Author Topic: Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in the AWR!!!  (Read 994 times)

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Offline JPSaxMan

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in the AWR!!!
« on: March 16, 2005, 04:13:50 PM »
WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.
 
The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year’s budget.

The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said.

The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to billions of barrels of oil believed to lie beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska.

Drilling supporters acknowledged after the vote that for refuge development to get final approval Congress must still pass a final budget with the Senate provision included, something Congress was unable to do last year.

Still, “this is a big step,” said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who said he had tried for 24 years to open the refuge, but failed because Democrats blocked the effort through filibusters. The budget is immune from a filibuster, meaning drilling supporters will need only a majority — not the 60 votes required to break a filibuster — to succeed when the issue comes up for final action later this year.

Impact on wildlife feared
Environmentalists have fought such development and argued that despite improved environmental controls, a web of pipelines and drilling platforms would harm calving caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds that use the coastal plain.

Seeking to sidestep a Democratic filibuster, Republican leaders put the Alaska refuge provision into a budget document that is immune to a filibuster under Senate rules. Opponents had hoped to garner the 51 votes needed to strip the provision from the budget.

During several hours of Senate debate Tuesday, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said that even at peak production the refuge would account for less than 2.5 percent of U.S. oil needs. “How in the world can this be the centerpiece of our energy policy?” asked Durbin, arguing that more conservation and more fuel efficient automobiles would save more oil than the Alaska refuge would produce.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a staunch supporter of drilling, said the refuge’s oil represents “the most significant onshore production capacity” in the country.

“Some people say we ought to conserve more. They say we ought to conserve instead of producing this oil,” Domenici said. “But we need to do everything. We have to conserve and produce where we can.”

‘Fragile environment’ acknowledged
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, rejected claims that oil rigs and pipelines would ruin a national environmental treasure, as critics charge. “We know we’ve got to do it right. ... It’s a fragile environment,” said Murkowski, adding that oil companies in Alaska are subject to the most stringent environmental requirements in the world.

Democrats complained that an issue as divisive as opening a pristine area of wild land, specifically protected by Congress from development, should be debated independently and not as part of the budget process.

“They want to sneak this into the budget,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

Drilling supporters have tried for years to allow oil companies access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the refuge’s 1.5-million acre coastal plain.

President Bush has made access to the refuge’s oil a key part of his energy agenda. Last week, Bush declared that 10 billion barrels of oil could be pumped from the refuge and that it could be done “with almost no impact on land or wildlife.”

Environmentalists argue that while new technologies have reduced the drilling footprint, ANWR’s coastal plain still would contain a spider web of pipelines that would disrupt calving caribou and disturb polar bears, musk oxen and the annual influx of millions of migratory birds.
JP

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Offline williamlayton

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2005, 09:55:50 PM »
With all respects to conservationist, I agree--In the same tone I agree that  particular caution be observed when exploiting this reserve.
The two should be mutually compatable if both are diligent.
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Offline Daveinthebush

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2005, 05:16:17 AM »
Quote
Environmentalists argue that while new technologies have reduced the drilling footprint, ANWR’s coastal plain still would contain a spider web of pipelines that would disrupt calving caribou and disturb polar bears, musk oxen and the annual influx of millions of migratory birds.


The caribou are usually the first to be drawn to the green grasses that grow under the pipeline in the spring.  They could care less.  One place I used to hunt, we would land the plane, get the lounge chair out and await for the caribou to walk around the plane.

The polar bears could care less too,  they are going to go where they want too.  The birds have the same frame of though as the polar bears.

Alaska does get half the profits though.  Maybe some of the schools that do not have bathrooms, leaky plumbing, books 25 years old and have to stop teaching a month early because they ran out of funding will be helped. I have been in Valdez four years and although we are rich compared to other schools, our vocational education funding has been cut $19,000 in that time. I can't afford to buy supplies anymore out of my wages.
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Offline fe352v8

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2005, 06:44:29 AM »
I am glad someone from Alaska posted.  When I left Alaska in 1975 the same dire perdictions were being made about destruction of habitat.  If done with the same care as the North Slope and pipeline, its impact should be minimal.  Tankers have caused far more damage than the exploration and production.

Does anyone no what percentage of product will be US consumed, it seems at one time agrat deal of oil, from Alaska, was sold to asian markets.

