Rejecting ANWR Not in Best Interest Of Country

Washington, D.C., April 18, 2002—“The Senate has rejected opening ANWR to oil and gas exploration on the basis of utterly dishonest arguments from Senators Kerry, Lieberman, Daschle, and others,” said Myron Ebell, CEI’s Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy.  “However, despite their disgraceful performance I still believe that the Congress will approve opening ANWR to exploration before the end of the 107th Congress.” 

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is reacting to the Senate’s decision not to allow oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  The Senate, in a vote of 46-54, today effectively ended the heated debate over opening ANWR, which CEI believes would have been an important element of our national energy policy.  

CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis stated: “Now that drilling in ANWR is off the table, Senators have no excuse to support Daschle’s energy bill, which is bulging with anti-consumer, anti-energy measures, such as wind power mandates and a greenhouse gas reporting system that would install the monitoring and enforcement infrastructure for Kyoto-style energy rationing.”

“It’s unfortunate that the Senate will be passing an energy bill that doesn’t actually help produce energy,” added CEI Environmental Policy Analyst Paul Georgia. “What we have instead is a bill full of the same old failed energy clichés that have existed since the 1970s.  Try heating a home or cooking food with clichés.  It doesn’t work.”

Energy Experts Available For Interviews

Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming Policy, [email protected]

Marlo Lewis, Senior Fellow, [email protected]

Paul Georgia, Policy Analyst, [email protected]

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.