ANWR opening up

A very close vote in the Senate leads the way for Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be open for oil exploration and drilling. Reuters has the story:

As U.S. oil prices soared to a record high on Wednesday, the Senate gave President Bush's energy plan a major boost by voting to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling.

Republicans have tried for more than two decades to open ANWR to oil exploration. The Bush administration, which views ANWR as the centerpiece of its national energy plan, was blocked in the past four years by a Senate coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats.

And the opposition (including one of our own):

Opponents said there is not enough oil in the refuge to justify harming the area's caribou, musk oxen, polar bears, migratory birds and other wildlife. Instead, they say, Congress should tighten mileage standards for vehicles to reduce U.S. oil demand and reliance on oil imports.

"I think it is very foolish to say that oil development in a wildlife refuge can co-exist," said Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington, who sponsored the amendment to strike the ANWR drilling language. "For those who say somehow this is going to affect gas prices... we won't see this oil for 10 years. It would have a minimum impact on markets."

They throw these "facts" around with nothing to back it up. The coastal zone is relatively benign and from all indications, there is a lot of oil up there. And how expensive will it be to get the oil out of there:

The government has estimated energy companies would find it cost-efficient to recover at least 6 billion barrels of oil from ANWR if prices were at or above $35 a barrel.

U.S. crude oil prices soared to a new trading high of $56.50 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange on Wednesday, after the Energy Department issued a weekly report showing a steep decline in gasoline stocks.

The ANWR provision calls on the federal government to raise more than $5 billion from companies in leasing fees to hunt for oil. Alaska would keep half of the money.

We do need this as much as it would be good to reserve this land from development. I don't think the drilling will be an environmental disaster as some people are claiming -- the operations will be too closely watched by a lot of people for anything like that to happen. There are two things driving up the price of oil -- China is buying a lot of it. Some people are thinking that they are building up large reserves of oil since the amount they are buying is far greater than their calculated energy usage. Secondly, we are filling up our own Strategic Oil Reserves which were drained by President Clinton to keep gas prices artificially low. Using less oil will not solve this problem because if we don't buy a barrel, someone else will -- it's an open market...