Arctic Drilling Is Still Bad

The United States needs to take decisive steps to improve its security against terrorism but should be wary of attempts to use the crisis to stampede Congress into bad policy decisions. In one such attempt some lawmakers are trying to rush through legislation to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration and drilling.

“We can’t wait another day,” House Republican Whip Tom DeLay of Texas raged at a press conference. “This country needs energy produced by Americans in America for America,” declared Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.). Hold on. Drilling in the Arctic refuge was a bad idea before Sept. 11 and is just as bad today. Rushing the energy bill through the Senate wouldn’t make the ANWR provision better.

The facts are unchanged. The refuge is estimated to contain 3.2 billion barrels of oil that can be pumped without economic loss, enough to supply the nation for about six months. It would take roughly 10 years for these supplies to reach gasoline pumps. We could save five times as much oil by raising the fuel efficiency standard of new autos by three miles per gallon.

There may be just as much oil in other parts of Alaska, including the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve, now open to the oil companies. Domestic production can and should expand where it is economically feasible and does not threaten special areas.

The wildlife refuge, on the north slope of Alaska between the Brooks Range and the Arctic Ocean, is the home of the 129,000-head Porcupine caribou herd, which migrates more than 400 miles to the coastal plain to calve. The refuge also has polar and grizzly bears, Dall sheep, musk oxen, wolves, foxes and myriad bird species.

Once the first drill pierces the tundra, the refuge will be changed forever, despite the denials of drilling proponents. Would we harness Old Faithful for its geothermal energy? Put a hydroelectric plant at Yosemite Falls? You could not measure the potential cost to the environment in Yellowstone or Yosemite, nor can you in the Arctic.