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House Votes for Alaska Drilling
Myron Ebell on FOX: Hannity & Colmes
Hosts: Rich Lowry, Alan Colmes
Guest: Myron Ebell, Adam Kolton
Spec: Energy;Alaska
COLMES: Welcome back to Hannity Colmes. I'm Alan Colmes.Coming up, your college age children don't want -- don't want you to see our next segment, perhaps, because you're going to meet the judge of one of the biggest spring break destinations in the country.
But first, after a marathon overnight session, the House voted early this morning to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil drilling. ANWR's believed to hold more than 10 billion barrels of oil. Drilling is currently prohibited because of environmental concerns.
Now, the bill now goes to the Senate, where Democrats have threatened a filibuster, because the House measure passed as an attachment to our defense bill. Is this debate really about lowering your prices at the pump, or is it just politics as usual?
Joining us now are the director of international environmental policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell. And the director of congressional and federal affairs for the National Wildlife Federation, Adam Kolton.
And Myron, let me begin with you. It's disingenuous, is it not? They know they can't get it passed any other way. They do it in the dead of night. They attach a spending bill. And then they throw in for good measure, We're going to help Katrina victims. So, you know, in good conscience, people will say, I can't vote.
McCain said, I'm against ANWR drilling, but I can't vote against a defense bill at a time like this. Isn't this an underhanded way to do this kind of a bill?
MYRON EBELL, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: No. It has majority support in both chambers. It passed the Senate with 51 votes. It's passed the House several times.
The fact is that every dirty trick possible, parliamentary trick, has been used to stop this for decades.
COLMES: This is a trick?
EBELL: And now -- now, at the end of the session, they always wrap a whole bunch of stuff together and pass it all at once. And that's what they are doing with ANWR and the defense bill.
COLMES: Adam Kolton, this is a dirty trick. This is exactly what it is. They're bundling it with other measures which, in good conscience, senators feel I must vote for. And then you add in Katrina victims, playing on the emotions at the same time. And you've get people like John McCain who otherwise wouldn't vote to drill in ANWR.
EBELL: Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, Senator McCain himself called this tactic disgusting. Jimmy Carter called it shameful. They're actually tacking Arctic drilling, a measure to benefit the big oil corporations, on a bill that helps our troops inIraq and Afghanistan
Look, it was rejected time and time again. It was rejected in the energy bill, in the budget bill and now Senator Stevens, not having gotten his way, tacks it onto this must pass bill. It's just outrageous.
And on top of that, they're actually waiving the rules of the Senate in order to get this through.
COLMES: It was the middle of the night.
EBELL: This was in either conference bill.
ADAM KOLTON, NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION: Myron, the U.S. Geological Survey also says there's less than a year of recoverable -- economically recoverable oil under there. And that the estimate of $10.4 billion barrels includes the entire assessment area, areas on the outskirts that aren't even the main areas of drilling.
So you're not even -- you could do the same thing with CAFE standards. Raise that to 40 miles per gallon and you can get the same amount as you would recover from ANWR, which is of very limited quantity anyway.
EBELL: No, you're quite wrong about that. It would -- if there's 10.4 billion barrels, it would increase the proven domestic reserves by 50 percent, equivalent to about 30 years of imports fromSaudi Arabia
Now, we've already -- the U.S. Geological Survey estimates thatPrudhoe Bay to the west of ANWR have been far exceeded and they're still pumping oil. So there could be a lot more oil than that.
And moreover, when you -- when you raise CAFE standards to 40 miles a gallon, you're increasing costs to the American consumer, who have to pay more for gasoline and for cars.
KOLTON: That's not true.
EBELL: In fact, this -- this is not a give away to big oil companies. They pay royalties to the federal government and the state ofAlaska
LOWRY: Myron, let me get in...
EBELL: Yes.
LOWRY: Myron, let me get in here. It's Rich Lowry. Hi, Myron. Hi, Adam.
KOLTON: Hi.
LOWRY: Adam, let me point something out to you. This provision, drilling in ANWR, has majority support in both the House and the Senate. And you're holding up these John McCain quotes.
Well, senators often attach provisions to bills in order to increase their leverage. That's exactly what John McCain did with the so-called anti-torture, amendment which he didn't pass as a stand-alone measure. He put it on the defense appropriations bill to increase his leverage.
Now, let me ask you, Adam. No one knows quite how much oil, recoverable oil is up there. But it might be as much as a million barrels a day, which seems a pretty consensus estimate. Would you prefer that instead we buy that oil from the Saudis?
KOLTON: Rich, look, the fact -- the fact of the matter is that the Bush administration's own Energy Department says, best case scenario, 20 years from now, we might reduce our dependence on foreign oil from 64 to 62 percent. They say that we might save a penny a gallon at the pump.
The alternative is to drill inDetroit
LOWRY: It makes sense, though. It makes sense to go up there and see what's there because there's so much environmental scare mongering about what would happen if we drilled up there.
And I like the caribou as much as the next guy. I think I even like caribou as much as Alan, who's a famous caribou lover, notorious caribou lover. But environmentalists said the caribou are going to be destroyed by the building of the trans-Alaskan pipeline up there. The caribou, Myron, actually seem to like it. We have more caribou than we did before.
EBELL: The endangered species here, actually, is the environmental movement, which has used scare tactics and false information, disinformation campaign for decades. And they've raised tens of millions of dollars on direct mail on ANWR. Even groups that work on ANWR...
LOWRY: That's ridiculous.
EBELL: ... depend upon it for their budgets.
COLMES: We've got to -- we've got to part company.
EBELL: This whole thing is about a fundraising scam.
COLMES: To attach to a defense bill, to attack it to money for Katrina is shameless, as John McCain's a little...
