Arctic Oil Drilling Offers Few Benefits, Lots of Pain

Americans woke up this morning to learn that Republican senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski, introduced legislation last night that would open a portion of a pristine wildlife refuge in her state to oil and gas development.  As noted here, (this is) a move expected to bring in slightly more than $1 billion in federal revenue over the next decade.  The bill would open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR),  described by some as “America’s Serengeti,” which covers more than 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska. The region is home to polar bears, caribou, moose and hundreds of species of migratory birds. It’s considered one of the state’s crown jewels.

My colleague David Duquette, CEO of hydrokinetics start-up Littoral Technologies wrote the following, in an effort to set the record straight about the obscene folly of the proposed effort:

Senator, you’re so out of it. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because it would irreversibly damage one of the most pristine parts of the globe. Additionally, it wouldn’t create sufficient oil supplies to meaningfully affect the global market price or have a meaningful impact on U.S. energy security. The numbers don’t lie. The Alyeska Pipeline is already running at about a third of what it handled in the late 80s — because the market simply isn’t there at the prices that make it sensible to operate — and it cannot transport much less than the current flows without freezing/gumming up. The only possible justification for this initiative is, indeed, to keep the Pipeline operational — which is the most backward of backward reasoning.

All we’re really talking about here is greed.  Chewing up the environment to extract the last molecule of crude offers value to no one but the fossil fuel industry. Ask yourself if Ms. Murkowski would propose destroying this pristine animal habitat if it weren’t for the pressure brought to be bear upon her by the oil companies.