Oil Exploration In ANWR......Finally

The U.S. Senate voted to allow drilling in a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska yesterday, with the measure attached to the Budget Resolution, thus requiring only a simple majority for passage. The debate over drilling in ANWR has extended throughout most of President Bush's tenure in office, and the measure was voted down twice in the Senate in the previous couple of years. In my view this vote was long overdue, and kudos to Majority Leader Frist and the Senate leadership for getting it through.

Soaring oil prices and energy shortages here at home have emphasized the need to develop more sources of energy domestically. We are too dependent on OPEC and their oil cartel, with only forty percent of the energy we use in America produced at home. It is wrong to have despots in Venezuela, Iran, and other countries holding us hostage with their oil, and producing more energy here at home is the only way we can lessen their influence and power. Drilling in ANWR can produce enough oil to fill up every car in America one-hundred and fifteen times. Furthermore, oil production in ANWR would reduce American dependence on foreign oil by four percent.

These facts are beyond dispute, the true debate between us and our friends on the left is what impact drilling will have on the environment in ANWR. They say that drilling will destroy the refuge's pristiness, and it will hurt the caribou herds that make their homes in that region. However the area where drilling will take place is hardly pristine, for there are roads, military installations, an airstrip, a school, homes, and stores located there. Furthermore, the area in dispute has been set aside for drilling since the refuge's creation under President Eisenhower. Drilling would only take place on 1/100th of a percent of the refuge, and ANWR will now join twenty-nine other wildlife refuges within the country that are currently being drilled in.

To address the effects it will have on caribou, opponents of the creation of the trans-Alaska pipeline also said that it would adversely affect the caribou herds, yet those herds have tripled in number since it's construction. There will be no such permanent structure with drilling in ANWR, for the roads to the drilling sites will all be carved in the snow, melting once the weather heats up. Furthermore, when drilling ceases, there will be nothing left but a hole in the ground with a plug in it.

Opponents of drilling also argue that we need to develop modern sources of energy instead. In this they are part correct, for some forecasts have stated that oil production will peak in the near future, meaning that the energy sector needs to start developing sources of energy apart from fossil fuels, such as hybrids. The transition from fossil fuels to hybrids and such can't happen in a day however, which means we need to continue to drill for new oil while developing other sources of energy at the same time. Until hybrid energy is ready to take the place of oil energy we have no choice but to continue to drill.

America is becoming more and more energy dependent on regimes that are growing more and more hostile to the United States, with the prime example being Iran, where the last meeting of OPEC took place. Drilling in ANWR's North Slope, which has always been earmarked for oil exploration, will go a long way in diminishing OPEC's complete control of oil prices here at home, and increased energy independence at home will go a long way in improving the economy. Drilling has minimal, if any negative effects while having great potential positive effects, namely cheaper gas and less American dollars going into the pockets of Iran and OPEC. Drilling in ANWR simply makes too much sense, and it's about time we started.