Title: To Drill or Not to Drill: The Debate on Oil and Gas Development in Alaska and how it can be Resolved
Thesis: After conducting research of the debate on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), I believe that the solution to the debate is to begin construction on the pipeline and allow drilling in the area proposed.
I. The area that will be affected by the drilling is not as large, nor as environmentally diverse as environmentalists make it out to be.
A. Environmentalists claim that this specific area is beautiful
1. Greenpeace USA says that “America's Serengeti” would become “a wasteland
of roads, pipelines, drilling platforms and oil spills,” further
endangering wildlife that “is already gravely threatened by global
warming.”
2. Traversed by a dozen rivers and framed by jagged peaks, this spectacular
wilderness is a vital birthing ground for polar bears, grizzlies, Arctic
wolves, caribou and the endangered shaggy musk ox, a mammoth-like survivor
of the last Ice Age.
3. The Natural Resources Defense Council exhorts legislators not to “trash an
American treasure” by signing legislation that would permit drilling in
ANWR.
B. The area that will be affected is not the same area that they portray and advertise nor does it take up the area environmentalists claim it will.
1. ANWR's Area 1002 is a barren, frozen wasteland
for much of the year
2. The bill requires the Interior Department to put up at least 200,000 acres for lease and no
less than another 200,000 if there's interest by industry, totally roughly
3 percent of the refuge.
3. eight-month winter, temperatures drop as
low as 70 degrees below zero. The region is shrouded in near-total darkness
for five months, and for 56 days there is no sunlight at all.
4. No trees live
in this inhospitable region, and wildlife is present for only about six
weeks each year.
II. It is an economically smart move to drill within the United States
A. The amount of oil is substantial enough to help bring the cost of oil and gas down.
1. ANWR could produce more than 150 billion cubic feet of
natural gas per year, which is about the volume of gas consumed by the
state of South Carolina in 2000."
2. Potentially holds billions of barrels of recoverable oil and
trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas
III. A compromise can be reached through an agreement for a certain percentage of the revenue generated by the drilling to go towards projects of environmentalists' and Democrats' choosing.
A. One argument is that a
percentage of the revenue that comes from drilling can go towards projects
that Dems decide, such as renewable energy development.
B. Will allow drilling to commence in Alaska but also help research and development on renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and hydroelectricity, to progress.
