INOUYE’S FLOOR STATEMENT ON DRILLING IN ANWR

[paineinthearse]

Sorry if a repost, I came across this researching other information.

http://inouye.senate.gov/

SENATOR DANIEL K. INOUYE’S FLOOR STATEMENT ON DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
March 16, 2005
For Immediate Release

Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, during the past several weeks, my office and I have received hundreds of letters, telephone calls, e-mails, most of them condemning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Some were threatening. Some were very sensitive. I would like to take this opportunity to respond to these letters and telegrams and e-mails.

I do this with mixed feelings because I am well aware that the majority of my colleagues on the Democratic side are not with me and that I may be one of the very few on our side. But I have taken this position for many years. This is not the first time. So I think I have a few things I would like to share with you.

Last night, I watched a television ad put out by people who are not for the drilling. If one looked at it objectively, you got the impression that the drilling would be done in all of Alaska. It showed pristine scenes of wildlife, of plants. You could not help but feel, my God, are we going to destroy all of this?

How large is ANWR? As the Senator from Virginia stated, it is about the size of the State of South Carolina. The area that will be set aside for this drilling would be about 2,000 acres – 2,000 acres out of 19 million acres.

Put another way, if ANWR were the size of a page of the Washington Post, and you put something on it about a square quarter inch, that would be about the size of the drilling footprint of ANWR.

We are not devastating the State of Alaska. We are not devastating ANWR.

This debate has gone on for a long time. Many of the debates centered around the statements of an Indian tribe, the Gwich'in. The Gwich'in village at one time offered their lands for lease to drill and develop oil. They had no conditions to it. They said just go ahead and drill on our land, we would like to have that done. But when the test drills were made and they found that there was no oil or gas, then, suddenly, the Gwich'ins found themselves in opposition.

There are 230 Indian tribes and tribal villages in the State of Alaska – 230. One tribe is against it, the Gwich'in tribe. For the past 15 years I was chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. My mandate from my colleagues was that we should listen to the Indians. Mr. President, 229 tribes said yes, we want it. One tribe said no.

The Gwich'ins have cousins on the Canadian side, and the Canadian side Gwich'in land is being drilled at the same time, and they seem to be happy.

The question comes up, how many barrels will ANWR produce? The U.S. Geological Survey suggests that ANWR holds between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil, an average of about 10 billion barrels. The site will produce an additional 876,000 to 1.6 million barrels a day. This makes it the single greatest prospect for future oil production in the United States. It will produce over 36 million gallons of much needed gasoline, jet and diesel fuel and heating oil. To put this in perspective, while ANWR can produce 1.6 million barrels a day, Texas and California each offer about 1 million daily.

Development of ANWR alone will reduce U.S. dependence on foreign sources by 4 percent. Some would say: 4 percent, that's not much. Tell that to the driver who has to go to the pump today and pay that extra price. Four percent makes a big difference.

But equally as important, I have heard many of my colleagues suggest that the war in Iraq is a war on oil. If they believe so, why don't we produce our own oil so we don't have to fight for it?

I close by sharing with you something that happened many years ago when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was being debated. It was a long time ago, and most of the Members of the Senate were not here at that time. Dire predictions were made. Environmentalists came forward and said: You are going to destroy Alaska. The caribou herd will be demolished and diminished. They will become extinct.

Those are the words that we heard. At the time the Congress authorized the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, there were 5,000 caribou. Today, there are 32,000 caribou. Instead of diminishing the herd, the pipeline apparently has helped them. But this is not a debate on the pipeline, it is a debate on ANWR.

I hope my colleagues will give this opportunity to the people of Alaska. When 229 out of 230 tribes tell me they want it, I am ready to respond, sir.

Thank you very much.

[sui generis]

1. well clearly a politician at work trying to stay elected

The fact is that we don't reduce our dependency on foreign oil one tiny bit. We have to sell the ANWR oil to Japan to trade for dubloons used to prospect the market for foreign oil. All we do is make a few oil companies richer.

The argument that destroying the environment is good for it is just plain stupidity. Just because a senator says so doesn't make it so.

If Inouye had the tiniest bit of sense, he would be studying and pushing for R&D money for alternative energy sources, because after the oil companies and jobs walk away from the empty oil fields of ANWR and the local economies collapse again, including tourism because nobody wants to come see caribou in their native habitat of pipelines, refineries and wellheads, Inouye had damn well better have a PLAN B.

That's my response sir. Thank you very much.

[hatrack]

2. Same old "2,000 acre" horseshit

Piss off, Dan. Why don't you retire?

[Viking12]

3. 1.6 mbo/day???

And just how are they gonna squeeze that extra .6 mbo/day through the 1 mbo/day capacity of the Alyeska Pipeline??


but the Canadien Gwi'ichin "appear to be happy" :eyes: so I guess the math just isn't really that important.

[jpak]

5. The DOE estimated 700,000 barrels per day - at peak production

and most of that crude will go to Asia.

What horsehit.

[blindpig]

4. Lying whore bastard. EOM

[Kolesar]

6. The Hawaiian Dem Senators sold us out for federal money

The Hawaiian delegation has been voting for drilling in the Arctic Refuge because of an arrangement that they have with Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. Stevens controls a powerful appropriations committee, and will agree to get Hawaii a big appropriation in return for their Senators' votes for drilling. Such was the case when they put drilling the Arctic Refuge into the budget bill in March 2005.