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

Definitions. ANWR is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. For this debate "drilling in ANWR" means commercial drilling and recovery of oil and gas within the boundaries of ANWR, and construction of a pipeline to facilitate transportation of the recovered fuels. "Legalize" means to remove any executive orders prohibiting such drilling, and to pass legislation that provides for leasing the limited areas as described in existing proposals to commercial interests for development. "Encourage" means taking legal steps to prevent lawsuits that unduly tie up development, and refraining from enacting excessive taxes or placing other burdens that would make development uneconomic or delayed. Nothing in the resolution prevents reasonable requirements and inspections with respect environmental safeguards such as are now mandated for drilling on the North Slope. The reasons for favoring this resolution are: 1. The security of the United States will be enhanced by reducing dependence upon foreign oil. The greater the energy-independence of the country, the less the potential threat from foreign powers threatening to cut off energy supplies and the less the impact from any action that attempts to do so. 2. The economic well-being of the United States will be enhanced by reducing foreign trade deficits. For the purposes of this debate, I will assume that the price of oil is set internationally, and will not be affected by increased U.S. production. The economic benefit derives from the oil being purchased domestically rather than money being drained out of the economy. The benefit to the U.S. economy is will be $1.15 trillion dollars if the average price of oil over the life of the project is $115 per barrel. It may be more than that, depending upon the price of oil seven to twenty years from now, and the ability of future technology to economically recovery of reserves. Currently, only about half of the estimated reserves are economically recoverable. The economic arguments are given and quantified at http://factspluslogic.com... Because I am not arguing that the price of oil will drop as a consequence of new drilling, the length of time it takes to bring the resources on line is not relevant. By all accounts we will have foreign trade deficits to offset for at least the next thirty years. 3. The State of Alaska, the Inuit people, and the Federal government will substantially benefit from increased tax revenues. The Inuit people and the State of Alaska both favor drilling. 4. The fact that the word "wildlife" is in the ANWR name does not mean there is a substantial wildlife population. The US also has National Forests that have no trees. ANWR is barren tundra with few life forms. There is negligible danger to the environment because 4.1 Experience with drilling on the North slope showed five-fold increases in the size of caribou herds, and no harm to the population of any wildlife species. 4.2 The area subject to drilling in ANWR is desolate, and the area to be drilled is tiny. ANWR is roughly the size of South Carolina ( a little smaller than Portugal) and the area to be drilled is about the size of the Charleston airport. The ratio is that of the size of postage stamp to a football field. 4.3 Major drilling activity is in winter, when there is essentially no wildlife present at all. 4.4 Modern technology reduces environmental risk and harm compared to the North slope, which nonetheless suffered no significant harm. 4.5 The risk due to oil tanker spills is reduced because the oil will travel a shorter distance by tanker than with the alternative of buying foreign oil. 5. Drilling on existing offshore oil leases for untapped reserves is not a viable alternative to drilling in ANWR because the cost of recovery is too high to make it economic. http://factspluslogic.com... Oil prices are extremely volatile, and it takes many years to recover a drilling investment. Consequently, an upward spike in oil prices does not produce an immediate corresponding investment in expensive-to-recover oil. Investors look ahead to the likely prices in the long run. The end result is that oil that is less expensive to recover will always be tapped first, so we need to make as much available as possible. Summary. Drilling in ANWR will not by itself achieve energy independence or end trade deficits. Nonetheless, the amounts are significant. We might, for example, reasonably expect to offset the entire cumulative foreign trade deficit with China. This can be accomplished with no expenditure of taxpayer dollars; in fact it will bring substantial revenues into the Treasury.