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TO: ALASKA COALITION LEADERS AND ALASKA ADVOCATES
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Trying to sell drilling in the Arctic Refuge as an economic stimulus proposal is probably the greatest attempt to sting the American people since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”
-Senator Joseph Lieberman 11/14/01
A DRILLING-FREE ARCTIC THANKSGIVING
A DRILLING-FREE ARCTIC THANKSGIVING
As was reported last week (Alaska Wild Update #168), the Senate was discussing the economic stimulus package for most of the past week. The Stimulus Package was passed out of the Senate Finance Committee on an 11-10 vote. Over 60 different amendments were filed by Republicans unhappy with the Democratic version of the stimulus package. Although Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK) had filed an amendment to the economic stimulus package that included Arctic Drilling, the amendment was never actually offered in the committee.
Tuesday, (11/14/01) the Senate took up the economic stimulus package on the floor. Again, various amendments that included drilling in the Arctic Refuge were filed. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) filed HR 4 (the House energy bill that passed in August) as an amendment. With neither side willing to budge on many different issues, the Senate bogged down on procedural motions. As of Friday, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle had removed the stimulus package from the floor, temporarily ending further debate. Senate Republicans never offered any of the pro-drilling amendments and with the stimulus package at least temporarily removed from the floor, it seems unlikely that any further opportunities to attach Arctic Refuge drilling to the stimulus package will present themselves before Thanksgiving.
The Senate reconvenes for possibly two days next week in an effort to pass some of the appropriation bills, so there is always an opportunity to attach a pro-drilling rider before Thanksgiving. This also seems unlikely, as Minority Leader Trent Lott has stated that he does not believe Republicans should try to attach any form of the Energy bill to any of the appropriation bills.
NRDC’s MURKOWSKI WATCH
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has recently put together a collection of Senator Frank Murkowski’s public statements in support of opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The purpose of this report is to set the record straight and present the facts as they are, not as Senator Murkowski wants them to be. Below are several of the “Murkowski Myths”.
How many jobs could Arctic Refuge oil development generate?
Recently Sen. Murkowski made statements on the Senate floor requesting that drilling in the Arctic Refuge be part of the “economic stimulus package” Congress is debating. (Note that he likes to refer to the refuge by its acronym, ANWR, perhaps to avoid mentioning that the area is, first and foremost, a wildlife refuge.)
“I am going to finish with one point, and that is the stimulus. We are talking about a stimulus in this nation. What does a stimulus mean? It means different things to different people. To some it means jobs; to others it means tax relief. I defy any member of this body to tell me a stimulus that is more meaningful than authorizing the opening of ANWR because what it would do is it would provide hundreds of thousands of jobs. Not government jobs, private sector jobs in shipbuilding, in developing pipes and valves. It would start immediately.” (October 31)
“I will close by outlining the significance of the economic stimulus associated with this single issue. The Department of Labor Massachusetts Survey indicates jobs, direct, 250,000; the Wharton Econometrics Institute at the University of Pennsylvania lists the total employment, indirect, at 735,000 jobs associated with the development of ANWR; jobs in 50 states, 80,000 in California, 48,000 in New York. …We are looking at 200,000 jobs at a minimum, direct.” (November 8)
Fact: A recent analysis by labor economist Dean Baker estimated that drilling in the Arctic Refuge would generate a total of 46,300 jobs. That is less than the number of jobs our economy generated in an average week from 1997 through 2000. Sen. Murkowski and other drilling proponents often cite a 10-year-old American Petroleum Institute-commissioned study by the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (WEFA), which is not affiliated with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The WEFA study has been thoroughly discredited by at least five independent analyses, including a recent one by the Congressional Research Service. (See NRDC’s report on how many jobs oil development in the Arctic Refuge would generate: http://www.nrdc.org/land/wilderness/artech/farcjobs.asp.)
How much oil is estimated to be in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain?
In a speech on the Senate floor on November 8, Sen. Murkowski said that our nation “is at risk use increased dependence on oil. What can we do about it? What we can do about it is increase domestic production. We are not going to relieve our dependence totally, but we will reduce it substantially.”
In a May 8 interview with Bob Edwards, the host of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” Sen. Murkowski said, “The estimate [of oil in the Arctic Refuge coastal plain] is anywhere from 5 billion barrels to 16 billion barrels. If it were 16 billion barrels, it would be the largest discovery in North America in the last 40 years.”
In a March 20 appearance on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Sen. Murkowski told Judy Woodruff, “If there is a mean of 10 to 16 billion barrels in ANWR, which is the estimate, it would be the largest field found in the world in 40 years.”
