America’s Thirst For Oil
America's thirst for foreign oil will be slaked with a small portion of the 20 million acre refuge in northeastern Alaska to oil exploration. The drilling is promised to be done safely and without much damage.
America’s dependence on oil imports is rising especially with a war with Iraq looming. More than half the nation's oil supply comes from other countries. The drilling plan has strong support in Alaska, where oil exploration in the refuge would create an estimated 30,000 jobs in a state of 627,000 people.
President Bush is prepared to veto any energy bill that does not include drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.
Environmentalists are oppose the drilling and say the oil in the ANWR is not concentrated in one large reservoir, but is spread across the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain in many small deposits so the exploration won’t be safety and can damage ecosystem of the whole territory.
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