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Hawaii senators’ votes
endanger wildlife refuge

THE ISSUE The Senate voted 51-49 today to allow oil development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

OPPONENTS of oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge focused their attention this week on Hawaii's two senators, who previously abandoned their fellow Democrats by voting with the Republican majority in favor of drilling in ANWR. Senators Akaka and Inouye voted the wrong way again today -- this time casting the decisive votes -- on one of the major environmental issues of the decade.

In past years, opponents of drilling in the refuge -- mostly Democrats -- used the filibuster to contest authorization of drilling along 1.5 million acres of Alaska coastal plain. Senate Republicans this week included the authorization in a Senate budget resolution, requiring only the 51 votes cast in its favor instead of the 60 needed to block a filibuster.

Inouye and Akaka have supported oil drilling in the ANWR on the basis that it would bring needed jobs. Inouye's support might be based on his allegiance to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, his close friend and a passionate backer of drilling in the area for more than two decades.

Both Hawaii senators have been strong advocates on environmental and aboriginal issues. Akaka has said that the Inupiat people of Alaska favor "oil exploration as a matter of economic development and employment," and Inouye has maintained that the Inupiats "greatly need revenues" to reduce their dependence on federal aid.

However, the indigenous Gwich'in culture, which relies upon caribou that reproduce in the area, is unified in opposition to drilling. The area, now accessible only by aircraft, is inhabited by 45 species of land and ocean mammals, 36 species of fish and 180 species of birds.

President Bush has said that opening up the area to oil exploration "would not only create thousands of new jobs, but it would eventually reduce our dependence on foreign oil by up to a million barrels of oil a day." That is an optimistic guess. Only one test well has been drilled in the area -- more than 20 years ago -- and the industry has kept the results secret.

Even if the guess is right, full development would have minimal effect on the nation's energy needs. According to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, the United States would import 65 percent of its oil needs in 2025 if the predicted ANWR production level were to be achieved, compared with 68 percent without it.

"The enthusiasm of government officials about ANWR exceeds that of industry because oil companies are driven by market forces, investing resources in direct proportion to the economic potential, and the evidence so far about ANWR is not promising," Wayne Kelley, managing director of an oil consulting company, told The New York Times last month.

Bush might have in mind pristine areas along the coast of California and Florida that might be rich in oil. Environmentalists are concerned that passage of the ANWR drilling measure will make it easier for oil companies to enter to those areas.