Reply #50: that's just code for relaxing regs that ensure safety, environmental protection and accountability [View All]

and, it's just code for opening up ANWR to drilling . . .



No presidential admonishment of Congress is complete, it seems, without a call for opening up the Alaskan wilds for oil and natural gas exploration. Again, context would be nice.

The pristine Arctic environment would be radically altered, but how much oil and gas prices would actually change is very much in doubt. The Energy Information Administration estimated in 2005 that it would take about 10 years of drilling before oil would flow from ANWR. That oil would reduce prices by less than a penny a gallon by 2025, using constant 2003 dollars.

"Somehow if you mention ANWR, it means you don't care about the environment," the President says. "Well, I'm hoping now people, when they say ANWR, means you don't care about the gasoline prices that people are paying."


http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=685833&category=OPINION&newsdate=5/4/2008