Why America Must Drill for Oil in ANWR

America Must Not Eschew Its Natural Resources for Fear of Complete Oil Dependency on the Middle East

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to over 45 different species of land and marine mammals including shrews, grizzles, wolverines, moose, otters, and many more. It's even home to hundreds of herds of caribou and several types of unique flora. Yet no matter how one looks at this resourceful land, there is no way to justify the lack of utilization of its resources. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve would be beneficial not only to America's economy, but to that of the whole world. There is no logical reason to stop such resourceful efforts because we must not, and we cannot, afford to place the welfare of ANWR's river otters and the like above our own. Oil excavation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would be nothing but an advantageous endeavor.

The economic benefits of oil excavation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are twofold. First, excavation would greatly increase the domestic production of oil, leading to less dependence on foreign oil, as well as thousands and thousands of new American jobs. Though the exact quantity of crude oil reserves in ANWR is impossible to determine precisely, several United States Geological Survey analyses, most recently in 1998, have determined there exist between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels of oil beneath the icy tundra. Indeed as opponents to this proposed drilling continue to spout "very little oil" rhetoric, it's forgotten that they used the same slogan in attempts to prevent drilling for oil in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay when that was a hot topic in 1967. When drilling eventually began there, Prudhoe Bay turned out to be the largest oil deposit in North America . Many have speculated that a similar stroke of luck may befall drilling in ANWR.