It’s not often that the preservation of a wild place has a direct link to our nation’s critical struggle to wean itself from an “addiction to oil.” But the new opportunity to permanently ban drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) represents just that for both the future of American energy policy and the security of one of the world’s most pristine and threatened wildlife habitats in North America.
Since the years of the Carter administration, the government has struggled in debate regarding the fate of this 1.2 million-acre stretch of oil-rich coastal habitat on Alaska’s North Slope. Drilling proponents have steadily claimed that tapping the petroleum reserves under the coastal plains of the ANWR would help to lessen American dependence on foreign oil, while easing costs on consumers at the pump and in their homes. They have also assured voters that drilling could be conducted in harmony with the refuge’s ecosystem and vital wildlife populations.
During the gas crisis in the ’70s, this would have seemed more viable and progressive of an option. But the lessons we’ve learned since then have taught us a great deal, both about our ability to develop more efficient forms of energy and about the oil industry’s devotion to their environmental promises regarding Alaskan oil reserves.
Today, with the new congress, it is absolutely necessary for this discussion to get with the times and end forever. A permanent ban on drilling in the ANWR is a logical and important step toward a technology-driven future in which we embrace solutions created by our ingenuity and desire for true progress in energy policy. For this reason, Americans should be eager to support newly introduced legislation that seeks to accomplish this specific aim while protecting a pristine and vital area of wilderness habitat akin to the Serengeti plains in its biodiversity.
On Jan. 5, a new bill entered the House, under the chief sponsorship of Rep. Edward Markey, D- Mass, that will designate the coastal area of the ANWR east of the booming Prudhoe oil field as permanently protected wilderness. The bill is expected to pass easily in the House, but might face tougher opposition in the Senate. For this reason, I strongly encourage students concerned not only with the preservation of vital habitat, but also with the progression of American energy policy to voice their support for this legislation in the public forum.
Large-scale drilling in the Alaskan wilderness has characteristically neglected the stipulations with allowed it to commence in the first place. Most notably, the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, which was one of the worst environmental disasters in history, went back on the oil industry’s promise to responsibly manage environmental externalities with the opening of Valdez, Alaska as a major oil port. This past August, in a show of utter disregard, BP, formerly British Petroleum, had to temporarily shut off the entire flow of oil from its Prudhoe Bay field in order to repair a ruptured pipeline, spilling oil into migratory caribou habitat. Investigation revealed that the condition of the pipes had not been inspected in years.
The ANWR is too important a habitat to put up for a short- sighted gamble, especially with the odds stacked up against its safety. The refuge is home to North America’s largest caribou herd, scores of polar bears and musk oxen, not to mention hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. And although drilling proponents claim that the extraction of oil can be done with little effect on the area’s ecosystems, we’ve had the unfortunate privilege of watching how their claims pan out historically.
But you don’t have to be an environmentalist to get behind this new legislation. If anything, you should support it in the name of progress, better energy options and as a first step away from the archaic dependency responsible for our failing foreign policy. We have to choose innovation over complacency in regard to how we produce energy. And the passage of this new bill in the Senate would serve as a symbolic declaration of our nation’s desire to be better with our energy policy and move forward in the name of progress.
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