The Alaska delegation however, led by Rep. Don Young, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, have long been reminding their fellow legislators and President Obama that Alaska has for years suggested to pay for such expensive plans with the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal oil tax royalties that would be generated with ANWR exploration.  Indeed almost all legislation on opening the 10-02 Coastal Plain of ANWR introduced to Congress in the past 4 years has stated federal oil and gas royalties generated would be used to pay for jobs, environmental, and future energy development programs for the life of production.  How much is that was answered by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2008 which stated 10-02 lease sale royalties would be between 4-6 billion dollars whilst production taxes would range between $48-297 billion depending on the amount of oil in the ground.  No other single industry source currently provides such an amount to the federal coffers, and for Congressmen’s concern none of this tax money requires raising taxes on their constituents.  Despite this tremendous benefit using future ANWR revenues to help pay for the costs of Obama Administration’s stimulus programs, ANWR, to a large extent, has been ignored or rejected on all sides due to the Presidents position against it and probable veto should it be included.  It is ironic that with an OMB estimated $4 billion coming in the door from an ANWR lease sale taking place 18-21 months after signature of a ANWR bill that this money could easily pay for President Obama’s $2.3 billion mega-bill“green jobs” plan in one sweep with change left over.  ANWR royalties similarly could pay for all the energy provisions included in the federal stimulus package past last year, again with no taxes levied from constituents. 

Budgets do tell.  The United States government yearly has generated billions of dollars in tax revenue from the oil and gas industry ($23.4 billion in 2008.  Yet under the current delays and retractions on oil and gas leases by Secretary of Interior Salazar both in Alaska and the Lower 48 the intake of oil and gas taxes is currently nearly the lowest in recent history.  The lack of oil tax income coupled with the extreme amounts of spending putting the President’s stimulus programs into affect has only worsened the national economic situation.  The President, in an energy address last week, stated his desire to expand exploration in the outer continental shelf (OCS) of the US.  This however certainly was not backed up by his proposed FY 2011 budget to Congress presented on February 1st in which President Obama predicts a future downturn in income from oil and gas exploration taxes from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $413 million in 2015, not an increase as would be expected with expanded drilling.

Opening and actively promoting the development of ANWR and America’s OCS, would easily accomplish many of the goals of the mega stimulus and reform bills being argued on Capitol Hill today.  This could be done with industry created jobs (vs. Federally subsidized jobs), fewer oil imports (and decreased national debt), and a source for private funding of alternative energies (versus artificial subsidies from public tax dollars).

Perhaps the greatest value to helping with payments for stimulus bills and the mega programs the Administration has on offer is the sheer raw value of Alaska’s oil.  At $70 per barrel the mean average estimate of ANWR’s oil alone is $728 billion dollars.  Compare that to the $787 billion dollar cost of the entire 2009 Stimulus package and the savings to the national debt becomes apparent.  One barrel of oil produced at home negates a barrel of oil need to be purchased from abroad.  At prices over $100 per barrel, as the federal Energy Information Administration is predicting from 2014 and beyond, ANWR oil breaches the trillion dollar value for savings to the nation easily paying for the entire sweet of stimulus proposals on Congresses books today.