Power Crisis Energizes Push to Drill for Arctic Oil

The Bush administration is citing California’s electricity crisis as evidence that changes are urgently needed in the nation’s energy policy, including removal of the current ban on oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Administration officials contend that California’s Stage 3 alerts and rolling blackouts affirm its policy priority of boosting energy resources across the board. Vice President Dick Cheney said President Bush will convene a Cabinet-level meeting today to discuss the West’s power problems and other aspects of energy policy.

In an interview Sunday on ABC-TV’s “This Week,” Cheney linked the electricity shortage to recent shortfalls of gasoline in the Midwest and home heating oil in the Northeast.

Bush has frequently observed that “the potential storm cloud on the horizon was the economic impact that could arise as a result of energy shortages,” Cheney said. “And it’s not just power in California.”

Although the policy review could lead to a variety of legislative and regulatory initiatives, Bush’s plan to open Alaska’s pristine northeastern coastline to oil and gas development is near the top of the list. And it appears that growing concern about energy supplies, combined with Bush’s vigorous advocacy, is beginning to thaw two decades of opposition.

On Capitol Hill, proponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge say constituent anxiety about potential energy shortages appears to be changing some lawmakers’ minds about exploration in a portion of the vast wilderness area. Located just east of the U.S.’ biggest producing oil field, Prudhoe Bay, the refuge is home to caribou, muskoxen, polar bears and other species that could be endangered by drilling.

“I’ve had members tell me [that] maybe it is time to look at the Arctic,” said Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), who advocates drilling in the refuge. “A lot of constituents are starting to complain about huge increases in energy bills. . . . It’s nice to say we’re not going to touch areas that have huge reserves, but that’s not practical any more.”

The connection between California’s electricity shortage and Alaskan oil exploration is indirect. The addition of a major oil field would do nothing in the short term to provide more power to the West. Over the longer term, it could reduce upward pressure on energy prices, particularly if a pipeline is built to transport natural gas from the refuge to domestic markets. Gas shortages and price spikes have contributed to California’s travails.

Yet advocates of drilling say California’s crisis is contributing to their cause by focusing attention on the need to reevaluate national energy policy in all its dimensions.

“The situation in California has made it possible where there may be enough of a change in the political mind-set to begin [exploring] in the North Slope,” said William Kovacs, an environmental and regulatory specialist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Environmentalists express alarm about the possibility that the West’s problems could shift the balance of power to favor more aggressive energy development. They say there should be absolutely no connection drawn between the electricity crisis in California and drilling in the Arctic.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said recent energy shortages should inspire the nation to find new ways to conserve nonrenewable resources, rather than to try to pump more petroleum out of the ground.

“This is not the time for us to be draining America first,” he said.

Bush’s Policy Runs Counter to Clinton’s

Clearly, it’s not just California’s conundrum that is causing Congress to take a second look at the Alaskan refuge. Another essential factor is Bush winning the presidency.

Former President Clinton opposed drilling in the refuge during his eight years in the White House. But Bush made it a central plank in his energy policy platform, and he and his team repeatedly have drawn a connection between California’s crisis and Alaskan oil exploration.

Gale A. Norton, Bush’s Interior secretary-designate, favors extracting oil and gas from the wildlife refuge and elsewhere on public lands, and presented the case for it at her confirmation hearing.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the California crisis is “a reminder” that the nation faces “a looming energy crisis.”

“And that’s why we need to increase America’s ability to generate domestic supplies of energy, including . . . opening up a small portion of [the refuge] in Alaska,” Fleischer said last week.

While advocates of drilling in the refuge are quick to cite California’s troubles, they do not suggest that Alaskan oil development would do anything to provide more electrical power to the state.

In fact, they acknowledge that California’s crisis may turn out to be the solution to their long-term problem: securing permission to allow drilling in the refuge.

When Congress established the 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1980, it designated a 1.5-million-acre swath of land along the northern coast where oil exploration could occur--but only if Congress voted to authorize it after reviewing studies on the environmental impact.

Previous efforts to authorize drilling have been thwarted, and a new congressional debate surely will be contentious. In 1987, the Reagan administration recommended drilling in the refuge, but Congress balked: first in 1989, after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, and again in 1991. In 1995, Congress included a provision in budget legislation to allow drilling in the refuge, but Clinton vetoed it.

The potential oil reserves are vast. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 1998 that 4.3 billion to 11.8 billion barrels of oil could be recovered using current technology. The U.S. uses about 7 billion barrels of oil per year, according to government statistics.

Alaska’s congressional delegation, which has long favored drilling in the refuge, believes the time is ripe to push for approval.

“At a time when the lights keep going out in California, it clearly is time that we get on with developing areas that will produce more energy in America,” said Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

“Most people aren’t aware nor do they care until there is a crisis.”

If Clinton had exercised a little foresight, Murkowski grumbled, newly discovered oil from Alaska’s coastal plain might already be reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Oil Provision to Be Added to Energy Bill

On Wednesday, Murkowski will chair a hearing devoted to the electricity shortage in the West and its implications for national energy policy. A provision authorizing exploration in the refuge will be included in a sweeping energy bill that GOP senators are expected to introduce in early February.

Environmentalists oppose drilling in the refuge because of the potentially harmful effects on several species, including herds of porcupine caribou that arrive every spring to give birth.

Advocates of drilling say exploration would take place only in winter, when the migratory caribou and bird populations have left the frigid region where temperatures dip to 40 below zero. Some animals stay behind, however, including long-haired muskoxen, polar bears, wolverines, Arctic foxes and Arctic graylings.

Environmentalists warn that exploration could harm the tundra.

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Staff writer Nick Anderson contributed to this story.

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Fuel-Rich Wilderness

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Size: 19.8 million acres, or about the size of South Carolina

Features:

One of the finest examples of wilderness left on the planet, with a full range of largely undisturbed Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems.

Nearly 180 bird species, 45 mammal species and 36 fish species, and no introduced species.

Permanently frozen subterranean layer causes most areas to remain wet during summer. Plants grow rapidly during 24-hour daylight, but the growing season is short. This makes the refuge fragile and easily affected by human activities.

Open to public use year-round, but there are no roads, developments or trails. You must fly, boat or walk to get there.

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Oil Reserves: The U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 1998 that

4.3 billion to 11.8 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from the refuge using current technology.

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Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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