Editorial: ANWR not a moneymaker

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.

For years Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has aggressively but unsuccessfully fought to gain congressional and presidential approval for oil drilling in the Coastal Plain area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Congress in 1980 set aside this 1.5-million acre section of the 19-million acre refuge as a site to be studied for future drilling. Stevens' motivation has always been crystal clear - he is after the jobs that drilling would bring to his state, and the taxes and royalties from oil production that would be diverted to Alaska's general fund.

The fact that the powerful Stevens has been rebuffed time and again by sensible members of Congress unwilling to subject the ANWR to permanent damage for a short-term supply of oil grates on the nerves of many Republicans. New Mexico's Sen. Pete Domenici told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this year, "We've got to find a way. We think there's one out there."

Well, an "out there" bill has indeed been introduced. Called the American-Made Energy Freedom Act, it was introduced last month by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The bill would authorize drilling in the ANWR in the name of the environment. Pretty clever.

Dubiously, Nunes says the federal government would realize billions in royalties and leases charged to oil companies operating on the federal land. Those billions, he says, would be dedicated to a special fund that would be used only for investing in renewable-energy technologies.

This bill is an attempt to hoodwink Congress and the American public into believing that sacrificing the ANWR's fabulous Coastal Plain, habitat for hundreds of thousands of animals, would result in a greater good.

In our view, the Coastal Plain is priceless and cannot be equated for a moment with lease and royalty revenue. The billions that are needed for research into renewable energy sources should come from a sensible energy bill, not from a scheme backed by those for whom drills and leaky pipelines in a sensitive wilderness area would represent, at long last, a political victory.