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You mean in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)? The environment, or at least advocates that are trying to protect it.

There are a lot of interesting articles on both sides.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20051219...

http://www.savearcticrefuge.org/

Ask the courts. Why does our court system let the environmentalist stop exploration, drilling, mining etc. The environmentalist said the Boo herd in Alaska would become extinct when the pipe line was built. They have more boos there now than they have ever had. The spills even counting the EXXON Valdez have been less than what is spilled in one months time in the gas stations etc in just the us alone...however you don't hear any big uproar from the environmentalist. It cost a lot of money start with any project such as what you are asking and then when you add the legal expenses it soon becomes cost prohibited and that don't count the years that this is in the court system. You can thank the Sierra club and other organization and Green Al for this. Here's a question for you how much lower Would your taxes both federal, state, and property taxes be if there were no frivolous law suits filed by these people.

Our own "vast known resources" would buy us squat in the way of more time. The bottom line is that there is only X amount of oil in the ground. Using it at a faster rate, which is what happens when it's cheap, will only use it up FASTER. Which means that if you are in favor of cheap gasoline, then you're in favor of running out of it. If you want to keep driving a gas powered car, buy a hybrid and pray for $10 gas. If however, you just want to drive a car no matter how it is powered, then buy a biosdiesel car or wait for an all-electric car. Better yet, buy a Hummer and drive at full speed everwhere you go so the price will stay high. What is driving our great country downward is not a lack of cheap gasoline. It's a lack of accountability in our citizenry, the total absence of anything resembling a sense of responsibility, a disturbing fear of facing our problems and a sickening sense of entitlement (we DESERVE that oil, its OURS) that has somehow replaced our noble sense of duty (we should conserve resources for the future). Ain't economics grand?

I believe that every barrel of oil purchased a percentage goes to financing terrorist groups. we have a vast amount of oil in the Rockie mountains that the government owns and won't touch because the government wants to wait till Saudi runs out so we can become king of big oil. I hope that the next president we elect is not in the oil companies pockets and will drill the resources that we have. I would vote for that person because they would be thinking of the little person. This needs to be brought out in debate among the presidential candidates. I will vote for the person no matter if they were republican or Democrat and independent.

The Neo-Cons have tried to by drilling in the pristine Alaskan wilderness much to the dismay of myself and many others. But do you really want to destroy some of the last remaining naturally beautiful wilderness we have. No matter what we do, we WILL eventually run out of oil. Why not put all that time and money into sustainable energy sources like Hybrid cars for instance? The USA reached their PEAK oil production in 1973. Many predict that even Saudi Arabia may reach their PEAK oil production by 2020 if not sooner. Obviously, once peak production has been reached, it's all down hill form there. The world is much closer to running out of oil than any one cares to admit. When China and India attain their momentum, oil will obviously disappear even faster. In fact, since China is so much ahead of India in that race, some feel that there won't be any oil left for India at all, to speak of, by the time they become fully industrialized.

If there was a way to ensure this nations energy security, without it, I would say leave ANWR and the florida coast off limits to drilling.

But this is not a game, we can't risk having our cake and eating it too. We need to focus headstrong on alternatives, and in the meantime produce as much oil as possible.

I am very concerned about global warming, and wish there was another way, but not buying oil from terrorist supporting nations it at the top of my "list."

To prevent all of us supporting terrorism, we each need to conserve (this means dumping the SUV guys, sorry) and at the same time produce as much energy domestically (oil, natural gas, ethanol, biodiesel) as possible until we can physically function with out all of us being married to the gas pump and not being able to divorce until we can find a better, non-fossil fuel "spouse"

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That's more important than all the carribou in Alaska, because there's a chance these nutcases will blow up alaska also. Especially if we keep giving them our money to buy bombs and weapons!

