Aiming for ANWR

George W. Bush accepted $2.9 million from the energy and natural-resources sector in 2000 and then made drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a centerpiece of his closed-door energy policy.

The House narrowly passed Bush's energy bill last year while the Senate tried and failed on two occasions. Last March Democrats and moderate Republicans succeeded in blocking a pro-drilling amendment to a budget bill by a slim 52 to 48 margin. This past election the energy sector gave an added $4.4 million to Bush and seven new conservative Republicans joined the Senate, signaling even larger payoffs for the energy industry.

Democrats can still filibuster most drilling attempts--requiring 60 votes to override. Yet Republicans say they plan on attaching the drilling provision to a comprehensive budget bill in 2005, needing only a simple majority vote to pass. That would likely result in a 51 to 49 victory for drilling advocates. The fate of ANWR is once again in jeopardy.

"The arguments against drilling are as strong as they were before the election," says Elliott Negin of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Drilling in "America's Serengeti"--as conservationists dub the wildlife refuge--would increase world oil reserves by only .3 percent, a margin too miniscule to significantly lower US oil imports or reduce the world price. It will take ten years for that oil to reach the US market. At peak projection levels in 2027, ANWR would satisfy less than 2 percent of America's expected oil consumption. Americans consistently oppose more drilling in poll after poll.

Meanwhile, raising fuel efficiency standards in cars to forty miles per gallon over the next decade would save ten to fifteen times more oil than the Refuge could yield, according to government data. A clean energy policy would create 1.4 million new US jobs and save the average household $1,275 in annual energy savings by 2025, a recent report by a coalition of union leaders and environmental groups found.

With oil now hovering near $50 per barrel, the Republicans--while annointing themselves "the party of ideas"--are still proposing tired 19th century drilling solutions to critical 21st century energy problems.

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