LET 'EM DRILL, ALREADY
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
December 20, 2005
The U.S. Senate could vote as early as today to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a.k.a. ANWR — to oil exploration. It's about time.
That is, it's time for an ANWR policy that emphasizes enhanced energy supply, as well as energy conservation.
As well as a policy that balances concern for the environment with concern for national security.
After all, opening up ANWR is inherently a question of national security.
The nation's dependence on foreign oil has long tied policymakers' hands in many ways.
If the War on Terror is to be taken seriously over the long term — as the Bush administration seems to be doing — America can no longer refuse to explore for oil on its own shores.
Otherwise it will remain forever in thrall to the very Mideast dictatorships that now foment anti-American hatred — and fund and protect those who commit acts of terror against American citizens.
Thus it is all the more appropriate that the Senate's GOP leadership has attached the legislative provision that would open up ANWR to the budget bill that funds the Defense Department.
Since the House has already approved the ANWR measure, it is now up to Senate Democrats (and squishy Republicans like Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine).
They must decide whether they will pass the measure — whatever their reservations — or whether they will deny American service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan such essentials as body armor, armored vehicles and roadside-bomb-jamming devices in order to appease the radical environmentalists.
Actually, the objections to ANWR drilling have always been ludicrous.
Caribou, it is said, would be the big losers if ANWR is opened up.
Ah, if only the moral calculus in all public-policy making involved assessing the interests of caribou versus those of people.
But, alas, the caribou will do just fine. The same alarmist nonsense about "devastating" caribou populations was trotted out in the fight to build the Alaska pipeline. Yet since that oil started flowing, the caribou population has grown six-fold.
Also laughable is the argument that there's not enough ANWR oil to bother with. Eventually, experts predict, the range could produce 1 million barrels of crude oil a day — close to what we now import from Saudi Arabia.
Even if drilling started in ANWR today, it could take 10 years for the oil to start flowing.
Bottom line?
As American soldiers fight terrorism overseas, it's well past time American civilians began fighting terrorism at home.
Opening ANWR will help.
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