Originally Posted By tiggertoo <<Not 50 cents a gallon, note. 50 cents a barrel.>> And if I recall correctly there are about 42 gallons of gasoline per barrel, which comes to a grand savings of 1.19 cents per gallon. Wow… that will sure help at the gumball machine.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf 1.19 cents seems like a small price to pay to demonstrate our dominion over nature and all of god's creatures.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Republicans could have passed it if they'd wanted to and the Democrats couldn't have done a thing about it.> Not true. The Republicans needed 60 votes to overcome a Democrat filibuster, and they didn't have it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 It's true Cantwell threatened a filibuster when Ted Stevens rather sneakily attempted to insert ANWR into funding for the military to get it to pass. When this happened, you got some people who opposed drilling voting to block the filibuster because they didn't want to go on record voting "against the military" and you even had a Republican opponent of drilling in ANWR like Norm Coleman voting to break the filibuster not because he wanted to drill, but because he thought there should be a straight up and down vote on ANWR's merits itself. AFAIK, the Republicans haven't offered up ANWR itself "straight" without attaching it to something else since. At any rate, something that is estimated to bring down the price of oil by a whopping 50 cents a barrel is not much of an economic benefit.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <At any rate, something that is estimated to bring down the price of oil by a whopping 50 cents a barrel is not much of an economic benefit.> Did you read the report you linked to? It said that it could reduce the price of oil by 50 cents a barrel if oil was at $27 a barrel. Since oil is a little more than that, the savings would be greater. Drilling in ANWR makes sense; the opposition to it doesn't.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Did you read the report you linked to? It said that it could reduce the price of oil by 50 cents a barrel if oil was at $27 a barrel. Since oil is a little more than that, the savings would be greater.> That doesn't necessarily follow. There's more to the price of a barrel of oil than sheer supply, you know. The point was that the supply up there is not all that great. <Drilling in ANWR makes sense; the opposition to it doesn't.> Just the opposite. Minimal economic benefit, potentially a big problem environmentally.
Originally Posted By utahjosh Looks like folks 'round these parts tend to disagree on a thing or two. Let's just keep 'er civil and all nice-like, ye hear?
Originally Posted By utahjosh "Let's just keep 'er civil and all nice-like, ye hear?" ^ That was not a slam on anyone or any post. Just a friendly reminder to myself and all.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Minimal economic benefit, potentially a big problem environmentally.> What big environmental problem? A couple of thousand acres, out of 19 million, have oil wells on them? In a land of frozen tundra, where almost nothing lives and almost no one visits? How is that a big environmental problem?
Originally Posted By plpeters70 What happens if there is an oil spill - that would certainly impact a lot more area than the few thousand acres you keep throughing out there.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 < In a land of frozen tundra, where almost nothing lives and almost no one visits? How is that a big environmental problem?> It's not so much people as animals. <a href="http://leahy.senate.gov/issues/environment/anwr.html" target="_blank">http://leahy.senate.gov/issues...nwr.html</a> "Some have tried to portray the coastal 1002 area as a barren wasteland. In reality, it is a rich ecosystem that is the "most biologically productive part" of ANWR and is the "center of wildlife activity" (DOI, 1987). Consider some examples:" (see examples) There is also one group of indigenous people who would be adversely affected: "As they have for thousands of years, the Gwich'in depend on the Porcupine caribou herd for food, clothing, and tools. The caribou are central to their spiritual life. Oil development in the 1002 area of ANWR, the calving grounds of the Porcupine herd, would likely reduce the size of the herd and alter its annual migration patterns. This would, in turn, threaten the very survival of the Gwich'in culture." Then there are the general environmental problems, as plpeters70 alludes to (see the "Impacts of Oil Development" section of the link). ANWR would do next to nothing to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. We might do far more good simply subsidizing an HHO add-on for everyone's car engine. There are people good at DIY that are doing this themselves already. <a href="http://articletime.blogspot.com/2008/04/increase-gas-mileage-diy-hho-mileage.html" target="_blank">http://articletime.blogspot.co...age.html</a>
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<Just the opposite. Minimal economic benefit, potentially a big problem environmentally.>> Once gas hits $6 we'll see how much Joe 6 Pack cares about the environment in ANWR.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 "Once gas hits $6 we'll see how much Joe 6 Pack cares about the environment in ANWR." First of all, Joe 6 Pack could care less about the environment now, and probably doesn't even know what ANWR is. I'll never understand why all policy in this country seems to cater to the stupidest people in our society. We should be educating these people, not pandering to them. (And both parties are equally responsible for this!) And second, it has already been pointed out that drilling in ANWR probably won't help the price of gas much. There are already to many other factors at work.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>ANWR would do next to nothing to decrease our dependence on foreign oil. We might do far more good simply subsidizing an HHO add-on for everyone's car engine. There are people good at DIY that are doing this themselves already.<< But it would line the pockets of U.S. oil developers. But fortunately, they've never had ties to Bush and Cheney. Wait...
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I'll never understand why all policy in this country seems to cater to the stupidest people in our society. We should be educating these people, not pandering to them. (And both parties are equally responsible for this!)<< Truer words were never spoken. As Bill Maher said on his last show, rednecks voted for the retard they'd like to have a beer with, and now the rest of us have been paying for it the last seven years.
Originally Posted By DAR If it comes to protecting the environment or finding a way for people to put food on their table. Well then the envrionment needs to take a back seat. We don't know whether drilling in ANWR will work or not. But the best way to know would be to at least give it a try.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 "If it comes to protecting the environment or finding a way for people to put food on their table. Well then the envrionment needs to take a back seat." What happens when the oil runs out? How do we put food on our table then? And what's left over for future generations to enjoy? This is the problem with short term thinking - and drilling in ANWR is big time short term thinking. We need to be spending our money finding ways to use less oil - not drilling up the wilderness to find more. Especially when that oil will only serve us for the short term, but will hurt the environment for years and years to come.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I see Bill Maher was pandering to his base of arrogant a-holes.<< DAR, I really have no interest in dealing with your childish outrage again. It's simply enough to say that your comments are unwarranted and unwelcome. I'm a fan of Maher and don't appreciate being labeled an "arrogant a-hole."
