By maintaining America's dependence on oil, a finite resource, Bush is ensuring that when the world's oil supply has finally been depleted, America will plunge back into its glorious past. We will see a rebirth of traditional family values. In the evening, families will huddle around their single, government-issue candle to read the Bible. We will be brought back to a time when humans lived in harmony with nature. Drilling in Alaska is a necessary evil, worth ultimately bringing us back to our Mother Earth.
Bush's tactics were devious. By inserting this issue into the budget, rather than using a traditional, straightforward method like bringing it to the floor as separate legislation, he blocked the use of a filibuster, which would require 60 votes, and the item was passed by a vote of 51 to 49. The vote split mainly along party lines-only three Democrats voted to keep the proposal, and seven Republicans voted to take it out. Interestingly, although there are only 44 Democrats in the senate, they represent a majority of the population. This vote keeps the provision in the budget, which also eliminates the possibility of filibuster when it comes to Congress. Senator John Kerry identified this as a "Republican sneak attack."
We know that oil production will peak soon, some think as early as this year. The most optimistic estimate is 2035. According to energybulletin.net, "Alternative energy infrastructures require long periods of investment, on the scale of decades, to be widely implemented." The U.S. is falling far behind other industrialized nations in attempts to develop alternative, sustainable energy sources. Bush's attack on the Kyoto accords belies his lip service to renewable energy.
It's particularly telling that when the results of the election were announced, oil companies profited, while stock prices of clean energy companies plunged. Kerry had promised to grant federal tax credits to promote alternative energy. Now companies that develop renewable energy sources are looking for markets overseas because they see no future in the U.S. The participating nations of the Kyoto accords have all committed to limiting their use of fossil fuels, in addition to committing to significant other programs to bolster our deteriorating environment. But the U.S. uses almost four times more oil than Japan, the second biggest consumer; that's about twice as much per capita.
An editorial in The New York Times pointed out that closing the S.U.V. loophole to hold light trucks to the same fuel-efficiency standard as cars would save one million barrels a day, the maximum production possibility in Alaska. And raising fuel-efficiency standards to 40 miles to a gallon would save 2.5 million barrels a day.
The United States Geological Survey estimates that oil companies will only be able to profitably extract seven billion barrels of oil in total. The U.S. consumes 7.3 billion barrels of oil every year. Even the most optimistic extraction estimate, put forth by Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, is only 10 billion barrels. And oil companies have been losing interest due to the high cost of drilling, so the amounts bid for the leases will be significantly lower than estimated. Drilling in Alaska is not even a temporary solution to our energy crisis, but simply a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable.
ANWR is one of the last protected expanses of arctic and sub-arctic lands on earth. The coastal plain, which Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton called a "flat, white nothingness," makes up one twelfth of the refuge and is home to caribou, polar and grizzly bears, musk oxen, wolves and other protected species that will be threatened by oil development. One hundred twenty-thousand caribou, one of the largest herds left, graze along the coastal plain. Their numbers are already slowly declining; any disruption by oil companies will exacerbate the problem.
The destruction of the Arctic Coastal Plain will rob us of a chance to see the original America, a place untouched by industrial society. For a year's worth of oil, the Bush administration is willing to blight one of our great national treasures. There is no way to keep oil prices down permanently or even significantly, and once oil production peaks, prices will skyrocket despite any efforts. We need to do more to prepare for our transition to sustainable energy. While the supply of oil will be temporary, the damage to the Alaskan tundra, our national heritage, will be permanent.
Swanson can be reached at arswanson@amherst.edu