WE should NOT have been doing this for the last 10 years! Watch the video "A Crude Awakening". You'll learn that over the history of the earth there is a period of about 300 years called the Petrochemical Age. It began around the early 1800's, when humans began to use oil, coal, and the petrochemicals for energy, transportation, and a myriad of other things. The earth's oil and other petrochemicals were all created at two different times in the earth's history, and this will never happen again. The sum total of oil on the earth is finite. The estimate that the Petrochemical Age is about 300 years is based on measures of how much total oil there is and how fast we've been using it up. Though not certain, we probably are at the stage in the Petrochemical Age called Peak Oil, where we are at the maximum of how much oil we actually pull out of the ground. The peak is a result of how much we try to pull out and how much we are actually able to pull out. Today we are near pulling oil out at peak capability. The peak capability will begin to decrease within a few years. Like it or not, and whether there is more world demand or not, at some point soon we WILL NOT HAVE more oil to pull out of the ground than what we're pulling out at today's rates.

That means that we need to do 2 things: (a) begin to find alternatives for energy, transportation, and other uses of the petrochemicals in order to support a quality way of life, and (b) begin reducing our consumption rates in order to stretch out the decline period of our availability of oil - in order to use it for the highest priority things.

There are some obvious things we can do now.

* We should immediately have a national program to establish electric cars for the near-term, and eventually either hydgrogen cars (30-40 years out) or electric cars, whichever proves to be long-term viable. Hydrogen cars can't come sooner because we need a refueling infrastructure across the country. Electric cars are certainly feasible within 1-2 years on a widespread basis for at least all city driving - see the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car". Hybrids could be used for inter-city and cross-country trips.

* Establish a national energy decade program, comparable to John Kennedy's '60's program to get a man on the moon and return him safely. This National Energy Decade program would be to solve the problem of how to live in a world that will have substantially less petrochemicals available. There is much more solar energy hitting the earth than energy we consume in petrochemicals, but we are substantially unknowledgeable about how to use it intelligently and effectively. Among other things, we should research this and other ideas. We know that most single sources of alternative energy are not enough to feed our current demand, and we know that we will have much less oil supply than demand, within a few short years. So we need to do something other than stick our heads in the sand and pretend this is not a reality.

Humans can be inventive and clever and work toward how to make life better on earth in a realistic way. Humans can also be incredibly short-sighted and selfish and end up creating crises we could have avoided. We need to immediately begin driving high awareness of the real problems and challenges and launching nationally sponsored and driven programs to create solutions!

Why destroy a pristine and beautiful environment, and decimate the fragile ecological balance between man, plants and animals so necessary to our very existence - all for a few more billion barrels of OIL??

Here's an idea: let's stop our addiction to OIL by choosing alternative fuel methods: water, wind, solar energy. Oh - that would put a real dent in OIL companies' profits.

Here's an idea: let's try to conserve OIL by driving more fuel-efficient cars instead of our $60,000 gas-guzzling SUVs; by using mass transit, or riding mopeds, or even (ghast! God forbid!!) WALKING to the store or BICYCLING to work!!

There is no justifiable reason to annihilate one of the most beautiful natural environments on Earth just so we can suck up more OIL. -RKO- 05/21/07

All the easy to get oil in the U.S.has already been pumped out of the ground. Now we have to drill REALLY deep wells, or off shore, to find more oil. And that is REALLY expensive to do. If gas prices go high enough, then they might spend the billions required to get that oil, but right now it is just cheaper to import it from countries that still have lots of easy to get at oil, near the surface on land. Like the middle east and Russia.

Face it, oil is running out. When it is gone, it is gone. I grew up in the Los Angeles area and there were oil pumps EVERYWHERE. Now most of them are gone because all the oil in the ground has already been pumped out. So even if there were no global warming, we would need to find alternative energy sources.

Drilling isn't the answer. Refineries aren't the answer. We need cheap, renewable energy sources. And oil is far too valuable a commodity to just burn up. It should be used for plastics and pharmaceuticals. Let's grow grassahol to fuel our cars, so we can tell Big Oil, Big Government, AND insane Muslim Terrorists where to stick it!