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Can We Drill our way out of this? Lower Gas Prices?
What is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is one of the last areas of true wilderness left in the United States. This special place supports over 200 animal species including caribou, grizzly bears, and migratory birds. It is a protected wildlife habitat where oil and gas drilling are off limits and deserves continued protection for future generations.
Learn more about the Refuge
Take a tour with Google Earth!
View Coastal Plain photos
See animals in the Arctic Refuge
Myths vs. Fact
Myth: Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling will bring down prices at the pump.
Fact: Opening the Refuge to drilling would not lower today's prices.
According to a May 2008 report by the Energy Information Administration, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge today would result in Americans saving just a few pennies per gallon, ten years from now.
Read more about better solutions:
·Wilderness Society
·Study the EIA report
·Read an analysis of the EIA report
In 2007, multinational oil corporations posted record profits exceeding $100 billion. At the same time American consumers continued to pay record prices for gasoline.
Myth: Oil development does not harm the environment or people.
Fact: Oil drilling would harm the land, animals, and people of the Refuge.
Where the oil companies have drilled before in Alaska, they have caused oil spills and leakage of toxic chemicals that harm habitat. Each year there are over 500 toxic spills in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and pipelines, according to Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. In 2007, BP was fined $20 million for the largest crude oil spill in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields which was caused by corrosion, negligence and poor government oversight. The National Academy of Sciences reported that cumulative impacts of oil activities harmed the land, animals, Alaska Native culture, and wilderness. If we let oil companies drill the Arctic Refuge, they will destroy this unique wilderness forever.
Learn about the oil industry's track record in Alaska:
·AlaskaWild
·Wilderness Society
·Alaska State Government page
·National Academy of Sciences
Myth: The Coastal Plain "1002 Area" of the Refuge is a desolate landscape with virtually no wildlife.
Fact: The Coastal Plain "1002 Area" is the biological heart of the Refuge.
Oil companies seek to drill the Arctic Refuge's 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain "1002 Area" which scientists say is its "center of wildlife activity." The Porcupine caribou herd travels here each summer to give birth and raise their young. It is the most important land denning area for polar bears in the United States. Millions of birds from all 50 states and 6 continents migrate to the Refuge for nesting and staging. The Gwich'in Nation and other Alaska Native people rely on the wildlife for their traditional way of life and as a basis of their cultures. The harm to wildlife habitat for polar bear, caribou, birds, and the Gwich'in way of life from habitat destruction and toxic spills would be permanent.
·Drilling risks to the Gwich'in People
·Join the caribou journey
Myth: Oil drilling will have a minimal footprint on the coastal plain "1002 Area" of the Refuge.
Fact: Drilling on the coastal plain "1002 Area" will leave a permanent network of sprawling industrial sites.
This map shows how oil drilling would use roads, pipelines, airfields, ports, and other infrastructure -- harming wildlife habitat -- across the entire 1.5 million-acre area. Any claims to lease, drill and develop "only 2,000 acres" of the 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain are false - such oil drilling & pumping area would not be compact and excludes land disturbances such as gravel roads, mines, and pipelines. Drilling legislation has not required that the "2,000 acres" of development be contiguous, as it could not be since federal government experts state that any oil that might be found under the Coastal Plain would be in small finds spread throughout the Plain. This hypothetical development scenario map is consistent with proposed bills to drill-the-Refuge.
Myth: Drilling in the Refuge will help secure America's energy future.
Fact: Drilling for oil in America's Arctic will not break our oil addiction. The U.S. needs to lead the world in new, clean, renewable energy solutions.
The real opportunity for consumers hit hard by gas prices is clean energy, not drilling. Energy efficiency provides immediate relief, clean energy solutions provide lasting relief.
Car and truck mileage improvements required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will save more oil than might ever be produced from the Arctic Refuge and our protected coasts. Savings from clean energy trump drilling by 1.2 million barrels per day by 2015 and 4.7 million barrels per day by 2030. More.
Increased conservation and alternative technologies in the last three years have cut the projected need for imported oil between now and 2050 by more than 100 billion barrels, according to Department of Energy (EIA). That's 10 times more benefit than what we might get 10 years from now from drilling the Refuge. More.
·Energy Solutions
·Pump Up Your Tires
·800,000 renewable energy jobs
Why should we protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
We should protect one of America's most valuable wilderness areas from oil and gas drilling which would cause permanent destruction - and would offer most Americans nothing in return but more profits for the oil companies. We must prevent harmful oil and gas drilling in the Refuge because once this wilderness is destroyed it is gone forever.
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