Jacob:

Here's the facts: the USGS estimates that there are 10.4 billion barrels of oil harvestable in the ANWR. Sounds like a lot until you realize that during the 10 months ending October 2001 the US used an average of 19.6541 million barrels of oil per DAY. Thanks to my Windows calculator that tells me that there is roughly 528 days of oil available up there if we were to use ONLY Alaska oil. By conservative numbers the US imports 58% of its oil consumed, so let's use the Alaskan oil to replace imports. That takes us to just over two years worth of oil. Comparatively a short fix, but just long enough for Bush's oil buddies to make a killing.

Now, the other thing to consider is that in 1995 a ban on selling Alaska oil overseas was lifted. Current Alaskan delegates are against any future ban, so with that in mind are we sure that this oil will help the US situation? Oh, it'll help the oil companies who have been posting impressive profits gained from last years gas price inflation.

Also factor in the recent production increases from Russia. Their goal for the near future is to wean America from the OPEC teat, and with the low prices along with the instabilities in the Middle East, America appears to be very willing to accept Russian oil.

As a side note, I went to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge website several months ago to study this stuff and it talked about how there wasn't enough oil up there to make the expense of exploration worth it, and boasted pictures of mountains, wetlands, and prairies to show that the image spoonfed to us of a vast wasteland was incorrect. Today I went back to the site and those pictures are all but gone. The front page is this red, white, and blue patriotic thing urging voters to write Tom Daschle to encourage him to open the ANWR to "responsible development". The pictures section is now largely a group of shots of the Alaska Pipeline, refineries, and great expanses of nothing. Nice changeover. If you read the pdf file available on the site about how much oil is available up there, by the time they're done bloating the numbers the end up with over 40 billion barrels. Funny how a website representing a wildlife refuge can change so quickly and so drastically. I even like how they added "oil" to the meta keywords.

So there's the numbers. Hardly seems worth tearing that place apart just for 2 years worth of oil.