Arctic Oil Needed to Keep OPEC in Check, Hodel Says
Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel said Thursday that Congress must allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or else be willing to let the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries resume control of the world oil market.
Hodel took his campaign to permit drilling in the refuge to the refuge itself, in northeast Alaska, where three congressional committees went on fact-finding tours this week.
Hodel returned from five days in the Arctic to tell several hundred people in a Fairbanks speech that, the way things are going now, “OPEC will soon be back in the driver’s seat.”
Hodel pointed to the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, the northern strip of the 19-million-acre refuge, as America’s best hope for a major new oil discovery.
Hodel said if Congress can decide quickly to open the refuge to drilling, oil could be produced in 10 to 15 years.
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