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House suspends Alaska drilling push Leaders drop Arctic oil proposal from budget bill Thursday, November 10, 2005; Posted: 10:41 a.m. EST (15:41 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- A solid phalanx of Republican moderates drove House GOP leaders to drop a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wilderness area to oil drilling as a sweeping budget bill headed toward a vote Thursday. A plan to allow states to lift a moratorium on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was also axed. Still, passage of the broader plan cutting $54 billion from federal benefit programs through the end of the...

The United States consumes a quarter of the world’s oil, compared to 8% for China. Even with high Chinese growth expected in coming years, the world will not run out of oil anytime soon. Over a trillion barrels of proven reserves exist, and more is likely to be found. But two-thirds of those proven reserves are in the Persian Gulf, and are thus vulnerable to disruption.In the past, rising prices had a strong effect on US oil consumption. Since the price spikes of the 1970’s, US oil consumption per dollar of GDP has fallen by half, which also reflects the...