The debate over arctic oil drilling erup

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
The debate over arctic oil drilling erup
23
Sat, 06-12-2004 - 5:11pm
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/177507_pot12.html

Potomac Watch: The debate over arctic oil drilling erupts again

Saturday, June 12, 2004


By JUDY HOLLAND
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON BUREAU


WASHINGTON -- Hoping to capitalize on public ire over record-high gasoline prices, advocates of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration predict the House next week will authorize drilling there.


Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee, says oil production in the arctic refuge on Alaska's coastal plain "would dramatically increase domestic supplies of oil, create thousands of jobs and lower prices at the pump."


Brian Kennedy, press secretary for the panel, said "it's a foregone conclusion that the House will pass the legislation, yet again," when the lawmakers take up the measure.


But environmentalists -- labeling the ANWR fight as one of their major political issues -- argue that the area is a crown jewel of U.S. public lands and should be protected for future generations. The 20-million acre refuge is home to grizzly bears, caribou and more than 100 species of birds.


The measure heading for the House floor would allow drilling on 2,000 acres of the refuge.


Oil companies and labor unions estimate that drilling in ANWR could create 800,000 to 1.3 million jobs and could cut America's dependence on foreign oil by 20 percent by 2025. The United States imports more than 60 percent of its oil, mainly from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, Iraq, Canada, Mexico and Nigeria.


When they bring the measure to a vote next week, House Republicans plan to stress that gasoline prices have hit an all-time national average of $2.04 a gallon.(me:  LOL!  If people would watch their consumption and if we could downsize our egos from the "SUV Nation" image, it wouldn't be that much of an issue.  When I bought my first car in 1979, gas was about $1.25/gallon.  It hasn't gone up that much in almost 30 years.)


Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chair of the House Energy and Committee, argues that "jobs, economic growth and personal opportunity in America depend on energy and that means America has to get it somewhere."


Barton said there was only a "tiny" likelihood of a mishap such as an oil spill, explosion or leaking pipeline.(me:  I don't believe that now nor will I ever believe that.)


Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a senior Democrat on the House Resources panel, said proponents of drilling are "wildly" exaggerating the potential job creation and oil production from ANWR. "Their economics just don't work," Markey said.


In 1995, both the House and Senate voted to open ANWR to drilling, but President Clinton vetoed the measure.(me:  Ah yes...there's one of those reasons Clinton earned my respect!)


The House has voted to open ANWR to oil drilling twice in the past three years, in 2001 and 2003, but the measure failed to clear the Senate each time.


President Bush said last month that drilling in ANWR could have made a difference in rising gasoline prices.


"Had ANWR been passed -- had it not been vetoed in the past -- we anticipate additional barrels of oil would have been coming out of that part of the world, which would obviously have a positive impact for today's consumers," Bush said.


Presidential nominee John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., have led the charge to block the drilling.


Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who favors the drilling, has not scheduled a Senate vote because the measure lacks the 60 votes necessary to end a threatened filibuster that would block the legislation.


Melinda Pierce, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, said the ANWR measure would be "dead on arrival in the Senate."


Pierce said the ANWR issue "is a political maneuver" in which Republicans are "trying to shine a spotlight on Senate Democrats as preventing consumers from getting relief from high prices at the pump."


Pierce contended that ANWR drilling wouldn't make a difference at the gasoline pump. "We could drill in every national park and still not drill our way to energy independence," Pierce said, adding that the solution is more conservation, renewable and alternative energy sources and improving efficiency of air conditioners and automobiles.


Pierce noted the United States sits on less than 3 percent of the world's oil reserves yet consumes 25 percent of the world's oil.


Kennedy cited a March report by the Energy Information Administration in the U.S. Department of Energy that estimates recoverable oil from the refuge at 10.3 billion barrels, twice that of the entire state of Texas, which has 4.9 billion barrels of reserves. The report says oil companies could get peak production in six years.


But Athan Manuel, director of U.S. Pirg's Arctic Wilderness Campaign, estimates it would take at least 10 years to get the oil to the lower 48 states.


"It's not a short-term solution to either the price of gas at the pump or to making America energy independent," Manuel said.





Potomac Watch is a weekly look at issues and personalities in Washington, D.C


© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

cl-nwtreehugger


Community Leader:  In The News & Sports Talk
I can also be found at Washington, TV Shows & QOTW


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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sat, 06-12-2004 - 5:17pm
<>

That doesn't surprise me, we been lied to quite a bit. Suspect but varify! I agree the emphasis needs to be on conservation--but we are a minority. I can't see Texans giving up their Suburbans.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sat, 06-12-2004 - 5:34pm

Sadly, it's not just the Texans.


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Sat, 06-12-2004 - 9:21pm
Your champion of the Environment, John Kerry owns not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 count ‘em 4 SUVs. Hypocrite.

The Alaskan drilling is overblown. When the last pipeline went in Caribou populations increased because they stayed near the pipelines for heat.

http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/3rd/tralpipe.htm


Oh and lets forget that the people most effected, those living in Alaska, support the drilling. Thank goodness we have lefties in New England who know better than the rest of us.

There are so many reasons for high energy prices, and most are related to poorly designed plans at "saving the environment".

The law of unintended consequences strikes again.

Jim

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 2:13am

And how many does GWB own?


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 9:59am
<>

This is because the oil industry is pursuing a campaign to create distrust in the US public. I think we've posted about this before.

