The issue of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR) in Alaska continues to heat up as state legislators continuein their attempts to pry open the restricted lands to natural gasand oil production. Members of the Alaska state legislature were inWashington, DC last week pleading their case for lease sales in thecontested area to begin in the near future, while trying to lay oldmyths to rest regarding the environmental impact.

Citing the amount of oil and natural gas believed to be on-site,the pro-opening ANWR group Arctic Power said the coastal plain ofANWR is America’s best possibility for the discovery of anothergiant “Prudhoe Bay-sized” oil and gas discovery in North America.

“It was amazing to talk to people who had such an inappropriateunderstanding of the facts about ANWR itself,” said Brian Porter,Alaska’s speaker of the House. “The first one that comes to mind isthat there is only six months’ worth of oil for United Statesconsumption, so what is all the fuss about. That is just not true,there is five-10 years of consumption for the United States if thepotential is even close to reality.”

Another misconception that Porter said was running rampant wasthat the whole refuge was going to be tapped for exploration, whenin fact the proposals outline a relatively contained area.

“There were folks that thought we wanted to suggest poking holesall over the 19 million acres of the refuge,” Porter told DailyGPI. “The fact is that is nowhere close to true. The footprinttechnology that we have developed — not only here but around theworld — would allow such a small footprint that SenatorMurkowski’s statements about it being about the size of DullesInternational Airport are true.”

The representative said that the pictures the environmentalistsalways show are taken facing the mountains, not towards the actualdevelopment area. He said the myths that he and other Alaskanlegislators put to rest left Washington lawmakers “scratching theirheads.” Porter said his group pleaded with the lawmakers that ifthey thought any of the facts presented were erroneous, come checkit out for themselves.

The speaker said that the timetable for opening ANWR woulddepend greatly on getting a question on ANWR into the budget bill.If that occurs, then we are getting close, he said. “I think we atleast put a dent in the gigantic effort that the conservationcommunity has put forward on this poster child of theirs,” saidPorter. “Quite frankly, I am amazed that what they(environmentalists) have been saying has been accepted so readily,because 99% of it is just BS.”

For more information on ANWR and the group Arctic Power, visitwww.anwr.org

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