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Old June 12th 08, 12:20 PM posted to alt.politics,alt.politics.democrats,alt.politics.republican,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.collecting.8-track-tapes
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Default WHY WE MUST DRILL IN ANWR

TOP 10 REASONS TO SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT IN ANWR
1. Only 8% of ANWR Would Be Considered for Exploration Only the 1.5
million acre or 8% on the northern coast of ANWR is being considered
for development. The remaining 17.5 million acres or 92% of ANWR will
remain permanently closed to any kind of development. If oil is
discovered, less than 2000 acres of the over 1.5 million acres of the
Coastal Plain would be affected. That¹s less than half of one percent
of ANWR that would be affected by production activity.

2. Revenues to the State and Federal Treasury Federal revenues would
be enhanced by billions of dollars from bonus bids, lease rentals,
royalties and taxes. Estimates on bonus bids for ANWR by the Office of
Management and Budget and the Department of Interior for the first 5
years after Congressional approval are $4.2 billion. Royalty and tax
estimates for the life of the 10-02 fields were estimated by the
Office of Management and Budget from $152-237 billion.

3. Jobs To Be Created Between 250,000 and 735,000 ANWR jobs are
estimated to be created by development of the Coastal Plain.

4. Economic Impact Between 1977 and 2004, North Slope oil field
development and production activity contributed over $50 billion to
the nations economy, directly impacting each state in the union.

5. America's Best Chance for a Major Discovery The Coastal Plain of
ANWR is America's best possibility for the discovery of another giant
"Prudhoe Bay-sized" oil and gas discovery in North America. U.S.
Department of Interior estimates range from 9 to 16 billion barrels of
recoverable oil.

6. North Slope Production in Decline The North Slope oil fields
currently provide the U.S. with nearly 16% of it's domestic production
and since 1988 this production has been on the decline. Peak
production was reached in 1980 of two million barrels a day, but has
been declining to a current level of 731,000 barrels a day.

7. Imported Oil Too Costly In 2007, the US imported an average of 60%
of its oil and during certain months up to 64%. That equates to over
$330 billion in oil imports. That’s $37.75 million per hour gone out
of our economy! Factor in the cost to defend our imported oil, and
the costs in jobs and industry sent abroad, the total would be nearly
a trillion dollars.

8. No Negative Impact on Animals Oil and gas development and wildlife
are successfully coexisting in Alaska 's arctic. For example, the
Central Arctic Caribou Herd (CACH) which migrates through Prudhoe Bay
has grown from 3000 animals to its current level of 32,000 animals.
The arctic oil fields have very healthy brown bear, fox and bird
populations equal to their surrounding areas.

9. Arctic Technology Advanced technology has greatly reduced the
'footprint" of arctic oil development. If Prudhoe Bay were built
today, the footprint would be 1,526 acres, 64% smaller.

10. Alaskans Support More than 75% of Alaskans favor exploration and
production in ANWR. The democratically elected Alaska State
Legislatures, congressional delegations, and Governors elected over
the past 25 years have unanimously supported opening the Coastal Plain
of ANWR. The Inupiat Eskimos who live in and near ANWR support
onshore oil development on the Coastal Plain.

In general, the Republicans, Alaskans, some unions that see job gains,
and some native tribes that will profit from the drilling have come
out in favor . Numbers are bandied about - those for drilling say
that there is 30 years-worth of Saudi imports of oil available, and
that drilling will enhance the national security and lessen dependence
on imported oil (especially from the volatile Middle East.)

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/w...170983,00.html

Some Shaky Figures on ANWR Drilling

Monday, Aug. 13, 2001 By DOUGLAS WALLER Article

Congress loves to play fast and loose with numbers, particularly when
one side or the other is using them to justify a bill. Two such cases
came earlier this month, when the House approved oil drilling in
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There are a total of 19
million acres in the refuge, and in 1980 Congress set aside 1.5
million of them along a strip of the refuge's northern Arctic Ocean
coast for possible oil exploration. Oil companies and Alaska's
congressional delegation have been anxious ever since to start
drilling there. The oil companies believe 5 to 16 billion barrels of
oil could be recovered there, while Alaskans are eager for the revenue
that exploration would generate for their state. Environmentalists and
most congressional Democrats have resisted drilling in the area
because the required network of oil platforms, pipelines, roads and
support facilities, not to mention the threat of foul spills, would
play havoc on wildlife. The coastal plain, for example, is a calving
home for some 129,000 caribou.

With U.S production at nearly a 50-year low and oil reserves in this
country shrinking, George Bush has made ANWR's development a key part
of his energy package. The House finally decided to approve drilling
in the refuge, largely on the promise of two important numbers. First,
to calm moderates in his party, Republican Congressman John Sununu of
New Hampshire tacked an amendment to the energy bill limiting the
drilling to just 2,000 of the 1.5 million acres along the coast plain.
Then, the Teamsters muscled 36 Democrats into voting for the drilling,
claiming it would create over 700,000 jobs.

Wow! An oil field only one-fifth the size of Washington's Dulles
International Airport that'd provide more jobs than there are working
men and women in Wyoming and Rhode Island? And would lower the
nation's unemployment rate by a half percent? Sounds too good to be
true.

It may be. Turns out the 2,000 acres don't have to be contiguous and
only the space of the equipment touching the ground is counted. Each
drilling platform can take up as little as 10 acres. The pipelines are
above ground. For space purposes, the amendment counts only the ground
touched by the stanchions holding up the pipe. Road widths also are
conveniently left out of the space limit. "It's a complete sham,"
complains Allen Mattison, a spokesman for the Sierra Club which
opposes drilling. "It's like a fishing net. If you count just the
space of the string's width, that's small. But if you open up a
fishing net and count the area it covers, that's much larger."
Environmentalists complain that the House limit ends up allowing oil
companies to spread out over practically the entire 1.5 million
acres.

As for the 700,000 jobs, that number comes from an 11-year-old study
commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute that economists
complain wildly inflates the employment potential. "It's just absurd,"
says Eban Goodstein, an economist at Lewis and Clark College, who
predicts the real job growth will be less than one-tenth that number.

But the oil industry is sticking by the figures. "We're confident we
can develop the resources that are at ANWR without an impact on the
wildlife that lives there," insists Mark Rubin, general manager for
exploration and production with the American Petroleum Institute. For
his part, Sununu complains that it wouldn't matter what number he had
put in his amendment. Drilling opponents "don't support any
disturbance of any land for any economic activity related to energy in
the 19 million acres of ANWR," he says. "They think that 2,000 acres
is too much. They think 200 acres is too much and they think two acres
would be too much."

Democrats who control the Senate vow that legislation permitting ANWR
drilling will never see the light of day in that chamber. The oil
industry and the Teamsters, however, hope they can change some minds
once more — with the same numbers that worked in the House.

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