More quotes about ANWR drilling…

"Pushing production out of America to nations without our environmental standards increases global environmental risks." Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska)

"Here in Kaktovik, the Inupiat Eskimo community at the center of the debate about ANWR oil and gas development, we note with grave concern the bill you have introduced, designating as wilderness the homelands of the Kaktovikmiut. It is quite evident that you have acted from only the extreme environmentalists’ point of view. We consider this action to be extremely dangerous to the continued survival of our people." Lon Sonsalla, Mayor, City of Kaktovik, letter to Senator Joseph Lieberman, 3/4/01

"I’m tired of my tax dollars going to Arab leaders who support schools that teach people how to drive airplanes into our buildings. Every American will understand the link between national security and energy independence. … This is where the presidential bully pulpit is essential." Senator John Kerry, (D-Massachusetts), who opposes ANWR drilling, 11/27/01

"First of all, if New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani learned that there were between 3 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil underneath Central Park, he would be out there first thing Monday morning laying down orange traffic cones to save parking spaces for the roughnecks." Jonah Goldberg, The Washington Times

"Has anyone noticed that the only real Native people of this place are the Kaktovikmiut, who actually live on and use these homelands as they have for thousands of years and that title to their lands was taken from them and then paid for by a reneged promise that they could develop some small part as they wished?" Karl Francis, Economic and Political Advisor to Native North Americans

"We import 57% of the energy we consume every day from foreign sources that fix the price and that do not have our country’s best interests at heart. How can anyone be comfortable with this situation? As Senator John Breaux has pointed out, if we imported that much of the food we eat, people would be marching on Washington yelling that it is unacceptable because food is essential to our lives and to our national security." Senator Zell Miller, (D-Georgia)

"With their arguments so easily countered, how do environmentalists so easily succeed with opposition to ANWR leasing? It must be the symbolism, the moral struggle between environmentalist good and commercial evil." "The country needs something more substantial than computer games to stimulate growth—something like development of natural resources, however quaint that might seem. With all due respect to new-economy innovation, wealth still comes from creative combinations of land, labor and capital. Editorial, Oil and Gas Journal, 4/16/01

"Unfortunately the debate has been framed as an either/or issue—develop oil and gas, lose wilderness. The public is invited to send a nice check to the environmental group that will help save "the environment" from the evil exploiters. It is sad that people who produce and enhance the earth’s natural resources, providing the "things" that sustain us all (including gasoline for our vehicles), are so demonized." Paula Easley, speech to Environmental Ethics Symposium, University of Alaska

"Opponents warned that poking new holes in the tundra would ‘devastate’ this ‘cathedral of nature.’ In Oklahoma, which has been a top-five oil producing state for more than 80 years, most people are puzzled by these apocalyptic predictions, as they live in harmony with more than 100,000 oil and gas wells." Frank Keating, Governor of Oklahoma

"With ice roads that leave no mark, directional drilling, and most exploration activities permitted only in the dead of winter, we can produce energy and protect our environment for future generations. The strictest, most all-encompassing environmental protection measures ever initiated on federal lands will apply should the ANWR proposal be approved by Congress." Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior

"Americans will do the exploration and drilling. U.S.-built pipelines will transport the oil. Domestic facilities will refine and distribute it. U.S. energy producers and U.S. consumers will use it. And, of particular interest to Seafarers, we will join many of our brothers and sisters in maritime labor to crew the growing fleet of environmentally safe, double-hulled, U.S.-flagged tankers that will carry the oil from Alaska." Michael Sacco, President, Seafarers International Union, in ANWR support presentation

"We must recognize and act upon the reality that energy policy today is driven by public perceptions and preferences, rather than science and technology, that are driving us toward short-sighted and inadequate solutions. The debate must be reframed to include the environmental, quality of life and full economic consequences of energy shortages and costs." Joe Hunter, Executive Summary of Leadership Forum on Energy Security, Center for the New West, May 10, 2001

"Pursuant to section 232(c) of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, I am notifying you that I concur with the findings of the Secretary of Commerce in his report, "The Effect on the National Security of Imports of Crude Oil and Refined Petroleum Products," which determined that imports of crude oil threaten to impair the national security." William J. Clinton, President of the United States, 4/28/00

"No one can foresee what might lead to a huge supply shutdown, or whether the present attack on Afghanistan might trigger disastrous changes. A collapse of the Saudi regime? A change in its policy? Massive sabotage of pipelines? Another Arab-Israeli war? Take your pick." Even a fundamentalist uprising in one of our oil-supplier nations is no longer as far-fetched as it might have been just a year ago. Robert J. Samuelson, Now Do We Get Serious on Oil? Washington Post, October 11, 2001

"The stability of some of the nations principally responsible for supplying oil to the United States can no longer be taken for granted." Senator Ted Stevens, R-Alaska

"Unfortunately, unbelievably, the majority of our oil resources are off limits, due to unbending pressure from environmental extremists and their allies in the Congress, bureaucracies and courts – even in this time of war. The public’s right to know what’s actually in each withdrawn area, and our right to find and produce it to meet pressing needs, continue to get brushed aside in favor of bogus claims about environmental risks, conservation or alternative technologies." Paul Driessen, Defending and Rebuilding America

