President’s Statement On ANWR Drilling
Increasing our domestic energy supply will help lower gasoline prices and utility bills. We can and should produce more crude oil here at home in environmentally responsible ways. The most promising site for oil in America is a 2,000 acre site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and thanks to technology, we can reach this energy with little impact on the land or wildlife. I applaud the Senate for passing legislation to improve our energy situation with this commonsense approach.
I applaud the Senators who voted in favor of this as well. If we are to become less dependent on foreign oil why wouldn’t we develop domestic resources?
The only quibble I have with the Senators is what they did right after they voted to allow drilling in ANWR:
An amendment offered by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that would have removed drilling authority for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), was defeated 51-48. She called the drilling proposal a gimmick that will have little impact on oil or gasoline prices, or U.S. energy security.
Later the Senate in an 86-13 vote, required that none of the oil from ANWR can be exported. Otherwise “there is no assurance that even one drop of Alaskan oil will get to hurting Americans,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a drilling opponent who nevertheless sponsored the no- export provision.
Can these Senators really be this dense? Do they honestly think that preventing ANWR oil from going to the global market will make a bit of difference? Keeping the oil in America will simply decrease this nation’s demand for global oil. Which means that we will purchase less from the international market, which in turn will lower demand and bring down global oil prices.
Were the ANWR oil to be released to the international community it would increase supply while global demand remained essentially the same. Yet prices would still come down because that’s what happens when supply goes up.
If anything, all the Senate has done is made ANWR oil a little harder to market from a logistical standpoint. All they’ve done is remove the ability for oil companies to ship ANWR oil directly from Alaska to international markets. Since ANWR can’t go to international markets, oil companies must feed those markets from other domestic sources.
In short, this second vote was an exercise in futility. Who knew Senators were so dumb?
