Senator John McCain, Arizona, opposes opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. "As far as ANWR is concerned, I don't want to drill in the Grand Canyon, and I don't want to drill in the Everglades," McCain said earlier this year. "This [ANWR] is one of the most pristine and beautiful parts of the world."
However, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket, like most Alaskans supports drilling for oil in ANWR. (Not coincidentally, every man, woman and child in Alaska receives an annual payout from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which is derived from oil revenues).
"Did you expect two mavericks to agree on everything?" Senator John McCain, Arizona, asked CBS News anchor Katie Couric earlier this week, according to an unedited transcript of the interview.
But McCain, who recently reversed a long-held position supporting a moratorium on offshore development, suggested that in his administration opening ANWR may not necessarily be off the table. "Look, we'll be talking more and more about this issue."
Palin said, "We'll continue to work together on this issue," - that is tapping domestic supplies for "very, very, very hungry markets across the US."
But Palin, who McCain touted for her "vast" energy experience, seemed to make a case, sort of, against drilling in ANWR. "Remember, ANWR is a 2,000-acre plot that's in the midst of 21 million acres," she said. "That's not where the supply of domestic energy sources is, through, necessarily. I mean, that's not the be-all, end all. Offshore is where the supply of energy is."
Oh, just to correct the record, ANWR is not a 2,000-acre plot in the midst of 21 million acres. The coastal plain of ANWR, where any development would occur, is about 1.5 million acres on the coast of the 19 million acre refuge. So, what's the source of Palin's 2,000-acre misunderstanding? Probably drilling advocates who maintain that development would disturb, in the aggregate, only about 2,000 acres across the coastal plain.
Leave a comment