ANWR polling differs: Wilderness Society says 2-1 against, About.com shows 71% favor drilling

Steve Sutherlin

PNA Associate Editor

A poll released Jan. 31 by The Wilderness Society said voters reject opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling by a two-to-one margin, while an Internet poll at About.com showed, at PNA press time, 71 percent of 39,433 respondents in favor of oil development in the refuge.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the Wilderness Society poll contradicts others taken over the past 15 months on the same subject. She said questions on the poll were riddled with debatable opinions stated by interviewers as facts, which may have contributed to the outcome.

The Wilderness Society poll asked, “Do you agree with (statement A/B) much more or somewhat more?

“Statement A: Some people say we should allow oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge because they say energy security is key to our national security. They say an impending war with Iraq could cut off a portion of our oil supply and, with political instability in other oil supplying countries, we need to find more oil here in the U.S. to reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East and other countries.

“Statement B: Other people say drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge will do little or nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. If there is any oil at all to be recovered from drilling in the Refuge, the U.S. Geological Survey says there would be less than 6 months worth of oil, and even oil companies agree it would take ten years before any oil could be delivered to American consumers. And energy experts agree that making cars more fuel efficient is the single most effective thing the U.S. can do right now to decrease dependence on foreign oil and thus increase national security.”

The poll, paid for by national environmental groups and conducted by Washington, D.C., pollsters Celinda Lake and Christine Matthews, said 62 percent of respondents agreed with Statement A, and 30 percent agreed with Statement B. It has a 3 percentage-point margin of error and is based on interviews with 1,015 U.S. voters.

“If the polling questions of the environmental groups were asked fairly and objectively they would have yielded different results,” Murkowski said. “For example, they should have asked Americans, ‘Do you support limited expansion of oil drilling in Alaska or would you prefer we buy more oil from Saddam Hussein?’”

In contrast, the About.com poll consisted of one question, “Do you think ANWR should be opened for oil drilling?”

About.com is a Primedia online information service, which has 34.3 million users according to Nielsen//NetRatings. For poll results visit:

http://environment.about.com/library/weekly/blanwrpoll.htm

Six GOP senators slam ANWR budget strategy

Because ANWR drilling would bring in revenue, it can be considered a budget issue. Income from opening the refuge to oil and gas development was included in President Bush’s FY 2004 budget proposal, released Feb. 3.

“Because the opening of the Arctic Refuge to drilling raises a host of policy concerns, including serious environmental ramifications, we do not believe this issue should be injected in the budget process,” the letter said. “We believe that the Arctic refuge should be preserved and that the budgetary effects of oil leases in the refuge are incidental when considering the profound negative impact of drilling in the Arctic refuge.”

The letter, from Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, was co-signed by Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Peter G. Fitzgerald of Illinois.

According to pro ANWR drilling group Arctic Power, the senators who signed the letter have not been supporters of drilling in the refuge in the past, so the letter does not signal a shift in support for ANWR drilling within the Senate.

The president’s budget proposes using the federal share of bonus bids from opening ANWR to oil and gas exploration — approximately $1.2 billion — for research into renewable and alternative energy sources.