It's time for drilling in Alaska

The prospect of new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards is dead in the water, Iraq has just cut oil exports and U.S. demand for cheap energy is rising by the minute. It's time for Congress to authorize oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.\nSince the Arab oil price shocks of the 1970s, American consumers have increasingly sought greater energy independence. Opponents of new oil exploration in ANWR advocate government regulations to reduce U.S. oil consumption. Advocates of new drilling claim real energy independence can only be achieved by increasing the world's supply of oil. Both are wrong.\nU.S. energy independence is a myth. In 1974, environmentally conscious consumers convinced Congress that new government regulations were needed to increase fuel efficiency standards and reduce U.S. consumption of imported foreign oil. Since the CAFE standards were introduced more than 20 years ago, average fuel economy has increased 114 percent for new cars and 56 percent for new light trucks, but U.S. consumption of imported oil has increased from 35 to 52 percent.\nAdvocates of oil exploration in ANWR are equally misguided in their attempts to convince consumers that energy independence will come with increased domestic oil production. Even if the U.S. could produce enough oil in Alaska to satisfy the demands of every U.S. consumer, an OPEC led reduction in world oil supply would still increase prices for U.S. consumers. Increasing domestic oil production won't make the U.S. energy independent either.\nWhile neither approach will give U.S. consumers complete independence, new ANWR oil exploration would provide a less costly and decidedly more effective way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil than government regulations designed to reduce consumption. The largest North American oil discovery in decades, reserves now located beneath Alaska's arctic tundra are estimated to be large enough to provide the equivalent of 30 years of Saudi crude; a sizeable amount considering that the U.S. now imports more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country in the world.\nDrilling in ANWR would create thousands of jobs and help the U.S. economy grow. Attempts to reduce consumption with higher fuel efficiency standards would, if temporarily, raise vehicle prices, reduce vehicle safety and stifle efforts to revive an already weak U.S. economy. Even with expanded domestic oil supply, OPEC price reductions would still mean higher prices for U.S. consumers. But a more diverse oil supply would help mitigate short-term price fluctuations.\nThe environmental costs of opening the new Alaskan oil reserves would also be negligible. The entire ANWR reserve is composed of 19.5 million acres, roughly the size of South Carolina. \nNew drilling operations would require just 2,000 acres, or one hundredth of a percent of the refuge to be used for oil exploration. Work would stop during caribou calving and migration. Ice roads would be used to transport heavy equipment and machinery to the drilling site during the winter months to preserve indigenous plant life and minimize new road construction.\nA recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed oil exploration in ANWR would have little, if any, negative environmental impact on the wildlife native to the Refuge.\nNew domestic oil production is no magic bullet. While the benefits of opening the new Alaskan reserves far exceed the costs, it will ultimately be of little value if long-term efforts to expand production abroad are not also employed in the future. Tax incentives for U.S. producers and foreign aid to assist the development of emerging energy markets in Russian and Central Asia will be crucial to the growth of the world economy for years to come.