Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) has stated she will not compromise on drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Region, even if that means that she would get taxpayer investments in her state for “green” or renewable energy.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program she recently said, “I don’t think that you throw the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into oil drilling. You don’t need to do it if you look at what’s in there, it would keep us going for six months when you can do it for so much more. I mean, with the acreage that is already in the oil companies’ hands. So, I think there are certain American values and you don’t throw them away for something that is so obviously necessary.”
Senator Boxer was saying that in her assessment, there is only a six months supply of oil that could be recovered on the low side. But Arctic Power, an Alaskan based pro-drilling based advocacy group, claims that “with enhanced recovery technology, ANWR oil could provide an additional supply of up to thirty to fifty years of reliable supply.”
On ANWR’s website, the question is asked, '‘How much oil and gas in the area’s coastal plain?’' Early explorers of that region at the turn of the century found oil seeps and oil stained sands. In 1983-84 and 1984-85 two winter seismic surveys and some aeromagnetic surveys were conducted, but no expletory drilling has been accomplished in the area, except for one during the winter of 1984-85.
The website goes on to explain that although little gas or oil exploration has taken place in ANWR, the coastal plain is believed to have economically recoverable resources.
In 1987, after years of surface geological, winter and aeromagnetic surveys, the United States Department of the Interior reported that the oil and gas potential of the Coastal Plain was estimated that there are billions of barrels of oil to be discovered in the area.
In that same year, the Department of the Interior estimated that “in place resources” ranged from four point eight to twenty nine point four billion barrels of oil, and that recoverable oil estimates ranges from six hundred million barrels at the low end, to nine point two billion at the high end.
They also reported identifying twenty-six separate oil and gas prospects in the Coastal Plain that could each contain “super giant” fields, which could yield five hundred million barrels or more.
Luke Puckett, who is the Republican candidate for Indiana’s Second Congressional District, also recently returned from a fact-finding mission to the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. He said: “The myths are that the Alaskans, the native Alaskans don’t want this, the myth that the Caribou are hurting, and the myth that we should not drill in such a pristine environment.”
He also says that native Alaskans welcome drilling and that Caribou populations have multiplied since drilling began in the area and that the environment is barren.
Incumbent Joe Donnelly, Puckett’s Democratic challenger, says he does not have to see ANWR to believe his opponents claims, but he also states that: “He (Puckett) did not dispel any myths and that those were facts already known by most folks and those are facts where I support drilling in ANWR.”
But according to Puckett, Donnelly voted four times against drilling in ANWR and refining the oil there and that those living and working in the Hoosier state are feeling the effects both at home and in the work place.
The rest of us Americans are also feeling those same effects nationwide.
In his article for Human Events, the conservative news magazine, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich posted an article where he mentions that only two months ago, liberals in Congress voted for the equivalence of a one hundred and fifty billion dollar tax increase. He notes that liberals voted to make our next trip to the gas station, the airport, heating our homes, and feeding our families more expensive.
The liberals did this by voting to block environmentally sound production of United States energy in favor of keeping Americans hostage to foreign oil dictatorships.
He ended his article by saying that we, the American people, not the Saudis or oil companies control our energy future. We just need the political will to do so. Drill here, drill now, pay less.
-Steve Boggess - Sissonville, W. Va.
