Bush Plans to Open Alaskan Refuge Soon

The Bush administration says it will move quickly to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling, claiming California's electricity crisis is evidence the nation desperately needs more fuel.

President Bush, a former Texas oilman, has planned a far-reaching national energy plan, the centerpiece of which will be giving oil and gas companies access to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Green groups and indigenous peoples fiercely oppose the proposal.

Opening the refuge is one of the Bush administration’s top priorities, but the exact timing on a legislative proposal for Congress to consider has yet to be worked out, says White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Fleischer says that the administration will push to develop 8 percent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee--the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the 19-million-acre refuge.

Bush wants to allow drilling in the refuge--home to caribou, polar bears and other rare wildlife--to increase domestic supplies of oil and natural gas.

The scope of logistical tasks involved in drilling and producing oil from the Arctic would mean that no oil could be produced until at least 2007, even if approval came this year, oil industry officials say. According to government studies, the field may be capable of producing 1 million to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day over 20 years.

Gale A. Norton, interior secretary, says the refuge is home to the largest energy reserves ever found in the United States. Norton also says the Bush administration would work to assure Congress that drilling could be conducted in an environmentally responsible way.

Norton has refined Bush’s plan much further, saying the impact of any oil production would be limited to about 2,000 acres. She also says the administration would allow drilling only in the dead of winter, to guarantee that only surface ice, and not the tundra beneath, would be damaged by any vehicle traffic.

Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski, head of the Senate Energy committee, was preparing to introduce Bush-endorsed legislation for a broad energy plan, which includes opening the refuge. The bill would also include funding for alternative and renewable sources of energy.

Fleischer downplayed the Canadian government's opposition to opening the refuge, saying that the administration was willing to work with all parties involved.

A group of native Indians living in northwest Canada also oppose the plan to open up the refuge. The Gwichi’in Indians believe that the decision to open the refuge is a mistake and the effects of which could ruin their way of life.

The Gwich'in Indians, who live in northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, say the drilling will drive away the huge Porcupine caribou herd they depend on.

Norma Kassi of the International Gwich'in Steering Committee says the proposed drilling area includes a small plain where around 40,000 calves are born each June.

Kassi believes that there is no way that oil development and the caribou can coexist.