Oil Drilling on the Outer Contintental Shelf and in ANWR

I sometimes take my son Dylan down to the beach. Pretty soon, he will be old enough to swim in the ocean. I do not look forward to the day when I will have to tell him that he cannot swim in that water because it is too polluted. When he points at the dolphins and asks me why they can swim in the water, I'll have to tell him that those dolphins are getting sick and dying because our politicians did not do enough to protect our environment.

If the folks at the American Petroleum Institute are not overly optimistic when they say that if we begin drilling in our coastal waters and in ANWR, in five years we will be pumping an additional 1 or even 2 million barrels a day, and if we were to wrongly assume that we would keep it all for our own consumption, that would still leave our country's daily oil habit 90 to 95 percent unsatisfied. Do you honestly believe the temporary and negligible gains from such a venture would be worth the price our children and grandchildren will pay? According to some estimates, federal subsidies to the oil industry total $15 to $35 billion annually. Over the next 5 years, that is up to $175 billion. That would be a good start toward funding the research and development of new technology that would forever eliminate our need for oil. You may scoff at the idea, but before the Apollo space program, many people scoffed at the idea of a man walking on the moon.

When I hear people advocating for oil exploration in ANWR and our coastal waters, I can't help but think that they imagine the human race will not survive long enough to regret those decisions.