There is no reason not to support energy exploration in ANWR.
We must become more energy independent. The development of ANWR will assist in this goal.
I look at ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge) as a poison pill in the energy bill.
Drilling in ANWR fails to lower energy prices today and sets no long term energy strategy for tomorrow.
Stable energy prices and enhanced national security will only come when we increase domestic energy resources, which was accomplished today with the opening of ANWR.
Government experts have estimated that ANWR reserves would only provide enough oil for six months of U.S. oil consumption. In addition, the oil industry itself has estimated that it would take 10 years to bring this oil to the market.
These are estimates that are done by the experts as to how much they expect we could get from the first lease sale that would take place in ANWR, and the estimate is about $2.5 billion.
Simply put, drilling in ANWR would be expensive, environmentally devastating, and would do very little to fix our energy crisis or to bring down the price of oil and gasoline.
Yet, if we accept the solution offered today by this bill to explore and develop for oil on the coastal plain of ANWR, it will be 5 years, at least, and probably closer to 8 before the first barrel of oil flows from that effort.
