Here's why ANWR advocates are feeling good these days

It's exciting times on the ANWR front these days. The degree of excitement is relative, of course, when one considers that Mr.Clinton and Mr.Gore have two and a half more years to prove they remain happily married to the extreme environmentalists, and congress has the rest of this year to worry about the new election and the survival of its incumbents. An upbeat frame of mind on ANWR does not therefore include imminent thoughts of passage of an open ANWR bill, but it is boosted by lots of positive karma and even more potential oil reserves.

First the positive stuff and then some comments on the potential. We all know that oil is cheaper than spring water and the promise of a "balanced budget" (ignoring social security budget problems), makes concern about the cost of importing 55% of our oil needs, non-existent. We are vaguely aware that one of the aircraft carriers defending our foreign oil has withdrawn from Middle Eastern waters back to home climes. We certainly applaud the full employment and strong economic growth which is fueling our mutual fund fortunes. We recognize that the Asian upsets have radically reduced the demand for world oil by those once voracious economies. We feel well-off and we are buying record numbers of sports utility vehicles. Global warming is being kicked around as a problem, but so was global cooling ten years ago.

To sum up, we are in a fairly euphoric state and as good Americans we always share such fortune. It is in times like these that we open our hearts and purses to numerous lost causes. We can afford lots of largesse and understanding to those that ask for it. Traditionally the environmentalists cash in on these occasions and fill their coffers with money and bonhomie from a population well able to afford them.

Since the Clinton veto of the open-ANWR bill in 1995 congress has not debated the issue and no open-ANWR bill is presently on its agenda. The environmentalists (extreme variety) have had three years to capitalize on the good fortune of the economy and the politics to pass a Wilderness Bill to shut up the coastal plain of ANWR for good. They have failed miserably to make favorable progress towards their goal. Why? First, it's not from want of trying. They have been working hard to get co-sponsors for their Wilderness Bills and they have been actively opposing all oil and gas initiatives on federal land in Alaska. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, given to them by such charitable organizations as the Pue Charitable Trusts and the Brainerd Foundation to achieve their ANWR goal, but they are losing.

The environmental organizations are good at counting dollars and counting votes and they haven't got enough of either. They are good at emotion, and locking up the whole of Alaska is a great emotional issue for most city dwellers in the lower-48, but they are bad at facts, which means they tend to exaggerate freely and sometimes even tell lies. Crying "wolf" too often might get you funds from the Department of the Interior, but it doesn't engender respect from the person genuinely concerned about wolves. The environmentalist don't understand that the vast majority of us worry and care about the environment, be it in Alaska or elsewhere. We also care about the democracy which is America, but we get very cynical with politicians who appear to abuse some democratic principles. We either vote them out of office or we withdraw from the fight and don't vote at all. In both instances we are frustrated by the perceived failure of the system.

The same is true of environmental issues, exaggeration and lies and propaganda breed cynicism. Too much rhetoric such as, "The crown jewels of the arctic", "The Serengeti of the North", "endangered caribou", "native genocide", "alar causes cancer", etc., etc., brings about numbness because it obviously isn't true. What the environmentalists need to remember is that people are basically decent and honest and do not like to be deceived. If we are told the truth we will react to it in a reasonable way.

Which brings us to why ANWR proponents feel good these days. What we have been saying for so long about arctic technology and our ability to protect the environment is bearing fruit. The Alpine development is identified by none other than Secretary Babbett as exemplary. North Star with 150 million barrels of recoverable oil, but situated 13 miles offshore in the hostile Beaufort Sea, is economically profitable. 3-D seismic has led to the discovery of new fields such as Tarn, Badami and Sourdough. Roadless development is now a reality. Buried pipelines eliminate the "spiders web" concept beloved by environmentalists. The footprint of arctic development is demonstrably becoming smaller and has less impact.

These truths help our cause, but so too do the new USGS oil resource figures. They are not only, in some categories, the highest ever calculated. e.g. mean recoverable resources, 7.7 billion barrels, but also, very conservative. For example, the estimate that the smallest commercially viable field must contain 512 million barrels of recoverable oil goes against all recent experience elsewhere on the North Slope. If that figure was reduced by half, which it should be, the reserves would increase accordingly. Similarly, the USGS estimates downgrade the eastern part of the coastal plain to contain only 15% of the oil present. This was principally the result of poorer seismic records and more geological complexity in the east. However, there is reason to believe that many oil companies are much more optimistic of the potential of the eastern area. This too would tend to suggest that the USGS figures might be quite low.

No doubt an oversight hearing by the Senate Energy Committee will soon clarify these points, but by and large supporters of opening the coastal plain should feel good, but not complacent.

Roger Herrera is a consulting geologist who does work for Arctic Power, an advocacy group working for exploration of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.