Yet, if we accept the solution offered today by this bill to explore and develop for oil on the coastal plain of ANWR, it will be 5 years, at least, and probably closer to 8 before the first barrel of oil flows from that effort.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Government experts have estimated that ANWR reserves would only provide enough oil for six months of U.S. oil consumption. In addition, the oil industry itself has estimated that it would take 10 years to bring this oil to the market.
Simply put, drilling in ANWR would be expensive, environmentally devastating, and would do very little to fix our energy crisis or to bring down the price of oil and gasoline.
We have to be aware that fossil fuel energy sources have an expiry date. A timeframe of 30, 40 or 50 years can seem a long time to get rewards for economic policy, but it's only a short time for implementing a new energy policy.
Stable energy prices and enhanced national security will only come when we increase domestic energy resources, which was accomplished today with the opening of ANWR.
There is no doubt that now, more than ever, we must work to end our dependence on foreign oil sources. But we cannot do so by ignoring the wishes of the coastal communities that oppose drilling.
First, we should not be opening our coasts, all of our coasts, to oil drilling when we have not taken the first step, not the first step, to conserve oil.
These are estimates that are done by the experts as to how much they expect we could get from the first lease sale that would take place in ANWR, and the estimate is about $2.5 billion.
Drilling in the refuge will not solve America's energy problem. The Energy Department's own figures show that drilling would not change gas prices by more than a penny a gallon, and this would be 20 years from now.
I think three-to-five years ahead minimum. I have a short-term plan, a five-year plan and a decade plan.
The recovery of the Gulf Coast region will take years to complete.