HANNITY: We don't want to -- we don't want to...
COLMES: Thank you very much. Look, Rich, I have a pet caribou. Do you?
LOWRY: I'll have to acquire one.
Guest: Myron Ebell, Adam Kolton
Spec: Energy;
COLMES: Welcome back to Hannity Colmes. I'm Alan Colmes.Coming up, your college age children don't want -- don't want you to see our next segment, perhaps, because you're going to meet the judge of one of the biggest spring break destinations in the country.
But first, after a marathon overnight session, the House voted early this morning to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil drilling. ANWR's believed to hold more than 10 billion barrels of oil. Drilling is currently prohibited because of environmental concerns.
Now, the bill now goes to the Senate, where Democrats have threatened a filibuster, because the House measure passed as an attachment to our defense bill. Is this debate really about lowering your prices at the pump, or is it just politics as usual?
Joining us now are the director of international environmental policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell. And the director of congressional and federal affairs for the National Wildlife Federation, Adam Kolton.
And Myron, let me begin with you. It's disingenuous, is it not? They know they can't get it passed any other way. They do it in the dead of night. They attach a spending bill. And then they throw in for good measure, We're going to help Katrina victims. So, you know, in good conscience, people will say, I can't vote.
McCain said, I'm against ANWR drilling, but I can't vote against a defense bill at a time like this. Isn't this an underhanded way to do this kind of a bill?
MYRON EBELL, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: No. It has majority support in both chambers. It passed the Senate with 51 votes. It's passed the House several times.
The fact is that every dirty trick possible, parliamentary trick, has been used to stop this for decades.
COLMES: This is a trick?
EBELL: And now -- now, at the end of the session, they always wrap a whole bunch of stuff together and pass it all at once. And that's what they are doing with ANWR and the defense bill.
COLMES: Adam Kolton, this is a dirty trick. This is exactly what it is. They're bundling it with other measures which, in good conscience, senators feel I must vote for. And then you add in Katrina victims, playing on the emotions at the same time. And you've get people like John McCain who otherwise wouldn't vote to drill in ANWR.
EBELL: Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, Senator McCain himself called this tactic disgusting. Jimmy Carter called it shameful. They're actually tacking Arctic drilling, a measure to benefit the big oil corporations, on a bill that helps our troops in
Look, it was rejected time and time again. It was rejected in the energy bill, in the budget bill and now Senator Stevens, not having gotten his way, tacks it onto this must pass bill. It's just outrageous.
And on top of that, they're actually waiving the rules of the Senate in order to get this through.
COLMES: It was the middle of the night.
EBELL: This was in either conference bill.
ADAM KOLTON, NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION: Myron, the U.S. Geological Survey also says there's less than a year of recoverable -- economically recoverable oil under there. And that the estimate of $10.4 billion barrels includes the entire assessment area, areas on the outskirts that aren't even the main areas of drilling.
So you're not even -- you could do the same thing with CAFE standards. Raise that to 40 miles per gallon and you can get the same amount as you would recover from ANWR, which is of very limited quantity anyway.
EBELL: No, you're quite wrong about that. It would -- if there's 10.4 billion barrels, it would increase the proven domestic reserves by 50 percent, equivalent to about 30 years of imports from
Now, we've already -- the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that
And moreover, when you -- when you raise CAFE standards to 40 miles a gallon, you're increasing costs to the American consumer, who have to pay more for gasoline and for cars.
KOLTON: That's not true.
EBELL: In fact, this -- this is not a give away to big oil companies. They pay royalties to the federal government and the state of
LOWRY: Myron, let me get in...
EBELL: Yes.
LOWRY: Myron, let me get in here. It's Rich Lowry. Hi, Myron. Hi, Adam.
KOLTON: Hi.
LOWRY: Adam, let me point something out to you. This provision, drilling in ANWR, has majority support in both the House and the Senate. And you're holding up these John McCain quotes.
Well, senators often attach provisions to bills in order to increase their leverage. That's exactly what John McCain did with the so-called anti-torture, amendment which he didn't pass as a stand-alone measure. He put it on the defense appropriations bill to increase his leverage.
Now, let me ask you, Adam. No one knows quite how much oil, recoverable oil is up there. But it might be as much as a million barrels a day, which seems a pretty consensus estimate. Would you prefer that instead we buy that oil from the Saudis?
KOLTON: Rich, look, the fact -- the fact of the matter is that the Bush administration's own Energy Department says, best case scenario, 20 years from now, we might reduce our dependence on foreign oil from 64 to 62 percent. They say that we might save a penny a gallon at the pump.
The alternative is to drill in
LOWRY: It makes sense, though. It makes sense to go up there and see what's there because there's so much environmental scare mongering about what would happen if we drilled up there.
And I like the caribou as much as the next guy. I think I even like caribou as much as Alan, who's a famous caribou lover, notorious caribou lover. But environmentalists said the caribou are going to be destroyed by the building of the trans-Alaskan pipeline up there. The caribou, Myron, actually seem to like it. We have more caribou than we did before.
EBELL: The endangered species here, actually, is the environmental movement, which has used scare tactics and false information, disinformation campaign for decades. And they've raised tens of millions of dollars on direct mail on ANWR. Even groups that work on ANWR...
LOWRY: That's ridiculous.
EBELL: ... depend upon it for their budgets.
COLMES: We've got to -- we've got to part company.
EBELL: This whole thing is about a fundraising scam.
COLMES: To attach to a defense bill, to attack it to money for Katrina is shameless, as John McCain's a little...
HANNITY: We don't want to -- we don't want to...
COLMES: Thank you very much. Look, Rich, I have a pet caribou. Do you?
LOWRY: I'll have to acquire one.
