Today, Senator Murkowski threatened repeatedly on the Senate floor that he
would attach Arctic drilling provisions to every bill that comes up for
debate on the Senate floor.  Earlier this fall, Murkowski himself took to
the Senate floor to deny that he was even contemplating offering such
amendments, but he is definitely intent on exploiting recent events (and
bills such as the economic stimulus package and the farm bill) to advance
his own partisan political agenda.

We need to contact our Senators about these persistent threats.
Jane Clark


Published on Monday, November 26, 2001 in the Christian Science Monitor

Going Backwards: New Push to Pump Oil from Alaska Refuge

by Brad Knickerbocker

An important side conflict in the war on terrorism is the political battle
over whether or not to drill for more oil in the United States. The Bush
administration and its friends in Congress are using the recent terrorist
attacks and war in Afghanistan to push for more domestic oil drilling -
especially in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska and other
public land.

Supporters say drilling there is necessary to lessen reliance on foreign
imports, which are projected to increase by 57 percent over the next 20
years.

Opponents say national wildlife refuges and other protected areas never were
intended to include oil wells and all the disruptive development and
pollution they bring. The Senate could see a filibuster on the issue, which
is attached to the economic-stimulus package.

Some lawmakers and energy analysts say the lesson of the past 10 weeks is
that the United States needs to become more energy efficient rather than
scramble for more oil.

Citing EPA figures, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) says, "In seven years, we could
save the same amount of oil available in the Arctic Refuge by requiring
light trucks and SUVs to meet the same efficiency standards as regular
cars."

But Vice President Dick Cheney, who wrote the administration's
production-dominated energy plan earlier this year, told the US Chamber of
Commerce recently that for national-security reasons it would be "foolish in
the extreme" not to increase domestic oil sources.

For years, environmentalists have wrangled with oil-industry supporters over
the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic refuge, which lies just
east of the North Slope drilling facilities that pump oil south to Valdez
through the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

"The ANWR is simply not just a place to drill oil, it is the largest
potential domestic source of oil," Interior Secretary Gale Norton told an
oil producers' association in Houston recently. "This is a matter necessary
for security and also to enhance economic recovery."

As she frequently does, Ms. Norton also noted that the US imports 700,000
barrels of oil a day from Iraq. "It's time to start investing that money in
our own backyard and not in the back pocket of Saddam Hussein," she said.

Republicans and a few Democrats on Capitol Hill are emphasizing the same
point. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R) of Alaska calls ANWR "our nation's best hope
for new domestic exploration," and he says, "it can replace the oil we buy
from Saudi Arabia for the next 30 years."

But critics assert that these kinds of projections are based on questionable
estimates of the amount of oil beneath ANWR's icy tundra. Senator Murkowski
cites the more optimistic oil production estimates of 16 billion barrels of
oil.

According to the US Geological Survey's most recent analysis, there is only
a 5 percent chance that that much oil could be recovered.

The "mean value" of recoverable oil is 10.4 billion barrels, reports the
USGS. There is a 95 percent chance that it could be far less than the figure
Murkowski cites, the USGS says, or as little as 5.7 billion barrels. That
number could fall further if state and native lands are not included.

All those numbers refer to "technically recoverable" oil. A more relevant
figure may be "economically recoverable" oil - meaning oil that would be
worth the cost of extracting it from the ground. This means that the fight
over ANWR - one of the most important environmental issues today - is
complicated by the ever-changing price of oil.

As the price drops - as it's been doing lately - so too does the amount of
economically-recoverable oil. Using a 12 percent return on investment, the
USGS estimates that at a market price of $24 per barrel there is a "mean
value" of 5.2 billion barrels available.

But at last week's price of $15.35 per barrel, the Wilderness Society, an
environmental organization in Washington, estimates only about 1 billion
barrels would be economically recoverable from beneath the refuge.

According to a USGS fact sheet, no oil could be profitably recovered from
ANWR at prices less than $13 per barrel.

The economic debate over ANWR centers on jobs as well as barrels of oil.

A 1990 study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute projected
750,000 new jobs created as a result of oil production in ANWR.

But a September study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in
Washington cites updated world oil supplies, the likely response to falling
oil prices by producing nations, and the sensitivity of employment to oil
prices, to assert that just 46,300 jobs would result.

Oil industry supporters insist that drilling can be compatible with
preserving the environment.

But earlier this year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the
national wildlife refuge system, reported that refuges in Alaska "are not
impervious to contaminant threats [caused by oil development], and many of
them have significant and regrettable contaminant histories."

Copyright © 2001 The Christian Science Monitor.

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