Forget about Bush's argument about drilling in Alaska helping the nation's oil supply

[berdollos]

drilling in Alaska helping the nation’s oil supply. IT provides a marginal difference. The real benefactors are the RICH OIL COMPANIES, who provide campaign contributions to Bush and friends.

[MEBuckner]

Moderator’s Note: Ahem.

Edited thread title to add the words “drilling in Alaska helping the nation’s oil supply”.

[berdollos]

Good idea. I should have done it myself.

[jshore]

While I am tempted to agree with you, I think the reality of the situation is a bit more complicated than that, as the last few paragraphs of this AP story points out: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020418/ap_to_po/arctic_refuge_12

As the Senate vote neared, lobbyists for the Teamsters touted the jobs that drilling would produce. Rival Alaska native groups have flown in from the North Slope to argue both for and against drilling. The state of Alaska, which would get half the royalties from oil development, has poured millions of dollars into the pro-drilling effort.

The big oil companies, however, largely have kept silent, their attention on exploration elsewhere.

So, one of the bizarre facts of this whole saga is that the oil companies seem fairly ambivalent about ANWR because, quite honestly, it apparently is just not all that clear that the economics of it are that favorable for them.

Why then the big push on ANWR? Well, I think it has a lot to do with Alaska’s two senators really wanting it. And, it has a lot to do with the fact that these have become “hot button” issues for conservatives…just as, for example, anti-abortion judgeships are. I.e., there is a whole conservative movement out there (including much of the current Administration, probably) that sees ANWR as a sort of issue pitting “environmental extremists” against those who want it to be their God-given right to drive around in any sort of gas-guzzling vehicle they want with cheap gas. In their mind, these environmentalists are trying to limit their choices and property rights and to impose their socialistic ideas on them …

So, on this particular issue, to say that the Administration is just caving into the financial interests of the oil companies is almost to give them too much credit! [In a larger sense, I do think there is a motivation here that the oil companies should be able to drill where they damn well please, but in this particular case, I think most of the oil companies could pretty much take it our leave it.]

[Urban_Ranger]

This “creating/keeping jobs” argument always reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip. There’s this big UFO flying overhead with this tube sucking all the air in, while the people down below are suffocating and generally suffering from the lack of air. When they plead with the aliens, the reply is something along the lines of, “While I sympathise with you, stop sucking up the air will cost me my job.”