As far as SUV's go, Denver is full of them. When I first moved here I counted three of five cars stopped at a stop light were SUVs. This was novel for me, I saw only a few, if any, in Hawaii. They are pervasive assumably because of the snow problem; even though the C-DOT keeps the streets clear. Go figure.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 10:01am
<>

Sure, because of oil they don't pay state income tax. I have read that the quantity of oil in those fields is exaggerated. The fact is that the supply of oil is limited and we should find another source of energy.


Edited 6/13/2004 10:04 am ET ET by hayashig

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 10:21am

Some newspapers have editorialized in support of drilling in the Arctic Refuge, repeating the claim that it could be done on 2,000 acres and citing the Sununu amendment as a good-faith effort to mitigate potential environmental damage. Closer examination, however, reveals that the oil industry could not possibly develop the coastal plain in a compact, contiguous 2,000-acre area, and the way the amendment is worded would open up the entire refuge coastal plain to development. Below is a look at the myths and realities of the "2,000-acre footprint."




Myth: The area needed to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge is about the size of an airport.


Fact: According to the U.S. Geological Survey, oil in the refuge is not concentrated in one large reservoir within a 2,000-acre area but is spread across its 1.5-million-acre coastal plain in more than 30 small deposits. To produce oil from this vast area, supporting infrastructure would have to stretch across the coastal plain. Networks of pipelines and roads obviously would fragment wildlife habitat.


Fact: The oil field industrial sprawl on the North Slope, including drill sites, airports and roads, and gravel mines has a footprint of 12,000 acres, but it actually spreads across an area of more than 640,000 acres, or 1,000 square miles.


Fact: Proponents of drilling in the refuge point to the 100-acre Alpine oil field west of Prudhoe Bay as the state-of-the-art model for developing the refuge. The 2,000-acre "limitation" would allow 20 oil fields the size of Alpine scattered across the refuge's coastal plain.



Fact: Even if the 2,000 acres were contiguous, such an area could cover a lot of ground. For example, the 12-lane-wide New Jersey Turnpike, which stretches more than 100 miles across the state, covers only 1,773 acres.



Fact: The so-called 2,000-acre limitation would allow oil development to take up as much area as the following items, which could be connected by a network of pipelines and roads:



  • 1,500 football fields;


  • 20 Mall of Americas; or


  • 52 airport runways, 17 times more than at Dulles International Airport. (Drilling proponents claim that development on the coastal plain would have a smaller footprint than Dulles Airport.)




Myth: The House bill would open only 2,000 acres of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain to oil and gas leasing, exploration, development and production activities.


Fact: The House bill would open the entire 1.5-million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas leasing and exploration, possibly exempting as much as 45,000 acres from leasing at Interior Secretary Gale Norton's discretion. Drilling proponents claim that this exemption would allow Norton to protect sensitive areas on the coastal plain, but 45,000 acres represents only 3 percent of the area.


Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation would not require that the 2,000 acres of production and support facilities be in one compact, contiguous area. As with the North Slope oil fields west of the Arctic Refuge, development could be spread over a very large area.


Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation only addresses "surface acreage covered by production and support facilities." In other words, it only includes the area where oil facilities actually touch the ground. Using Rep. Sununu's math, the 37 miles of pipeline at the Alpine oil field west of Prudhoe Bay would take up less than one-quarter of an acre of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain - where the pipelines' 12-inch-diameter posts hit the tundra. The limitation also would not cover land excavated to bury pipelines.


Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation would not cover seismic or other exploration activities, which have significantly degraded the arctic environment west of the coastal plain. The oil industry conducts seismic activities with convoys of bulldozers and "thumper trucks," which drive over extensive areas of the tundra. Meanwhile, exploratory oil drilling would require moving heavy equipment, including large rigs, across the tundra. Exploration and production wells could be drilled anywhere on the entire 1.5 million-acre coastal plain.


Fact: The 2,000-acre limitation would not include gravel mines or roads. The House's limitation would allow for 20 oil fields the size of the 100-acre Alpine oilfield west of Prudhoe Bay, which required a 150-acre gravel mine and 3 miles of roads. More roads are planned. Meanwhile, oil companies in the North Slope oil fields excavated gravel from mines that stretched over 2,000 acres, and then covered 10,000 acres of tundra with gravel for roads, drilling pads and building foundations.


Fact: Development would affect areas well beyond the boundaries of roads, pads and other facilities. The journal Science reported in the late 1980s that the cumulative impact of oil exploration and development has indirectly affected more tundra than what was directly filled or excavated. More recently, biologists found that decreased caribou calving within a 2.5-mile zone of pipelines and roads show that the "extent of avoidance greatly exceeds the physical 'footprint' of an oil-field complex."


Map & more........... http://www.bushwatch.com/drilling.htm

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 10:33am

>"I wonder, do the Alaska citizens still get that rebate at the end of the year?

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 11:12am
To be read with Low Brow Snarl...

Big Business.....Bad

SUVs....Bad

Cutting trees.....Bad

Internal Combustion Engine....Bad

Capitalism.....Bad

To be read like you'd Read KumBaYa

Save the planet.

Save the Trees...

Save the Bees...

How about we exterminate all human life, because we will continue to effect the planet. If that is too extreme let's go with the more moderate solution...give up all technology and live in caves.

Oh and when you home burns in a huge unstoppable fire...thank an environmentalist and their anti-logging policies....

Jim

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 06-13-2004 - 11:44am

>"How about we exterminate all human life, because we will continue to effect the planet."<


LOL Mother earth would breath a sigh of relief.

 


Photobucket&nbs

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