Ramsey of the Seattle Times nails it: Opponents of ANWR drilling have nothing to base their opposition.

Bruce Ramsey is on target here:



Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.

Bruce Ramsey / Times editorial columnist

The last word (yeah, right) on ANWR oil drilling

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Two weeks ago in this space I argued for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. ANWR oil, I said, is at the end of the Alaska Pipeline and will be available only as long as the pipeline is, which is a few decades. The wildlife, I said, will survive because the footprint of modern oil drilling is small and because there is no need to develop the Arctic coast for anything else. And I asserted, "Our civilization needs the oil."

Dozens of readers told me I was wrong. Consider what they attacked and what they let stand.

Several asserted that drilling would spoil the refuge, but not one argued that it would kill the animals. The first question is esthetic or spiritual; the second, scientific. On the scientific question, they gave me a pass.

What set them fuming was my statement, "Our civilization needs the oil."

One response was that Americans may need the oil, but won't get it. "The bulk of this oil will go to China, Korea and Japan," one reader wrote. "Regular U.S. citizens (and taxpayers) get nothing from this." Assume the oil goes to Asia. The conclusion does not follow. From ANWR oil, Americans would get taxes, royalties and jobs. Also we would get some slack in the oil market, because if China buys more oil from Alaska, it buys less from someplace else.

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