ANWR is not a wasteland. And the amount of oil that it may have would at most reduce our foreign imports of oil -- by 2020 -- by 4%, from 70% to 66%. If national security is a concern due to dependence on foreign oil imports, there are a lot of things that could be done now rather than worrying about drilling from a place that won't supply a drop of oil to us for another 10 years.
We lost a million barrels of oil production from the gulf, and the price shot up 7 bucks a barrel.
If Clinton hadn't vetoed the bill in 1995, we would have a million barrels a day coming from Alaska.
If we had the million barrels a day, maybe we could take a slightly different approach in Iraq, rather than having to devote so many resources into keeping their 1.8 million barrels a day flowing.
And if it turned out ANWR was bigger than expected (which happens) we might be looking at up to 2 million barrels a day.
The 2,000 acres that they want to open to drilling IS a wasteland. And even if it wasn't, we have oil wells in downtown Los Angelos. Ohio has oil wells all over the state, including INSIDE a wildlife refuge. Oil wells just aren't a big deal -- a pump and some pipes. 2,000 acres out of 11 MILLION acres.
Eventually we will run out of oil. Before that happens, we WILL drill for every last drop of oil we can find. Only a FOOL will believe that, long before we reach that point, we will be drilling in ANWR, off the coasts, and anywhere else we can find oil. And we will be rushed to do so, and not nearly so concerned about the environment.
We should drill ANWR now, when we can do it right, and patiently. If nothing else, we can empty it out so people can stop thinking we have oil, and then we can move on to making synthetic oil.
As they have been saying for the last 25 years...