"We believe even with the greatest conservation measures there is still going to be a large demand for oil products for years to come." Kim Duke, Arctic Power

"There is no doubt that the future of our natural gas supply is under federal lands or offshore. About 47% of our gas resource base is under federal lands. We are talking about public lands that are supposed to be available for multiple use. And I would point out that the environmental record of the natural gas industry on federal lands is superb, and new technology allows us to find and produce the gas we need with less and less temporary impact on the land." William F. Whitsett, President, Domestic Petroleum Council

"Alaskans understand better than most Americans the necessity of maintaining the health of our land. At the same time, we do not fear extracting the resources found within it." Alaska Governor Tony Knowles, in letter to members of the U.S. Senate, March 21, 2001

"They [the caribou] do not all of a sudden organize themselves like a labor union and decide to go to Arctic Village. They’re scattered all over the damn place. This is all a new thing, this ‘people of the caribou’ thing. This was invented for this purpose." Karl Francis, Economic and Political Advisor to Native North Americans

"…the biggest potential upset our country is likely to face in the next few years is a disruption in oil supplies from the Middle East." Former Senator Bill Bradley, D-New Jersey

"The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has practically no exceptional or unique natural values in its northern foothills and narrow coastal plain sections." Dr. Tom Cade, Ornithologist, in testimony compiled and presented by The Wilderness Society, The Environmental Defense Fund, Inc., and Friends of the Earth, supporting an oil pipeline across the coastal plain in 1972. (The trans-Alaska route was ultimately chosen.)

"Why on Earth should we have to continually account for our knowledge and they never have to account for their ignorance?" BP geologist Geoff Larminie, 1970, referring to a large body of scientific data and professional studies amassed by the oil industry but largely ignored by the media, while unfounded allegations of green activists were treated as gospel

"Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge isn’t environmental rape. It doesn’t even constitute an indiscrete glance at Mother Nature." Don Feder, The Idiot’s Guide to Energy, Creators Syndicate

"If extremists keep their undue influence, problems for industry and the U.S. economy won’t stop at ANWR. When extremists can block leasing of an arctic swamp whose principal value is mineral potential, they can stop activity on federal land everywhere. They can persuade lawmakers to treat drilling and production waste as hazardous substances. They can turn oil field accidents into federal crimes. They can force refineries out of business with excessive regulation." Oil & Gas Journal editorial, Voice of the Times, 12/2/92

"Oil is a high-demand product; companies that produce it, like any other, are trying to meet that demand and make a profit. The real image of big oil includes the mom commuting 30 miles one way to work, then running the kids all over town after school; the pioneers’ home resident, her room heated by an oil-fired boiler; the plastic equipment that delivers medicines to a body warmed by a synthetic blanket; that couple who wrote their check to the anti-oil lobby, then climbed aboard a 747 to Hawaii. If you drive, heat a home, buy anything, or take a trip, then you are a component of ‘Big Oil.’ Let’s point the finger in the right direction: at each and every one of us. We are ‘Big Oil.’" Roy Thomas, Kodiak, Letter to the Editor, Anchorage Daily News

"When the choice is between warm and cuddly animals and greedy, big oil companies, the animals are going to win every time," Bob Lichter, media analyst, Center for Media and Public Affairs.

"The Bush energy program must be taken seriously. Its goal is to relieve the strain on infrastructure, eliminate the current supply bottlenecks, and avoid California-style price spikes. We gamble with all our futures if we become do-nothings, pitting energy against the environment and accepting the paralysis ordained by environmental theology." Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News and World Report, 6/18/01

"But in the end, drilling ANWR remains a no-brainer, bipartisan issue. Alaskan oil wells are so productive that it takes 150-200 wells in the Lower 48 states to match the output of one North Slope well. Which is environmentally preferable—one well or two hundred?" Roger Herrera, Arctic Power D.C. Coordinator

"Inupiat Eskimos have lived with Arctic oil development for 30 years. No one is in a better position to determine if the social and economic benefits outweigh the costs. That is why we issue this challenge to opponents of developing ANWR’s oil. Put your lives, fortunes and sacred honor where your mouths are. Have your kids volunteer to serve in the military on the Cole or in Saudi Arabia. Post a billion-dollar bond for the Kaktovik natives and other Alaskans who will be most damaged by your extreme views. And sign a pledge, committing yourselves to be dead last in line for gasoline and electricity during the next crisis. Then, and only then, will you earn the right to be taken seriously on this issue." Paul Driessen, policy analyst

Favorite Eskimo ANWR joke: Environmentalist flew in to inspect the coastal plain. "Just what I thought," the environmentalist growled. "Damned oil companies have cut down all the trees!" From John McCaughey’s Energy, 11/9/95

"America cannot continue its apathetic response to the relentless attack on the use of fossil fuels. Abundant, affordable energy is the basis of our health, wealth and prosperity, and the hope of the rest of the world. We cannot allow misguided environmental extremists to deny society the use of this energy." Henry Lamb, Environmental Conservation Organization