Chapter 1: Environmental Values and Policies

Problem Exercise: Should the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Be Opened to Oil Exploration and Development? (pp. 53-59)

            We have been contemplating dropping the ANWR Problem Exercise from the 6^th Edition because the issue seemed to be fading from public attention with both likely presidential nominees – John McCain and Barack Obama – firmly opposed to drilling in ANWR.  However, the rapid surge in the price of crude oil above $140 a barrel in spring and summer 2008 which resulted in gasoline prices above $4 a gallon returned the general issue of where oil drilling should be permitted in the U.S. to the forefront of political debate.  While John McCain also initially supported the congressional ban on oil drilling off the U.S. coast, on June 16, 2008 he reversed his position and turned the issue into a major focus of his presidential campaign.   Note, however, that McCain still opposes drilling in ANWR.  To increase pressure on Congress to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling, President Bush on July 14, 2008, repealed an executive order that had been issued by his father in 1990 to ban offshore drilling.

            Public opinion polls indicate that support for oil drilling off the U.S. coast now commands the support of a majority of the U.S. population.  A bipartisan group of ten senators (called the “Gang of 10”) is proposing a compromise that would allow limited additional offshore drilling as part of a broad package of energy measures including higher taxes on oil companies.  A different group of ten Republican Senators is urging President Bush to issue an Executive Order directing that a seismic survey of ANWR be conducted in hopes of generating data showing that there is far more oil in ANWR that currently believed.  These Senators believe that such a study would generate public pressure to open ANWR to drilling.  “The Chambliss Shimmy,” Wall St. J., Aug. 16-17, 2008, p. A10.