Word: alaskas
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Exxon helped fuel the anger last week, when the company's Alaska coordinator, Don Cornett, admitted that the oil company would add some of the cleanup costs to the price of its products. Said he: "If it gets to the consumer, that's where it gets. It's just like any other cost of doing business." Urging Exxon customers to respond by cutting up their charge cards, Ed Rothschild, spokesman for the Washington-based Citizen Energy/Labor Coalition, declared, "Consumers do not have to be added to the list of Exxon's victims...
...would be nice to add more acreage to Alaska's national preserves, but that is neither practical nor fair to the state. More than a third of its 368 million acres are already designated as national parks, wildlife refuges and forests, and thus protected from development to varying degrees. But it is practical to increase the size of official wilderness areas, where development of any kind is prohibited, since most of these areas already lie within existing parks and forests...
...finding more oil is not the answer to energy needs; a coherent policy encouraging fuel conservation is. The pressure to drill more wells in Alaska stems in large part from the recent relapse into energy profligacy. During the Reagan years, speed limits rose, more stringent fuel-efficiency standards for new cars were postponed, and alternative-energy research programs were slashed. As a result, the U.S. appetite for oil rose from 5.6 billion bbl. in 1983 to 6.3 billion last year...
Conservation will not be easy, but the public's sense of horror over fouled beaches and dying animals could provide new motivation to save energy. If that happens, the wreck of the Exxon Valdez will not be an unmitigated disaster. It would be unrealistic to halt Alaska's oil business and unfair to demand that the state's people spend none of their wealth. But exploration and production can be carefully limited, and better environmental safeguards can be put in place. In the end, the battle for Alaska's future may be decided in the other 49 states. If Americans...
COVER: In the battle over exploitation of Alaska's vast resources, the tragic Exxon Valdez accident may give environmentalists the upper hand...