MSNBC – Senate votes to open arctic refuge to oil drilling
Fact Sheets on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Repugnican oil-industry servants have managed to push through one of their dearest agenda items today. By a 51-49 vote, an amendment to the budget was added to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (or ANWR) to oil company drilling. However, I am proud to boast that not only did my Democratic Senator, Ron Wyden vote yes on the Cantwell Amendment (to remove the ANWR drilling from the budget), but my Repugnican Senator, Gordon Smith, broke ranks and voted yes as well. Oregon stands united against ANWR drilling! (Find out how your senator voted and call the Capitol Switchboard, 202-224-3121, to thank them for a “yes” or bust them for a “no”. I’ve already called in my thanks.)
The petroleum-pimp president has long wanted to enrich his oil-bidness buddies by sucking up barrels of oil from this pristine Alaskan wilderness. In Bush’s mind, “wilderness” means “place un-raped and un-pillaged by human hands… yet.” And as far as he’s concerned, them caribou, polar bears, musk oxen, and migratory birds can take refuge among the oil wells, pipelines, power wires, fences, and pollution-spewing buildings.
The sneaky bastards knew better than to put the issue up for a straight vote. They’ve tried before and been stopped by filibusters, unable to muster the 60 votes necessary to approve more destruction of natural spaces. So this time they slipped it in as an amendment to a budget item, and since Congress is forbidden to filibuster budget issues, they got their wish by just 1 vote.
But Russ, surely we should be producing more of our own oil, rather than being held oil-hostage by Middle Eastern dictatorships? Sure, that’s a reasonable point — if ANWR production could make a dent in our foreign oil imports.
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said that even at peak production the refuge would account for less than 2.5 percent of U.S. oil needs. “How in the world can this be the centerpiece of our energy policy?” asked Durbin, arguing that more conservation and more fuel efficient automobiles would save more oil than the Alaska refuge would produce.
2.5% — one-fortieth of our oil needs. Does anyone think that extra smidgen of oil is going to lower the $2.10/gallon gas prices anytime soon? We couldn’t just cut our oil demands by 2.5% now, could we? If Congress raised the average mileage requirement on automobiles by one measly mile per gallon, we’d save more oil than we could produce with ANWR.
If ANWR is developed as planned, it could produce only six months worth of oil for American use, and we wouldn’t even be seeing that oil until 2015. 2.5% of our needs is not enough to counteract our reliance on foreign oil; it will help in no way to lower costs.
Environmentalists argue that while new technologies have reduced the drilling footprint, ANWR’s coastal plain still would contain a spider web of pipelines that would disrupt calving caribou and disturb polar bears, musk oxen and the annual influx of millions of migratory birds.
But even aside from all that — what is the value of pristine, unmechanized wilderness? I realize that ANWR is a huge area (19 million acres, bigger than West Virginia) and that they only want to develop 1.5 million acres (about Delaware-sized), but still, how much development is too much? ANWR represents the last 5% of the America’s arctic that is not open for development. Is it too much to ask that one-twentieth of our lands remain unpaved, unwired, and unmachined?
