Word: anwr
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Later this month Murkowski plans to introduce a Senate bill calling for oil exploration in 1.5 million acres of the ANWR coastal plain, north of the Brooks Range and east of the Canning River--a section known as Area 1002. Murkowski's legislation, like the Bush recommendations that will follow it, faces stiff opposition in the evenly divided Senate, not just from Democrats but from a key bloc of at least eight Republicans--Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Smith of New Hampshire, James Jeffords of Vermont, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Peter Fitzgerald...
Smith and his fellow Republicans don't relish the idea of voting against their President--especially if Bush decides to make ANWR a test of party loyalty. But the legislators from environmentally conscious states also know the public remains troubled by the idea of drilling in the refuge. In the latest TIME/CNN poll, a majority of those surveyed, 52%, said they oppose drilling there, while 41% were in favor. Environmental groups, which argue that the oil deposits in question could amount to less than a six-month domestic supply (see box), are confident they can win this...
...also optimistic that it can push through a bill before oil prices come down and the sense of crisis abates. "We are in a window, which basically forces us to go flat out," says Roger Herrera, a 33-year veteran of British Petroleum who now lobbies for opening ANWR in Washington. "We'll use a range of arguments. National security, dependence on unreliable sources in the Middle East, cost of energy. The best way of winning is to make people concerned about the cost of filling up their gas tank. It will all be over by September...
...idea of what drilling for that oil would do to ANWR, it helps to visit Prudhoe Bay, America's largest oil field. Just beyond the western edge of the refuge, Prudhoe lights up the tundra for miles with megawatts of yellow industrial light. Steam belches from plants eight stories high; flames shoot from natural-gas flares; and bulldozers the size of houses grind back and forth along 500 miles of roads that link the 170 drilling sites along the coast. Five thousand men--and a few women--work here, pumping 1.3 million bbl. a day down the trans-Alaska pipeline...
Dignity and respect are in a battle against money. Alaska residents pay no income tax or sales tax and get an annual dividend from the state's oil earnings--last year it was roughly $2,000 for every man, woman and child. Not surprisingly, drilling in ANWR is widely supported, and Bush's election was met with glee. But many Alaskans have no illusion that the decision to drill, if it comes, will be part of a coherent energy policy...