Senate Votes to Allow Arctic Drilling...

yahoo.com ^ | March 16, 2004 | JOSEF HEBERT

[crushelits]

WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush (news - web sites).
he Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said.

The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northern eastern corner of Alaska.

Environmentalists have fought such development and argued that despite improve environmental controls a web of pipelines and drilling platforms would harm calving caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds that use the coastal plain.

Bush has called tapping the reserve's oil a critical part of the nation's energy security and a way to reduce America's reliance on imported oil, which account for more than half of the 20 million barrels of crude use daily. The Alaska refuge could supply as much as 1 million barrels day at peak production, drilling supporters said.

"We won't see this oil for 10 years. It will have minimal impact," argued Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., a co-sponsor of the amendment that would have stripped the arctic refuge provision from the budget document. It is "foolish to say oil development and a wildlife refuge can coexist," she said.

Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., argued that more oil would be saved if Congress enacted an energy policy focusing on conservation, more efficient cars and trucks and increased reliance on renewable fuels and expanded oil development in the deep-water Gulf where there are significant reserves.

"The fact is (drilling in ANWR) is going to be destructive," said Kerry.

But drilling proponents argued that modern drilling technology can safeguard the refuge and still tap the likely — though not yet certain — 10.4 billion barrels of crude in the refuge.

"Some people say we ought to conserve more. They say we ought to conserve instead of producing this oil," said Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., "But we need to do everything. We have to conserve and produce where we can."

The vote Wednesday contrasted with the last time the Senate took up the ANWR drilling issue two years ago. Then, an attempt to include it in the budget was defeated. But drilling supporters gained strength last November when Republicans picked up three additional seats, all senators who favored drilling in the refuge.

[djf]

There seems to be more and more of a realization that running out of oil is not something we are going to do...

http://www.nomorefakenews.com/archives/archiveview.php?key=2468

The abiotic oil theory is gaining ground. No matter what the mechanism is, we are faced with the question "Why, for heavens sake, did all these millions of dinosaurs just decide to travel to the middle east and die there, just in time to be covered by impermeable rock and fermented into light sweet crude?"

If these estimates off the coast of Lousiana have any truth to them, there is probably enough oil worldwide to last another thousand years.

[djf]

They already did find more.

People in the industry are hinting that there is enough oil there to make the entire mideast look like a greasy spot in the pavement at the local Jiffy Lube by comparison.

[RightWhale]

Some of the steps that need to be done:

Buy pipe (that's when you know somebody is actually intending to build, pipe shows up in the pipeyard)
Get the permitting process underway, takes two years.
Create the EIS. Unfortunately is is part of life now, but it is an excellent compilation of many facts related to the project. Lots of maps and charts.
Negotiate several union contracts.
Get engineers and surveyors onto the project area to start placing slope stakes. This could be done right away, but would be delayed until just before construction so the slope stakes are fresh (they don't last long out in the weather).

All that doesn't happen on parallel tracks, and that also assumes the lawsuit-happy locals don't get their foot in the door again.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

You know your stuff!

"Get the permitting process underway, takes two years."

Ok, we can save two years, although it would take a lot of fighting with nitpicking rats. Grrrr.... I doubt the GOP would worry too much about a 'little' delay like that.

"Negotiate several union contracts."

Any way to bypass that altogether?


"...and that also assumes the lawsuit-happy locals don't get their foot in the door again."

Congress can provide protection for that, but dadgummit, something tells me the rats can get RINOs to help there.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I would imagine that the more grass roots support is offered, the less likely the drilling would get long stalls, huh?

[RightWhale]

There is no way to bypass the unions if you want to use trucks, use welders to join pipe, use heavy machinery, or nail a couple two-by-fours together, string wiring, and get some water into the showers.

Besides which, unions are major supporters of the project.

[RightWhale]

For economic reasons they wouldn't order pipe until the permits are in hand. The permits wouldn't be issued until the EIS is published and the project has been reviewed. The haul road might be built at the same time pipe is ordered so they could start hauling it to the North Slope as soon as pipe starts to arrive from wherever in the world they make the special alloy steel pipeline.

[strongbow]

"I think they are musk ox, which do live in the ANWR, as if it matters.

Actually there are Bison living here too. I had a nice Buffalo steak last night with grits, umm good.

[Antoninus]

Liberals say six months, oil experts say at least thirty years.

Yep. And chances are, it's somewhere in between. If you ask me, just bringing more oil production on-line is a very good thing. Time to get exploration and development of our oil resources moving again.

[RightWhale]

Delta herd?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Another possible delay: did the GOP promise that the area would freeze over before they send trucks over the ice? [Less damage to the er... beautiful landscape.]

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"Besides which, unions are major supporters of the project."

Ah. Scratch that then. =]

Nice to see a wedge between unions and the enviro-wackos anyway.

[RightWhale]

If the road is to be permanent, and I suppose it doesn't have to be, it could be built anytime including summer. Gravel pits would be a consideration since they wouldn't want to haul gravel more than a few miles.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Oh no! Gravel pits? They'll flip! Gravel is an endangered species. =]

[strongbow]

"Delta herd?"

Maybe, Mrs. Strongbow buys our Buffalo from Fred Myers in Wasilla. Would like to lie and tell you I bagged one at a thousand yards with a Sharps 45-70 like Quigley. Ugly truth is we can buy it cheaper than killing it. Still tastes good.

[RightWhale]

We pulled gravel from the riverbed of the Sag River in midwinter at 40 below. In summer the river fills up the pit, which was carefully designed to look natural once water filled it. As far as gravel pits in the tundra, some of the terrain is already full of holes. It's like there are a zillion roundish lakes and ponds. A few more wouldn't matter and would probably improve the local ecology.

[RightWhale]

If you shot one you would have to mount the head in your living room, which wouldn't be a problem except that it would dominate the space and would have to be vacuumed now and then.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"A few more wouldn't matter and would probably improve the local ecology."

Temper tantrum time. Remember the 'tree sitters'? We'd have gravel-sitters in the freezing tundra.

[Cheesehead in Texas]

because US oil companies aren't wanting to do deep water drilling in the Gulf because it's too expensive.

Oil companies are already drilling in deepwater GOM. How deep is deep to you? The world record deepest water depth is ChevronTexaco's Toledo #1 well in the GOM at 10,011 fsw. The deepest existing production in the GOM is Shell's NaKika project in 6,300 fsw. What Kerry is pointing out, and this is a dig at Jeb Bush, is that only about half of the GOM is available for exploration and production. The eastern half, offshore Florida, has a moratorium.

[RightWhale]

The gravel pit sitters would be welcome to post sentry in case a caribou falls in and has to swim.