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Offline Don Fischer

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2005, 10:04:14 AM »
Davidinthebush, Your school funding got cut $19,000? I read somewhere in this site that, I think it's congressmen or maybe senator's, likely both, get $90,000 per year entertainment expenses. Maybe they will float ya a loan!

As for the drilling, what good will it do? When I lived up there I took supplies to Prudoe Bay now and again. I was told that the oil we were pumping wasn't that good and was being sold to Japan, seem's like we gave them our tin can's once and they built ship's, planes and gun's with them.

Anyway, even if we have the oil, my understanding is not getting the oil, it's refining it. We don't have the capacity to refine what we need.
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Offline Sourdough

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2005, 07:44:57 PM »
First of all ANWR is the size of South Carolina.  They build an Ice road into the drill site during the winter.  They then erect a building the size of a typical school gym.  From this one building they drill up to 15 oil wells, using horizonal drilling.  When they are finished drilling they remove all drilling equipment, set up the pumps and lay a pipe along the ground to the nearest pump station (Prudhoe Bay).  Then spring comes the snow and ice melts.  The pipe settles half way into the soft ground to the point that you can step over it, hardly noticing it's there.  With the exception of the building, and pipe all traces that man was there is now gone.  When the Caribou return, they aren't going to notice one little building, or a small pipe half buried.  99.5% of the Caribou won't even see it anyway.  Remember this building is in an area the size of South Carolina, and the Caribou are scattered all over it.  Also the Caribou at Prudhoe Bay have proven they don,ta care about buildings or pipes.  The documentaries that you see on how the pipeline and buildings stress the Caribou are untrue.  The Caribou in the Prudhoe Bay area have increased 10 fold since the pipeline was put in.  I've seen Caribou lined up for miles seeking the only shade on the North Slope on hot days, and that's right under the pipeline.
 
Oh yea! I almost forgot.  The last I heard there is five drill sites.  That means there will be five buildings out there.  Still not much of a footprint on an area that size.
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Offline jh45gun

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2005, 05:01:39 AM »
Well I do not know how much oil is up there, but it would not supprise me that the tree huggers, animal activist, and all the rest of the environmentalists just say there is not much oil so folks will not support the idea.  In my area the pipelines we have that come from Canada are considered great places to hunt as the deer like the fringe areas of the clear cut corridors. Folks around here have been hunting around the pipelines for years.
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Offline JPSaxMan

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2005, 05:13:06 AM »
So Jim, you're actually saying, now let me hear this right, that oil drilling can have a positive effect on wildlife and hunting? OMG...who would have thought such an incredulous thought.... :shock:  :) .

Seems like the Alaksan people didn't complain when they put in the other pipelines years ago? Why now? I don't think the ANWR is the only national reserve left...geez...ship the animals somewhere else if it becomes that apparent of a problem. Halleluja, nuff said :P   :D
JP

Attorney: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in
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Proverbs 3:5 - Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

Offline jh45gun

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2005, 07:13:08 AM »
Don't have to ship the animals anywhere like it was stated the animals could care less and even like some of the changes. Of course try telling that to a tree hugger they do not understand anything that makes sense.  :roll:  I do not think the locals have a problem with it. It is the nutcase environmentalist and their hollywood friends on a soapbox that are having a problem with it. But then those folks are nut cases anyway. Jim
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Offline Sourdough

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Senate gives go-ahead for oil drilling in t
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2005, 08:32:41 AM »
Oh!  Don't think the enviromentalist did not have a lot to say when the pipeline was built.  They raised the roof, and was able to delay the project for several years.  

The "National Patrolium Resurve Alaska" that President Bush ordered opened and brought into production is currently being delayed by enviromentalist, they are using the same tacticts, that it will hurt the Caribou, Bears, and Wolves.  

We are currently trying to import Wood Bison for release into the Yukon Flats area.  This is considered a reintroduction since they were hunted out by natives less than 200 years ago.  The enviromentalist are at all the meetings, They have expressed concerns that we are going to use this as a way of implamenting preditor control.  We know they are really there to get an idea when we might open the heard up for hunting so they can make their plans to stop it.  

Everything we try and do up here such as building a road, opening up a mine for minerals, building a dock, building a runway, everything they want to stop it.  Yet they demand that Fish and Game build wooden walkways and viewing platforms for them to watch the animals, using our Pitman-Robertson money.  Unfortunately our Fish and Game dept does it.
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