1) The land is a Federal Wilderness, designated so by President Eisenhower. All of your polls about the local Native Indian tribes and the State of Alaska are meaningless and inflamatory. The real point is, does the American public support it? Prior to 9/11, the answer was no. It may have changed since then.
2) The oil. I've seen so many numbers about the amount of oil present. The numbers you quoted above are the TOTAL estimated reserves. But being an engineer and having been around the oil industry, I know just how inefficient extraction can be. My guess is that only 25% of TOTAL reserves could be extracted, at best. Maybe even worse as the geological structure of the ANWR is quite different than Prudhoe Bay - the fields are more dispersed.
3) The players. Condoleeza Rice is on Chevron's Board of Directors, even had a tanker named for her prior to Bush's inauguration. Cheney of course has his fairly well known ties to Halliburton. Bush Jr and Bush Sr of course are well known to the Oil Business. Oil is one of the largest contributors of soft money to Congress
I am awfully concerned that with all of this rush, little oversight will be performed and ANWR oil will be sold for FAR less than what it is worth. Oh, I am sure some of the money will come back in terms of Congressional donations and PAC Soft Money contributions. But the taxpayer of course will still have to pony up this money. I also fear a good deal of the infrastructure and cleanup in the hands of the taxpayers. This just looks a little too much like a sweatheart deal at the moment.
4) The reference to Gore. Would love to see your link on that. The only thing I know about Gore and Siberia was where he asked the Russian OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) to spend some of the $29 billion it had received in US taxpayer investments on environmental reform. Why Congress voted for that investment I will never know.
Response to 2 -The estimates for the entire 1002 area (Coastal Plain), within this area, USGS 1998 estimates that there are between 15.6 and 42.3 billion barrels of oil in place, with a mean of 27.8 billion barrels. USGS derives the 5.7-to-16.0 billion barrel range as being recoverable using the technology of the mid-1990s. Anti-development groups often criticize use of technically recoverable resource numbers, rather than the narrower concept of economically recoverable resources. But a closer look confirms that use of the technically recoverable numbers does not overstate the resource base. Technically recoverable volumes cited in the USGS assessment are very conservative. Remember that USGS estimates assume only current technology. In this case, the agency assumes only about 37% of the oil in place can eventually be recovered. Estimated recovery from Prudhoe Bay was initially estimated to be about 35%, but the application of new technology since that time has progressed steadily, and recovery is now expected to exceed 65%. Similar experience with ANWR could raise eventual recovery well beyond the USGS estimate. For example, 65% recovery would imply a range of 10 to 27 billion barrels, with a mean of 18 billion barrels. Finally your comment about the geological structure of ANWR is something you derived from pure fantasy and isn’t the way to go about backing your anti-development view.
Response to 3 –Your third point was what I call irrelevant to the debate. Don’t forget that Clinton administration officials like Sandy Berger were owners of Exxon stock. He didn’t sell that stock even though he was told twice to do so and yet people criticized Karl Rove when he was merely waiting for the paperwork to go through. Then you have Al Gore also an owner of Exxon stock and having numerous dealing with Occidental Petroleum. Barbara Boxer, a democratic senator in California is a Halliburton stockowner. She also owns stock in various other energy firms. Just because Bush was in the oil industry at one time doesn’t provide you with an argument against drilling in ANWR. Take me for example, I do not own any stock in any energy company and like the majority of people I support drilling in ANWR. So you made an invalid point in response and my response makes a note of that. I did that without even bringing the polar opposite, which would be the environmentalist groups and the money they pump into the coffers of people who just happen to oppose drilling in ANWR.
Response to 4 -OPIC is a taxpayer-backed attempt to spur private sector growth in developing nations. Since it was founded in 1971, OPIC has turned a profit every year, although occasionally congress appropriates foreign aid funds to expand OPIC’s presence. It currently has reserves of over $3 billion, held in U.S. bonds. The financing arm, which was first commissioned in the mid 1980’s by Reagan and expanded tenfold by Clinton, provides both direct loans and, for loans above $10 million, loan guarantees. Loans are distributed through investment funds. These funds are established by an act of congress and directed by private managers. OPIC provides a loan guarantee for half of the fund, with the rest of the money coming from the private sector. Thus, private banks and investment groups provide the money, but should the loan go bad, the United States will compensate half of the bill. For banks, it is the equivalent of a K-Mart clearance sale. Twice the loan, half the risk. Loans are generally U.S. Government rates plus 2.5 to 5 percent; in other words, market rates. So to sum it up you have once again fabricated an erroneous story and that is clear due to the fact the OPIC doesn’t invest in ‘environmental reforms’ and you said 'Russian OPIC' when Russia is one of the countries OPIC targets to spur investment.