Stumbling on Environment

President Bush muffed his first opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the environment. Confronted by appeals that he not permit oil drilling in the last protected stretch of the northern Alaska coast, the new President quickly responded that he favors “prudent” development--whatever that means. He should have instead offered to take a hard second look at the proposed development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the context of a national energy policy.

Rather, Bush said that development and caribou have seemed to get along just fine in Alaska so far. The oil men always talk about how the caribou like the Alaska oil pipeline so much that they even nuzzle up to it. A major argument for keeping the Arctic refuge unspoiled is that the prime oil lands are also in the middle of the calving grounds of the 180,000-animal Porcupine caribou herd. But the battle involves more than just a few caribou versus a possible major oil discovery that Reagan interior secretaries claimed was essential to national security.

The industry makes much of the fact that, of the 1.5-million-acre Arctic refuge, only 8% is in the coastal plain. But that 8% is the heart of the refuge. Braided rivers wander down from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean. The refuge teems not just with caribou but also with the threatened musk oxen, grizzly bear, wolf, Arctic fox, golden eagle, snow goose, tundra swan and other species. “The refuge is a vast and untouched wilderness,”a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official said. “People need to understand that the land is an integral system. Everything is in a state of symbiotic balance. We can’t expect to go in there and build roads and oil derricks and not destroy that balance.”

It may be that the United States will need this oil for its security some day. But that argument lacks force at the moment because of the absence of a coherent national energy policy. Before Bush lends further support to the development of the refuge, his Administration should assess the nation’s oil potential and requirements for the coming 30 years--the prospective life of the Arctic field--alongside the opportunity for conservation through tougher auto-mileage standards, the clean burning of the nation’s abundant coal supplies and incentives to encourage exploration elsewhere in the United States.

Domestic exploration has been almost dormant during the 1980s because of low prices and the lack of incentives. The industry has been most eager to probe the California coast and the Arctic refuge for possible big finds. The Interior Department has been too eager for the past eight years to accommodate it.

No one can be sure what Bush has in mind when he talks of “prudent” development. The Arctic plain is wilderness now. If there is any development at all, it no longer would be wilderness. Is that prudent? That depends. Is it necessary now? Probably not. The President should reexamine his position carefully before he lends any further support to another industrial complex in Alaska’s wilderness frontier.