The famous, perhaps infamous, project to drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge has passed the Senate. The senate was very divided on
the matter. Ultimately the final vote was 51-49. Specifically, the Senate passed a provision in next year's budget for the project.
hosted.ap.org
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who has fought for 24 years to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil companies, acknowledged it still could be
"a long process" before a final drilling measure clears Congress. Lawmakers must agree on the final budget, something they failed to do last year,
or Wednesday's vote would have been for naught.
Only seven Republicans, all moderates, bucked their party Wednesday and voted with most Democrats against opening the refuge.
Kerry and other drilling opponents argued that more oil would be saved than ANWR could produce if Congress enacted an energy policy focusing on
conservation, more efficient cars and trucks and increased reliance on renewable fuels.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
This is the first step in the process. Alaska has large oil reserves. The US consumes lots of oil. Oil is now very expensive. Oil is an economic
and industrial resource, but is also a strategic resource.
The cost of dependence on foreign oil is a geostrategic programme the requires massive attention to oil producing regions, the support of
stabilization over progress in oil rich regions, and an investment in major military installations throughout the globe to ensure that oil fields are
protected and that oil tranportation is uninterupted.
No one thinks that ANWR will stop any of this, but it will in theory lessen the cost. Apparently ANWR can be drilled without wreacking environmental
havoc, which is helpful also.
Personally, I'd prefer to see ANWR drilled,
and for gas and oil prices given a
lowest cap of what they are right now, along with a tax
of, say, a dollar, on top of that, for every gallon of gasoline sold, perhaps more so for 'premium' gas. I see no reason to allow global policy be
dictated by the strategic demands of dependance on a single resource. Such measures can make gas and oil less effective than alternative
resources.
Related News Links:
hosted.ap.org
arcticcircle.uconn.edu
www.democrats.org
[edit on 16-3-2005 by Nygdan]
[edit on 16-3-2005 by pantha]
