Oil's well that ends well in ANWR

In session
May 2002

Oil's well that ends well in ANWR
On April 25, the Senate passed a version of the energy bill so different from its House of Representatives counterpart that some critics fear it will never make it out of committee. Reuters called the Senate passage a "major defeat for the Bush administration's energy plan," mainly because a prominent feature of the bill is a ban on drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The House bill not only allows drilling in Alaska, but also includes $33 billion in tax incentive packages for producers of coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear power.

The Senate bill provides $14 billion in tax incentives for innovations to increase clean-burning coal, energy-efficient homes, shale oil, and coal-bed methane. It also contains a provision to increase electricity production from renewable energy sources from 2 to 10 percent by 2020.

The Sierra Club declared that both versions of the bill "fail the test of a sound energy policy."

Most irksome to the Sierra Club was the Senate's rejection of the Carper-Specter amendment. The bipartisan plan would have reduced foreign oil consumption by mandating improved fuel-efficiency in U.S. automobiles and cut oil usage by 1 million barrels per day by 2015. Instead, Senators voted for a plan to increase the amount of ethanol in gasoline to five billion gallons per year, up from 1.5 billion gallons per year.

The Sierra Club reports that the amount of oil saved would have equaled the amount imported each year from Iraq and Kuwait combined and helped curb global warming by keeping an annual 45 million metric tons of carbon emissions out of the atmosphere. Carl Pope, Executive Director of Sierra Club said the amendment "was a reasonable, realistic, and responsible goal that could have put us on the right path to reducing our dependence on oil. The Senate threw away a chance to reduce global warming pollution while saving Americans money at the gas pump."

The Sierra Club encourages the use of renewable energy sources—sun, wind, and water—to replace U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. Along with several other environmental groups, the Sierra Club is concerned that the result of House-Senate committee negotiations could leave Americans with the worst of each bill. —Tara Dix

For more information:
Sierra Club energy fact sheet
Alaska National Wildlife Refuge
Save the Arctic Refuge

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