YES, SIREE, America has gone a prospectin'. This is no California gold rush of 1849, folks. We're talking about black gold - the stuff Western dreams are made of. Last week, the Senate effectively killed the Bush administration's push for drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Reserve when a filibuster on the proposal took out any chance for a vote. If President George W. Bush knew what was best for this nation's energy demands and environment, he'd pull his head out of the oil well and start looking for other alternatives - fast.
The only thing more Texan than a ten gallon hat and pit barbecue is oil. And, indeed, Bush has brought that charming mentality to the White House. If he had his way, that fountain in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would be spouting oil - now there's a tourist postcard for you. Since that's unlikely to happen, though, drill-happy Bush has turned to some of our more pristine landscapes in search of fossil fuels.
In 1995, Congress approved a plan to open the coastal plain of the ANWR for oil and gas exploration, but then-President Bill Clinton vetoed it. Now the Bush administration has affirmed its support for such a measure, much to the dismay of environmentalists and Democrats led by Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.). Along with a handful of Republicans, the Democrats managed to filibuster the proposal into defeat.
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A former oil company executive, like Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush bleeds black - especially when such oil companies and their executives contribute to Republican campaigns and serve as advisors to the President. So it should have come as no surprise that he came out in full support ofdrilling in the ANWR.
However, much as he did in backing out of the Kyoto Protocol regulations on carbon dioxide emissions, Bush deftly incensed the environmental activist community. While some stereotype such environmentalists as a bunch of leftist, tree-hugging liberals, their crusade against Bush is, by no means, radical. This is a fight they can't afford to lose.
The ANWR consists of about 19 million acres in northeast Alaska, and its coastal plain, roughly the area of Delaware, holds the potential for extensive oil and natural gas resources ("Senate defeats Arctic exploration," MSNBC.com, April 18). Of course, this just lit up the radar on the Bush administration's sites for domestic drilling. Environmentalists - not to mention Congressional Democrats - object on the reasonable grounds that drilling in the area has the capability of disrupting the habitats of such conservation-worthy animals as polar bears and caribou.
It's high time that Bush reexamine his environmental and energy policies. Administration officials claim that they are considering environmental repercussions, but unless Bush has learned to talk to the animals a la Doctor Dolittle, that's very unlikely. While the administration's push for drilling in the Arctic has been halted temporarily, it is now looking at exploiting areas in the Rockies from Wyoming to New Mexico. Clearly, Bush won't rest until he's found a suitable environmental refuge to tear up.
Bush's quest for domestic drilling emphasizes this nation's dependence on fossil fuels. Rather than continuing to feed the frenzy, he should focus on ways to mitigate it. Fossil fuels, oil in particular, do immeasurable damage to the environment, especially the ozone layer, and in demanding we search for more oil in America, he only propagates the problem.
Bush should abandon his all-out efforts for drilling in wildlife refuges. Kerry was right on target when he said last week, "You can't drill your way out of America's energy challenge. You have to invent your way out of this challenge." The defeat of Bush's plan in the Senate proves his fight will be unsuccessful in the future. While he praises his search for domestic drilling sites as a way to ease the country's reliance on oil imports from the Middle East, when he reaches a dead end here, the United States once again will be at the mercy of OPEC. Iraq is one of the top five exporters of oil to the United States, and in purchasing petroleum from it, we continue to fuel Saddam Hussein and other terrorist agendas. According to MSNBC, he pays $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Senators, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.), already have taken a step in the right direction in their push for federally mandated rules for the addition of ethanol to gasoline. Ethanol is both clean and domestically produced.
Environmentalists and Democrats should not let up in their battle against the Bush administration any time soon. But if Bush insists on drilling in the ANWR, he better be the one to tell the Coca-Cola polar bear to move out because papa needs a new SUV.
(Becky Krystal is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at bkrystal@cavalierdaily.com.)
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