The Alaskan Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is indeed a desolate and virtually unihabitable region of Alaska. You may have heard that drilling in this area will "kill the caribou", that is total hogwash. The people responsible for the region in question say that only a small stamp of the entire ANWR region will be used to drill. It is not a situation that will kill any animals but rather this is a political issue.
Oddly, it was President Jimmy Carter's administration that originally signed over hundreds of acres of the region for oil drilling, before Democrats realized the only prayer they had to hold on to power was to oppose Republicans on the environment.
The fact is, America can n o longer afford to rely on places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for oil. The Democrats know this and are using their ban against drilling in ANWR as a way of keeping President Bush and The Republicans from solving the problem.
As President Bush said today, "Developing small section of ANWR would not only create thousands of new jobs, but it would eventually reduce our dependence on foreign oil by up to 1 million barrels of oil a day". Bush also said oil exploration can be limited to a 2,000-acre site -- "the size of the Columbus airport" -- and could be done "with almost no impact on land or local wildlife."
He said drilling in ANWR should be part of an overall energy bill that would promote conservation, increase domestic energy production and modernize infrastructure such as power grids and pipelines.
The vote on this energy policy is expected as early as next week and with increased majorities by supporters in the House and Senate, it is expected to pass and the issue will be solved. Thank God because gas will be at nearly $2.80 per gallon this summer if we do nothing.
UPDATE: Friday's (3-11-05) close: Oil Back Over $54 as IEA Ups Demand View
UPDATE 2: Poll: Eskimos Back ANWR Drilling
1 comments:
Gas will be high this summer regardless.... but having said that...
My next door neighbor when I was growing up, left his family to go work on the Alaska pipeline. The same was said then about killing the wildlife. The opposite happened as the animals liked the warmth of the pipeline and the population sky rocketed.
Caribou are the only animal that lives in this moonscape area and they would most likely like the warmth also. I feel that whoever has been responsible for getting people to back this project has not done their job very well. Or our left wing media has smothered the truth once again.... with the internet however, it should be easy to convince most people if they could see how huge this area is, how next to nothing lives there, how the people in Alaska back this, and how tiny a portion of this reserve would actually be used, etc. Of course there are a handful of extremists who would back nothing.... but most people could be swayed.
Post a Comment