FACT:
Sen. Murkowski confuses the amount of oil that USGS estimates is technically recoverable with the amount it estimates is economically recoverable. USGS defines technically recoverable reserves as “the volume of petroleum representing that proportion of assessed in-place resources that may be recoverable using current recovery technology without regard to cost.” In other words, technically recoverable reserve estimates do not take into account the costs of oil exploration and production, which would make much of the oil too expensive to extract.
USGS estimates the amount of technically recoverable oil in the refuge to range from a 5 percent chance there is 11.8 billion barrels of oil to a 95 percent chance there is 4.3 billion barrels, with a average (mean) estimate of 7.7 billion barrels. Despite what Sen. Murkowski stated in his letter to the Washington Post, USGS estimates that there is only a 1 percent chance there are 16 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in the refuge.
When USGS includes the costs of finding, developing, producing and transporting the oil to market, as well as a 12 percent profit margin, the agency’s estimate of the amount of recoverable oil from the Arctic Refuge is considerably less. It estimates that if the price of oil remains around $20 a barrel, there is a 5 percent chance there is nearly 7 billion barrels, a 95 percent chance there is less than 1 billion barrels, and a 50 percent chance (or mean estimate) there are 3.2 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic Refuge. (World oil prices have been below $20 a barrel for seven of the last 10 years, according to the Energy Information Administration.) We currently consume 7.1 billion barrels of oil a year; 3.2 billion barrels is less than what we consume in six months. (For more information go to: http://energy.usgs.gov/factsheets/ANWR/ANWR.html.)
For the entire report, please contact Chuck Clusen or Elliott Negin, 202-289-6868 at NRDC.
AMERICANS WANT FUEL EFFICIENCY
According to a new bipartisan poll released by The Wilderness Society, a majority of American voters (57 to 36 percent) reject the idea that allowing oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge would increase national energy security, and endorse increasing fuel efficiency as the single most effective action which could be taken right now to reduce the country's dependence on oil and increase national energy security.
A majority of Americans in all regions (54 to 38 percent) also reject the notion that in light of declining economy and layoffs, we need to open the Arctic Refuge for drilling in order to create 750,000 new jobs (the jobs figure cited in a largely discredited 1990 report used widely by drilling proponents).
The national poll was conducted by the Mellman Group (D) and Bellwether Research (R). The margin of error is +/-3.1% in 95 out of 100 cases. For more information, visit www.wilderness.org.
ROBERT REDFORD ON THE HILL
Actor Robert Redford traveled to the U.S. Capitol Wednesday (11/14/01) to call on the U.S. Senate to protect Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. During a press conference, Redford, who sits on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said more than two million Americans have written letters and postcards urging lawmakers to prohibit drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
"I am hopeful that the debate, which has yet to come, can get beyond partisan bickering and get put before the public in an open and honest way. I think the decisions we make right now will say a lot about us as a country." Redford said. "I'd like to remind the current administration that it was in fact a Republican president (Dwight Eisenhower) who set aside this territory for protection."
Redford was joined at a press conference by Sarah James, a member of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, and Senators Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), Russ Feingold (R-Wis.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) and Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.)
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
This past Wednesday in Tennessee, Organizer Jeff Barrie and the Alaska Coalition of Tennessee presented their “Wall of Faces” at a press conference in Nashville. The wall is 32 feet long and 8 feet high. It is built in the shape of Tennessee and has affixed to it over 1200 photos of people from all over the state wishing to preserve the Arctic Refuge. Each person is holding a sign with their name and address along with a sign asking Senators Fred Thompson and Bill Frist to oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge. For over two months, members of the Coalition had been touring around the state taking pictures of people who oppose drilling. The people in the photos come from all parts of Tennessee and include Seniors, Veterans, Labor, students, farmers, and businesspeople. To see the Tennessean’s coverage, go to: http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/01/11/10562075.shtml?Element_ID=10562075
ACTIVIST RESOURCES
Take Action at www.alaskawild.org
Don’t know who your Representative is? Find out at http://www.house.gov/writerep
Have your members of Congress cosponsored the Arctic Wilderness Bills H.R.770 / S.411 and the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act, H.R. 2908? Go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ then type in the bill number to find out. Cosponsors are listed under “bill summary and status.
U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Senate Address: The Honorable _______, US Senate, Washington, DC 20510
House Address: The Honorable _______,US House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515
Contacting the President: George W. Bush, The White House, Washington DC 20500
White House Comment Desk: (202) 456-1111, Fax: (202) 456-2461
Call Sir John Browne, CEO of BP Amoco, 1-800 U-TELL-BP
Send a letter to the editor of your local paper at https://www.angelfire.com/ca/letterstoeditor/index.html
Send a FREE fax to protect Alaska’s Rainforest at www.akrain.org
Erik DuMont
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