Mr. Bush’s Arctic Obsession

President Bush and others who salivate at the prospect of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska are trying to convince the American public and the Senate that it can be done without disrupting the fragile tundra and the caribou, musk ox, polar bear and snow geese that roam it. The public shouldn’t buy this argument and neither should the Senate.

The pro-drilling story as outlined by Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) sounds good at first, mainly because it’s what Huck Finn might call “a stretcher.” Wells would be drilled on ice pads in the winter, the senator says. The drilling “footprint” would be only 2,000 acres out of 19 million. A quarter-million jobs would be generated. There would be ice roads that left no permanent scar on the tundra.

In fact, oil production would industrialize large portions of the coastal plain of the Arctic Ocean. The place called America’s Serengeti for its rich diversity of fish, animal and bird life would no longer be an unspoiled wilderness ecosystem.

Other facts:

* The 2,000 acres, stipulated in the energy bill the House passed, is not one contiguous drilling site. It is a cumulative figure. There could be as many as 200 sites of 10 acres each. The prospective oil deposits are scattered in an estimated 30 reservoirs throughout the plain. The 2,000-acre figure does not include pipelines or access roads.

* If oil is discovered and produced, there will have to be pipelines linking each well to take the crude to Prudhoe Bay, where it will enter the trans-Alaska pipeline. Pumps would be needed to move the oil through the pipelines. The lines and pumps would have to be maintained, requiring access roads that could be used in summer as well as winter; otherwise, a fleet of helicopters would be constantly buzzing over the plain.

* The most recent and authoritative estimate is that 46,300 jobs would be created nationwide, most of them temporary.

* Finally, Murkowski is really stretching the facts when he says there may be between 5.6 billion and 16 billion barrels there. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 3.2 billion barrels can be economically recovered at current prices of about $20 a barrel. That would meet the nation’s needs for about six months.

The big oil companies publicly support the Bush plan to open the refuge. Privately, they are not nearly as enthusiastic about the refuge’s prospects. Experts say the companies are more interested in developing fields elsewhere, in areas where the oil can be extracted more easily and more cheaply.

The nation’s energy security does not depend on getting oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Nor, as Murkowski implies, would this liberate the U.S. from the ability of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to hold the United States hostage with his oil. U.S. reliance on Persian Gulf oil is on the decline. Nearly half of the nation’s imports now come from within the Western Hemisphere.

Considering Bush’s background in the oil business, and his friendships with oil executives, it would be tempting to say he wants to open the refuge as a favor to his buddies. But since even they are not sure they want to drill there, his obsession is baffling.