Stevens breaks silence on ANWR

Petroleum News Alaska Staff

Sen. Ted Stevens took the Senate floor Oct. 31 and urged the Senate to recognize the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration as vital to national security. Stevens has been largely absent from jawboning on the issue following removal of the Energy Security bill from the Energy Committee by Democratic leadership. The timing of the comments may indicate Stevens thinks Senate action on ANWR is imminent.

Stevens noted that among national security issues facing the Senate, ANWR alone suffers the threat of filibuster, and further noted that in 1973 when the Senate debated the right of way for the trans-Alaska pipeline, it was with a tacit understanding that any item dealing with national security would not be filibustered.

Stevens also made a connection between ANWR and other issues.

“Economic stimulus, health care, transportation — all are tied to energy and oil,” he said.

ANWR proponents in the Senate are eyeing an Economic Stimulus bill expected to reach the floor soon as a vehicle to bring an energy discussion to the forefront in the absence of a comprehensive bill from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Arctic Power in Washington, D.C., told PNA.

Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., criticized the strategy in an Oct. 31 press conference. “They threaten to attach it to every piece of legislation before Congress,” Kerry said. “They say it’s security; it's not. They say it's stimulus; it's not.”

“Before September 11th, we believed in protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We still believe it — and we say that knowing that drilling there will do nothing to make us any safer, will do nothing to make our economy stronger for the working men and women hurting today.”

Stevens, however, offered a study just completed by the American Petroleum Institute that says transporting oil from the ANWR coastal plain would require construction of 19 tankers to transport the oil to the West Coast. With 2,000 direct construction jobs and 3,000 support jobs created per ship, more than 90,000 new jobs would be created in the U.S. shipbuilding industry alone.

Stevens closed with words he used in debate over the trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973.

“We cannot afford to bury our heads in the snow and freeze, nor must we allow our economy and the jobs of thousands to be endangered while we stand idly by,” he said, adding, “It was true then and it is even more true now.”