This will help the energy problems:
Teamsters Voice Support for ANWR Oil Exploration
By Jason Pierce
CNS Editorial Assistant
March 28, 2001
CNSNews.com) - The campaign to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration got a boost Wednesday with several labor unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, urging Congress to pass the initiative.
James P. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, said his and other labor unions, including the AFL-CIO, were banding together to support the opening of the refuge for development.
Among the benefits of opening the northern coastal plain of ANWR, Hoffa said, would be not only help to ensure economic soundness and national security for the whole country, but also to create up to 735,000 jobs for Americans, 25,000 of those for Teamsters, in areas such as drilling, construction, transportation and refining.
"American working families are between a rock and a hard place: on one side there is economic recession darkening our doorstep, and on the other side an energy crisis that is threatening the cost of electricity, heating oil and other necessary fuels," Hoffa said.
"Opening the coastal plain of the ANWR will pump billions of dollars of new activity into our nation's economy, while at the same time, radically increasing our domestic oil production," he added.
Hoffa said the oil extracted from ANWR could increase national security by lessening America's dependence on foreign oil. Presently, more than 57 percent of the nation's oil comes from abroad. Hoffa said by opening the area to drilling, domestic production could exceed 50 percent of our total needs.
"In 1991, then Secretary of State James Baker said there were three reasons the U.S was going to war with Iraq. They were, American jobs, jobs, jobs," Hoffa said. "We fought that war to protect our supply of foreign oil because a threat to that supply means a threat to our economy's stability and American job security."
Hoffa also said ANWR can be developed in an environmentally friendly way. If Prudhoe Bay, which has been producing oil since the mid 1970s, was built using our current technology, Hoffa said, it would be 64 percent smaller than its current size.
The Teamsters publicly supported Al Gore for president in the 2000 election, despite Gore's opposition to drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Hoffa said the Teamsters have been supportive of ANWR oil exploration since 1995, when the issue was first considered.
"What we are going to say to our Democratic friends in Congress is that this is about jobs in America. It is about the security of oil supply," he said. "I think if we press the issue, they will see that this is a matter of national security, about jobs, a matter of a steady flow of fuel, oil and gasoline to make this economy come back and come back strong."
Rob Black, spokesman for the Teamsters, said the union holds job security for its members in higher regard than politics. "It doesn't matter whether it is a 'D' or an 'R' behind your name, what matters is what is best for our members," Black said.
Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), the sponsor of the National Energy Security Act of 2001, said sacrificing a tiny portion of ANWR will benefit the U.S. and its workers.
"ANWR is a major project that only organized labor can bring about," Murkowski said. "These men know first-hand about the importance of this project to the economy of our nation, to our national security and they understand the realization that it can be done safely with a very small sliver of a very large piece of land."
According to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, ANWR is made up of 19 million acres of wilderness, nearly the size of South Carolina, and an area of only 2,000 acres would actually be affected by the development. According to geological estimates, the area could produce anywhere from four to 16 billion barrels of oil.
In an effort to inform other senators about ANWR and its possible oil production, Murkowski is planning a trip to the region this weekend. David Woodruff, spokesperson for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said depending on when the campaign finance reform debate ends, at least eight senators will trek to Alaska and be back in Washington by Sunday night.
"The trip is designed to give members a first-hand knowledge of ANWR, give them a better understanding of the area we are looking at, an area that is under debate," Woodruff said. "There is a lot of misinformation going on about what's up there, about who's up there, what the area looks like.
"We want to give folks an opportunity to actually be on the ground and visit with people who live there to see the area for themselves, so that they can make the most informed decision before they cast their vote," Woodruff said.
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