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Executive Summary
The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is truly one of America’s last wild places. It contains no roads, trails, or structures, so you must fly, boat, or walk to get there. It is a pristine habitat, one that supports large populations of migratory birds, caribou, muskoxen, all three species of bear, wolves, Dall sheep, and snow geese. The annual migration of the 129,000-member caribou herd evokes images of the long-gone buffalo herds of the Great Plains.
The coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge is the only area along Alaska’s entire North Slope that is not currently open for oil and gas exploration. Unfortunately, oil companies such as ExxonMobil and their allies in the Bush administration and Congress are pushing to drill in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, endangering one of America’s last wild places for a few months’ worth of oil and gas.
Drilling advocates have made several different arguments to try to garner more support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. These arguments simply do not stand up to the facts.
• Drilling Myth: Drilling in the Arctic Refuge will lower gasoline prices and make America less dependent on foreign oil. Turning the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge into a sprawling industrial complex would do little to ease our energy problems in the short or long term. At its peak, the Arctic Refuge likely would provide less than one percent (0.7%) of projected world oil production and would decline thereafter, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Given the small amount of oil in the Arctic Refuge, EIA also estimates that drilling in the Refuge would reduce gasoline prices by less than a penny-and-a-half a gallon and not until 2025. Moreover, since oil prices are set on the world market, OPEC producers and other oil-exporting nations could cut their output to counter any increase in U.S. output to keep oil and gasoline prices high.
• Drilling Myth: The oil industry can drill without harming the environment. According to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Alaska’s North Slope experienced 4,532 oil spills between 1996 and 2004, an average of 504 spills annually. Overall, reported spills increased by 33 percent between 1996 and 2004, peaking in 2002. These spills released a total of 1.9 million gallons of crude oil, diesel, drilling fluids and waste, and other substances into the delicate Arctic environment. In 2004 alone, 554 spills were reported on the North Slope, or one spill every 16 hours.
• Drilling Myth: The oil industry could develop the coastal plain using only 2,000 acres. Drilling proponents who argue the oil industry can limit development to 2,000 acres are only referring to surface acreage covered by production and support facilities and are excluding seismic or other exploration activities, which have had significant impacts on the Arctic environment to the west of the coastal plain. Oil field development in America’s Arctic includes a vast network of seismic exploration trails, gravel mines, roads, drill pads, pipelines, processing facilities, operating and housing facilities, and waste and sewer treatment plants that stretches across 1,000 square miles of tundra and has changed the Arctic ecosystem forever.
Drilling for oil in this pristine haven for wildlife would disrupt and ultimately destroy one of America’s last remaining truly wild places. Instead of pushing to drill in the Arctic Refuge, the Bush administration should act to make our cars and SUVs go farther on a gallon of gasoline. Simply closing certain regulatory and tax loopholes for gas guzzlers would reduce U.S. oil dependence by 1.5 million barrels per day in 2025 and save consumers more than $30 billion, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Moreover, a 2001 UCS study showed that increasing fleetwide fuel economy standards to 40 mpg by 2012 and 55 mpg by 2020 would save nearly 5 million barrels of oil a day after 18 years and 1.5 million barrels per day after only eight years. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge is no substitute for a real energy policy to reduce America’s dependence on oil.
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