environment," according to a July 2012 law passed by the State Duma on the regulation of commercial navigation in the NSR. The law also defines the NSR (translated with Google Translate) as:  "The aquatic space adjacent to the northern coast of the Russian Federation, covering internal waters, territorial sea, the contiguous zone and the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation and bounded by division lines across maritime areas with the United States and the parallel Cape Dezhnev in the Bering Strait, west meridian of the Cape of Desire to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, eastern coastline of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, and the western boundaries of the Matochkin, Kara, and Yugorsky Straits."  (Comment:  we have warned that while the United States fiddles with Arctic policy ideas, Canada, Russia and other Arctic countries are IMPLEMENTING policies to protect their own jurisdictions, resources and preogatives.  To the extent that these policies become well established without challenge, it will be much more difficult in future years for the United States to introduce hard policies defending its own Arctic jurisdiction, preogatives and resources.  -dh)