My uncle sent me a video called The Truth About ANWR.
Basically the narration says ‘ANWR isn’t as pretty as Democrats say, so we should drill there.’
What do you think?
I think I can’t believe you posted a You-tube video as an item of serious debate.
I think oil companies should be allowed to drill anywhere they want, even on our protected lands, and sell that oil to the highest bidder on the open market because, gosh darn it, we have more than enough untouched land, those poor oil companies are really hurting for money, and it would be swell if they could finally turn a profit.
What relevance is there that it’s a YouTube video? The issue raised in the video is the subject of much debate here.
The video seems to be saying, ‘The part of ANWR where oil companies want to drill is a wasteland. Therefor, there’s nothing to “protect”.’
Having lived in a ‘wasteland’ for over a decade I’ve come to believe that ‘wastelands’ can be fairly fragile environments that should be protected.
I think I concur.
I think we should prevent our oil companies from drilling on protected US land, even if we could force them to be cautious about the environmental impact.
We should instead buy that oil from other countries and let their oil companies pump it out of the ground. Who cares about their land? There are just a bunch of funny talking brown people living there anyway, let them destroy their own pristine environments and trash their beaches with oil slicks. We even get to look down on them as being jerks who trash the environment, while we work so very hard to preserve it.
Sarcasm aside we already have a Trans-Alaska pipeline to serve the North Slope oil fields. The small portion of ANWAR that has oil in it is part of that oil field. The pipeline runs right along the edge of ANWAR. Put another way, the arbitrary line drawn for the park used the pipeline as a rough outline. It’s not like there is some specific environmental or national park criteria for the selection of that border.
I don’t understand the mindset of treating domestic oil companies as some bastion of wealth. They make a nominal return of about 9% and they provide real jobs . Even though this is a relatively low return on investment it gets huge headlines because of the volume of oil produced. Even if their profits dip it will show as an increase (and thus a record profit). I also don’t understand the desire to send our money to unfriendly nations. We lose the tax base on this and enrich those who can then use those profits to buy up our remaining profit centers. Common sense dictates that we keep the money and jobs in our own country. Environmental stewardship dictates that we be responsible for our own energy extraction. Leaving it up to 3rd world nations to extract the oil negates our ability to regulate and monitor environmental concerns.
We are absolutely dependent on oil for the short term. Demand for oil is absolutely going to increase in during that period. The tax money that we forfeit to the Middle East not only hurts our national interests it is research money lost that is needed to provide energy alternatives to oil. Instead of funding unfriendly nations who control the price of energy we could be funding energy alternatives. The money is going to be spent to buy oil. Not only do we forfeit the tax base but we forfeit the money that would be pumped directly into the economy.
Nice, thoughtful position. Wish we had more debate like this in the US.
My question is, once the oil is pumped from ANWR or from offshore, who does it belong to? Is it 100% the propety of the oil companies and the American people only get the taxes on the profit they make from selling it?
That’s what I’d like to know, too. What exactly do we get if we hand over this land to the oil companies? Do we get the oil? Do we give first refusal? Do we get a discount on the price?
Or is what little oil that is pulled out of the ground sometime in the future going to be sold to the highest bidder?
There’s really not much more to say than this.
The hell there isn’t. Show me something written down that American owned companies will employ American workers, pay their American taxes on their American profits when they drill on our American land, the profits taken by these oil companies will be spent on American goods, and that there’s a damn good chance that this American oil will go to Americans.
Just looking at the men behind the curtain constructed from American flags, is all.
Jobs? Taxes? Money for the leases? Potential other benefits would include more oil available on the world market, giving more slack to the system, possibly a slight lowering of the price as speculation eases…the exploding of the heads of eco-nuts world wide would simply be an added bonus of course. 
ALL oil is sold to the highest bidder. You figure this is special oil or something?
Conversely: I think oil companies should not be allowed to drill anywhere they want (or anywhere PERIOD!!), even on completely worthless land, and the oil (that won’t be drilled for!) should be horded by whichever country owns the land it sits on, gosh darn it (because profits are teh EVIL!), we should have ALL land untouched (caves were good enough for our ancestors after all!), and because the poor people are really hurting for money we should get rid of all profits FOREVAH!
Ehe?
-XT
Oh yeah…forgot. :smack: ANWR, ehe? Well…I actually DO think this is worthy of debate. Is the land around ANWR that’s not being exploited worthless? From the pictures I’ve seen it’s not exactly a vacation spot. No trees, now rugged coast line…not even the odd polar bear (and believe me, they can be VERY odd). Just a stray carabo wandering about here and there.
Does that mean we should open up the area? I’m actually unsure. On the one hand I’ve seen estimates that we may get up to a million additional barrels a day production out of those fields (once fully developed of course). On the other, I’m nervous about the current prices. By the time these fields come into production I’m worried that the price may have dropped quite a bit and that ‘we’ won’t be getting the biggest bang for our buck. Also, it’s nice to have some reserves and that’s a good place to keep em (since no other country could horn in on them there…unlike some of the offshore reserves). However, jobs…taxes…additional capital. It’s hard to argue with that.
I just don’t know. What I DO know is that the potential for environmental disaster these days is pretty small with all the regulations in place, so myself I’m not so worried about that as about the other ramifications for exploiting those fields.
-XT
I think that assaulting the medium as opposed to the message is an argumentum ad hominem fallacy.
So, flag-waving aside, what we’ve got so far is:
Multinational oil corporations will drill on American protected land and take oil for an undisclosed fee, using workers that may or may not be American, gathering profits that may or may not stay in America, selling said oil at market prices to whoever wants it the most. It will be years before this oil will be refined and sold, and when it is sold we can be sure that it will be in such a way as to not drop the price too much. Will someone please explain how we in America will benefit, and by how much?
Yeah, that’s a tough one.
Well, how can you get at the truth, if you don’t have the facts, right?
approved by the US Gov’t
defined by the US Gov’t
determined by whether or not said non-American workers get visa’s granted by the US Gov’t
depending on who the US Gov’t allows to drill
which will most likely be US customers since they won’t pay to ship it half way round the world to capture the same market price.
just like every other individual oil drilling operation in the history of the industry
Because we have more control over who benefits than we do when we buy from Saudi Arabia?
Right. Would it be possible to enact legislation to make certain that the oil drilled benefits the US in some tangible way?