House Again Approves Oil Drilling In Arctic Refuge

The House, for the fifth time, approves drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The vote was 225-201 to direct the Interior Department to open oil leases on 2,000 of the 1.5 million acres of ANWR's 19 million acres that is thought likely to hold about 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil:

Drilling proponents contend that the refuge on Alaska’s North Slope would provide 1 million barrels a day of additional domestic oil at peak production and reduce the need for imports.

But opponents to developing what environmentalists argue is a pristine area where drilling will harm caribou, polar bears and migratory birds, said Congress should pursue conservation and alternative energy sources that would save more oil than would be tapped from the refuge.

According to MSNBC, the House vote may once again be futile because the Senate has repeatedly been unable to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

I just don't get it.

This proposal is to drill in only 2,000 acres, a very small piece of a very big coastal plain in a very big wildlife refuge in the biggest state in the Union. The vast majority of ANWR will be completely unaffected by drilling. It would occur only on a small part of the coastal plain where there already is some human habitation. Alaska has 141 million acres of protected lands, an area equal to the size of California and New York combined.

The statute creating ANWR contemplated future oil production on the coastal plain, subject to congressional approval. It is worth noting that another wildlife refuge in Alaska, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, has had drilling onsite for decades. The oil production there rarely makes the news because it has not caused any problems, even though Kenai has far more wildlife than ANWR.

In addition to Kenai, Prudhoe Bay, only 55 miles west of ANWR, has produced more than 10 billion barrels of oil since the 1970s. This oil which has been transported through the Alaska pipeline to the domestic market in the Lower 48 states. Decades of studies show this oil production has affected the environment negligibly. Environmental opponents of drilling cannot cite a single species driven toward extinction or even a decline in numbers attributable to Prudhoe Bay. That drilling also was done with decades-old technology and methods far less environmentally sensitive than ANWR would require.

Flowing at 1 million barrels a day -- equal to 20 percent of today's domestic oil production -- ANWR oil would almost equal America's daily imports from Saudi Arabia.

George Will lays out the best argument I've seen for harvesting ANWR’s oil:

Area 1002 is 1.5 million of the refuge's 19 million acres. In 1980 a Democratically controlled Congress, at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, set area 1002 aside for possible energy exploration. Since then, although there are active oil and gas wells in at least 36 U.S. wildlife refuges, stopping drilling in ANWR has become sacramental for environmentalists who speak about it the way Wordsworth wrote about the Lake Country.

Few opponents of energy development in what they call "pristine" ANWR have visited it. Those who have and who think it is "pristine" must have visited during the 56 days a year when it is without sunlight. They missed the roads, stores, houses, military installations, airstrip and school. They did not miss seeing the trees in area 1002. There are no trees.

Opponents worry that the caribou will be disconsolate about, and their reproduction disrupted by, this intrusion by man. The same was said 30 years ago by opponents of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which brings heated oil south from Prudhoe Bay. Since the oil began flowing, the caribou have increased from 5,000 to 31,000. Perhaps the pipeline's heat makes them amorous.

Ice roads and helicopter pads, which will melt each spring, will minimize man's footprint, which will be on a 2,000-acre plot about one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport. Nevertheless, opponents say the environmental cost is too high for what the ineffable John Kerry calls "a few drops of oil." Some drops. The estimated 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil -- such estimates frequently underestimate actual yields -- could supply all the oil needs of Kerry's Massachusetts for 75 years.

Let’s do this already.

Comments

[Virginia Meakins]

I don't catagorically object to drilling for oil in Alaska. But does anyone remember the Exxon-Valdeez incident? One thing that was learned was that very little Alaskan oil makes it to the lower 48. The reason given was that it is too hard to refine, so it is sold to Japan. I personnaly remember four refineries being destroyed by fire since I became an adult, and not one has been replaced. So how are we going to refine all this new oil? I want to see some controls on where the oil can be shipped, first. And I want to see refineries actually built before oil is shipped. And since this is on public land and is considered a national resource, why aren't we posing limits on the amount of profits that can be derived by private oil companies who claim they want to develop that resource? IF the Federal government operated the drilling and refineries and exacted the same percentage of profits that oil companies are now claiming, we wouldn't have to worry about the National Debt. If we are going to drill in Alaska, I want actual laws requiring the oil be used in the United States and penalties for shipping any oil products from those wells being sold elsewhere.