The U.S. should legalize and encourage drilling in ANWR

1. I argued that "enhanced" allows for an incremental improvement. Con made no argument that an incremental improvement does not constitute enhancement. Con merely restated the problem would not be completely solved by ANWR drilling alone. My argument stands. For the complete problem to be solved, each incremental step must be allowed to proceed. I gave the correct reference for the US imports from the Middle East, which is 2.2 million barrels per day. Con points to a page that gives no data, but 18.9 billion barrels of imports sounds like Europe, not the US. Consequently, getting 1.9 million barrels per day from ANWR would be a significant enhancement of US security. Refinery capacity responds to demand. No company keeps idle capacity if they can avoid it. If there is more oil to be refined, then more capacity will be put on line. Only 10% of costs are in refining, so at worst Canadians get some money. 2. (a) Foreign trade deficits are cumulative. The annual foreign trade deficit is annual, but the total deficit is cumulative. One reason the debt is cumulative is that the money borrowed to pay the debt remains after the year passes, and the money paid to other countries is lost from the US economy forever. I compared the $1 trillion cumulative offset in trade deficits to the cumulative debt to China in order to demonstrate that the amount at issue is not trivial. It is $1 trillion we will not owe to a foreign nation. It cannot be trivialized. The study cited by by Con does not pertain to the issue of whether or not trade deficits are harmful, everyone agrees they are hare harmful. The study pretends to show the benefits are small. To do that the authors start by claiming only 7.3 billion barrels in ANWR, whereas it is well established to be at least 10 million barrels, and most likely to be more, due to advances in technology. there are more than 20 billion in the ground; technology determines how much is recoverable. Second the authors assume $53/barrel oil over the 8-38 years out from the time of their study. My estimate of $115 is extremely conservative. It would be easy to justify $200. They proceed by assuming that no one would travel to Alaska to get a lucrative job in the oil fields. That is truly nonsense, as people did that to develop Prudhoe Bay, and it is happening right now in Northern Canada. Finally, and most absurd, is that these supposed economists do not take into account the indirect benefits of retaining money within the country. Suppose that the oil companies made no profits and that no taxes were paid. Nonetheless, all of the steel and equipment would be bought and the salaries paid, and there would be no debt to pay out to foreign producers of oil. Those are all enormous benefits. (b) Yes, which ever company gets to pump ANWR will get a lot of profit. Having a US company get the profit is far better than having it shipped to the Saudis. The gross profit is about 20%, as Con says. About half of that is paid in taxes, leaving about 10% to the company. Of that, about half goes to stockholders and about half is reinvented in developing new sources of energy. The stockholders include 401K plans, college endowment funds, and rich guys. Rich guys mainly pay taxes and reinvest the money in other enterprises. I challenge pro to explain why it would not be a benefit to have the taxes and investment, compared having them overseas. Hah! Con caught my calculation error. I apologize. I erroneously annualized the data twice. It is 1,000,000 jobs a year. There are not a million jobs working in ANWR. The jobs derive from having a trillion dollars rattling around in the US economy rather than in some other countries' economies. That is about what Obama claims for the trillion dollar stimulus package he has proposed. I should have recognized that 100,000 jobs was too low. 3. The reference Con provided says that the overwhelming sentiment among both Indians and non-Indians in Alaska favors development. All Alaskans benefit from the taxes collected, and Indians receive special benefits. If one particular tribe deserves more, than fine, give them more. the amount is trivial compared to the $1 trillion at stake. there is no chance whatsoever they will starve. Most likely there will be no impact at all, but at worst it would be a lifestyle change that reduces the amount of caribou dependence. Since caribou populations fluctuate dramatically for natural causes, that has happened before. 4. (1-3) I challenged Con to calculate the impact upon caribou population. He did not do so. He provided a source that said populations declined by 2/3 within 2 km of a traveled road. However, in the ANWR development very few roads are traveled in the summer when the herds might be in some areas. All of the hauling and drilling must be done when the ground is frozen solid, because the soft ground will not support the loads. Caribou are not bothered by unused roads. There is likely to be some minor area of traveled roads in summer for maintenance operations. I allowed that the affected area might be 15 times the actual occupied area. If so, it would potentially affect 1% of the herds. If as Con claims, the effect is to reduce the population there by 2/3, then the affect on the herd would be 2/3%. But what happens to the caribou who do not go near the roads? Do they refuse to breed? That's not likely. 99.3% of the vast area is still available. If it were the last caribou space on Manhattan they would be doomed, but that is not the case. Most likely there would be no effect at all. I again challenge con to quantify his claims with a calculation. The picture of caribou cohabiting with Prudhoe Bay development is at http://www.boortz.com... 4.4 Con claims that a spill in the oil field would "decimate the herd. I challenge pro to describe a scenario by which 1% of the herd's range area would be damaged by an oil spill. Spills will certainly occur, but there is no scenario by which the herd would be significantly affected. 4.5 Con doesn't consider an increased risk of spills in the Persian Gulf to compare with the risk in Alaska. Why? Isn't the concern with the environment in general? Oil comes from many places other than the Persian Gulf by tanker, notably South America, Africa, and Russia. Why doesn't it all count as a risk? The key point is that as long as oil is shipped by tanker from somewhere, which it will be during the life of ANWR, the overall risk will not change substantially. Con has repeatedly claimed that there would be significant permanent destruction to ANWR. Con has not produced evidence to support that claim, nor even made an argument that such is plausible.. Even the terrible Exxon Valdez accident has apparently not produced permanent damage. Pro should have quantified the claimed damage. Con has failed to respond to my challenge to show that caribou population were devastated, or affected at all, by drilling operations in Prudhoe Bay, which were far more extensive. He says that ANWR is "more sensitive" but if the effect was negligible at Prudhoe and the ANWR area is smaller and done with less intrusive technology, it would have to be many hundreds of times more sensitive to be significant. He has not shown that. Con has presented no scenario whereby oil imports will not be required during the life of ANWR. Efforts at conservation and development of alternatives will not come close to providing energy independence. The choice is whether we buy carbon from foreign powers or use our own. In fact, the vast sums from from the taxes, half of the gross profit, can be used to support alternative energy research. That could not happen if the oil were bought overseas. Are a million jobs a year, $1 trillion saved in foreign trade, and increased national security worth the very low risk to 1% of the caribou population and the lifestyle of one Indian tribe? I claim that reason should prevail.