Arctic Oil
Michael Fischer and Sally M. Reid of the Sierra Club (letters, March 25) ridicule an advertisement by the State of Alaska that advocates support for legislation in Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) coastal plain to oil exploration and development.
Some facts: ANWR holds the promise of billions of barrels of oil, billions of dollars in government revenues, an increase of billions of dollars in the U.S. gross national product, billions of dollars in savings in the oil import bill and potentially 735,000 new jobs distributed throughout the nation. That is the message the Alaskan government wants all Americans to know.
The ANWR economic study was done under contract with the American Petroleum Institute by the WEFA Group, a nationally respected econometrics firm that has done credible studies for more than two decades. The central conclusion is that a discovery of 9 billion barrels would yield direct benefits associated with the substitution of lower cost domestic production of crude oil for higher cost imports, and a $50 billion rise in the GNP would translate into 735,000 jobs nationwide.
It’s not just the jobs in Alaska, or those associated with manufacturing and transportation of materials and equipment for that development. The effects measured stem principally from the net value of the output produced from ANWR, and the stimulus provided by this value to economic activity.
S.P. CHAMBERLAIN
Director of Exploration
American Petroleum Institute
Washington
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