Arguments For Drilling Are Oily At Best

Alaskans think they have a terrible financial problem. To solve it, they propose to ruin the last protected fragment of the arctic coastal plain - part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - by opening it to oil drilling.

Here’s the problem: Alaska has no state income tax, no sales tax and the lowest fuel taxes in the nation. It has the highest per-capita income from the federal government of any state. State spending is twice the national average. And it has an $18 billion savings account, the Permanent Fund, that provides an annual Christmas-in-September check of a little less than $1,000 for every man, woman and child. You might think of it as Saudi Alaska.

Here’s the bad news: The North Slope oil revenues that underwrite this easy living are drying up, and the state now has a half-billion-dollar deficit that’s heading skyward.

One can still think offhand of about 49 governors who would love to have a fiscal problem like Alaska’s. Solutions leap to the mind. Impose a small sales tax. Raise the fuel tax a bit. Cut the most egregious spending frills. Use some of the income from the oil-funded savings account for the purpose for which it was created instead of as a universal bonus entitlement. Alaskans have a different answer. Drill in the wildlife refuge - and hope that puts off the day of reckoning for a few more years.

In an unguarded moment of honesty, Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation - Sens. Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski and Rep. Don Young - made the linkage explicit in a recent letter to constituents. The relevant passage says, in full: “Oil revenue funds about 85 percent of the state’s budget, but Prudhoe Bay is in decline. The administration is threatening to veto legislation to open the coastal plain.”

The other arguments for drilling in the refuge range from flimsy to specious. For years, a favorite has been that it would enhance national security by reducing the country’s oil import dependence. That won’t wash anymore since Congress and the administration have agreed to lift the 22-year-old ban on exporting Alaskan oil. If we need to reduce oil imports, why export our own?

The best case Presidents Reagan and Bush could make for opening the wildlife refuge was that chances were one in two that its production would rise in a few years to 4 percent of U.S. oil use, dropping to one percent five years later and less thereafter. Not surprisingly, Congress didn’t find that a compelling reason to make an irreversible sacrifice of the wilderness. If in some presently unimaginable future the nation absolutely required the wildlife refuge’s oil, it would still be there for the taking.

Since then, the U.S. Geological Survey has slashed the expected find by more than half. An offshore well drilled in one of the most promising areas was a bust. Another hit oil but not in developable quantity, though the company, Atlantic Richfield, is still enthusiastic.

Meanwhile, the expected market in which oil from the wildlife refuge would have to compete has turned from tight to squishy. Projected oil prices for the year 2000 are down from $38 to $19 per barrel. That turns from highly unlikely to laughable the industry’s five-year-old projection, which it is now shamelessly recycling, of 700,000 jobs created nationwide.

The last-resort claim is that drilling won’t make much difference to this narrow plain that is the biologically crucial part - the birthing, denning, feeding and nursery ground - of a much larger, fragile and unique arctic ecosystem. But no matter how environmentally sensitive the effort, 400 miles of roads, 11 production facilities, four airstrips, two ports, massive gravel mining and housing for several thousand, plus associated emissions and toxic wastes are not what most people expect of wilderness.

What’s left? A short-term fix that might or might not prolong the oil-welfare state. Not much there to arouse support, even in Washington. So the state’s powerful congressional delegation, whose members chair both the House and Senate Natural Resources Committees, came up with a sweetener. They propose to give half of the hoped-for leasing revenue to Washington, which helps make the numbers work in the Republicans’ deficitreduction plan. If Congress counts on the money, however, it is playing a chump’s game. The state has promised to sue for any split less than the 90 percent it believes is guaranteed by its Statehood Act.

Alaska’s congressmen want the name of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge changed to the Arctic Oil Reserve. It’s revealing that what’s gone is not just wildlife, but the national interest as well. If the proposal does pass, the delegation has a lot more in the works, including development in the Tongass National Forest and turning back 70 million acres of federal lands to the state.

Instead, Congress should give the wildlife refuge oil proposal the treatment it deserves. In the spirit of adopting new acronyms, it could send along a message as well: GRA. Get Real, Alaska. The rest of us would trade for your troubles. Face the real choices now - oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge isn’t the answer.

xxxx