I wrote to my senator, Mike DeWine, congratulating him on voting against drilling for oil in Alaska, and received a nice email message in response, part of which I include here:
Over the past several months, a healthy debate has occurred in our country about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I appreciated knowing your views on this important issue.
As you know, after a great deal of thought, I voted against drilling in the ANWR. I thought the risks outweighed the potential benefits. The United States will never be petroleum independent-we simply do not have the oil. Department of Energy (DOE) figures show that we are currently 56 percent dependent on foreign oil. The DOE estimates that the ANWR would reach full production by the year 2020, and even then, it would only decrease our dependence on foreign oil by about 2%.
How odd that on the very same day, I come across this report in the NYT:
The Interior Department has decided to open 389,000 acres of Alaskan lakes, tundra and shoreline to oil exploration, reversing an eight-year-old compromise intended to protect the habitat of hundreds of thousands of migratory birds and the hunting grounds of Inupiat natives who live near the Beaufort Sea.
The world goes 'round.
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