merican television viewers recently received the dubious treat of television commercials telling them that if they drive SUVs, they support terrorists.

The ads, created by such renowned terrorism experts Arianna Huffington and the producer of the film “Pulp Fiction,” claimed that SUV drivers support terrorism because America imports oil from the Middle East.

Although the commercials were quick to indict car-pooling moms, they had not a word of complaint about those who stop America from replacing Middle Eastern oil with oil from Alaska.

According to a Clinton administration Department of Energy report, environmentally responsible drilling on a mere 1 percent of Alaska’s 1.5 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could provide 1 million to 1.35 million barrels per day.

Yet, so far, no drilling. That’s because the U.S. Senate, lobbied hard by environmentalists, has so far refused permission.

America currently imports 1.5 million barrels of oil a day from Saudi Arabia. Oil from the refuge could replace nearly all of that for almost 30 years, or replace half our imports from all of the Persian Gulf for 36 years. Drilling also could provide between 250,000 and 735,000 new jobs here in America.

Environmentalists insist that drilling on part of the refuge’s flat, treeless, nearly featureless plain, where the temperatures can drop below 40 degrees in winter – making it nearly uninhabitable for animals – will harm the environment and native caribou, but this just isn’t so.

Environmentalists said similar things decades ago about drilling on Alaska’s North Slope, where, during the last 20 years of drilling, the caribou population has grown from 3,000 to as high as 23,400.

Environmentalists pretend the refuge is a natural wilderness untouched by humans, but Inupiat Eskimos have lived there for thousands of years. Don’t Native Americans count?

Alaskans strongly support refuge drilling. Annual polls show 3 out of 4 Alaskans support it. Pro-drilling resolutions in the Alaska legislature have received 100 percent support from both parties. Citizens of Kaktovik, the home of the Inupiat Eskimos, the only people native to the refuge region, support drilling 78 to 9 percent.

Environmentalists contend the Gwich’in Eskimos oppose drilling, but rarely volunteer that the Gwich’in live elsewhere – and support drilling on their own lands.

Developing the refuge will not harm the environment. Drilling on Alaska’s North Slope is making a major contribution to domestic oil production without harming wildlife or scarring the landscape.

Thanks to technological advances since the opening of the North Slope, the refuge’s coastal plain can be explored with even greater surety that the environment will be protected.

Opening the refuge may even help the environment. The 1989 tanker accident in Prince William Sound was an oil transportation accident, not a drilling accident.

As Anchorage Mayor George Wuerch has noted, it is ironic that those who oppose development of petroleum resources in Alaska would require instead that our nation depend even more heavily on foreign imports, which mean even more foreign tankers – many of them adhering to lax safety standards – navigating off the nation’s shores.

By opposing development of the refuge without legitimate ecological grievances, environmentalists unnecessarily condemn consumers to higher energy prices. And if the Hollywood terrorism experts are right that each SUV owner supports terrorists by importing a few extra gallons of gas a week, then how much more culpable are environmentalists, who are forcing us to import an extra million gallons a week?

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Amy Ridenour is president of the National Center for Public Policy Research (www.nationalcenter.org), a non-partisan Capitol Hill think tank. Readers may write her at NCPPR, 777 N. Capitol St. N.E., Suite 803, Washington, DC 20002 or e-mail her at aridenournationalcenter.org.

This essay is available to Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service subscribers. Knight Ridder/Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Knight Ridder/Tribune or its editors.

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(c) 2003, Amy Ridenour.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-02-13-03 0610EST

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