S. 411 . A bill to designate a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.*
 

       Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased today to introduce, along with 23 of my colleagues, legislation to protect forever the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil exploration and other potentially harmful development. Our legislation will bequeath, undisturbed, the vital heart of America's greatest, most pristine wilderness ecosystem and wildlife sanctuary to future generations.

       Advocates of drilling offer the Refuge as a quick fix for our country's energy woes and a long-term solution to our debilitating dependence on foreign oil. It is neither.

       Proponents of drilling argue that there is a princely sum of black gold lying beneath the Refuge. But not according to the scientific experts of the U.S. Geological Survey, who in a 1998 study determined that a six to eight-month supply of oil would likely be recovered from the Refuge over its 50-year lifespan because most of the oil there is simply too expensive to extract. This is not the low end estimate; it is the most likely one. And not a drop of oil would emerge from ANWR for about 10 years. This is hardly the answer to our energy needs, now or in the future.

       In fact, the only thing we know for certain about drilling in the Refuge, as a result of years of analysis and experience, is that it would immeasurably and irreversibly damage one of the last preserves of its kind in the world. To drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge is like chopping down the California Redwoods for firewood, or capping Old Faithful for geothermal power, or damming the Grand Canyon for hydroelectric power, unthinkable acts because the cost in lost natural treasures is obviously too high.

       To judge the environmental threat, listen to the ecologists and biologists who have extensively studied the impact of drilling, not to the politicians. Scientific analyses by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have concluded that drilling would severely harm the refuge's abundant populations of caribou, polar bears, musk oxen, and snow geese.

   Advocates of drilling claim that these concerns are grossly exaggerated because drilling would only impact an area the size of an airport. But what they don't tell you is that this ``airport'' has terminals outside that spread all over the Refuge. A spider web of infrastructure, including hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines, production facilities, ports, and housing and services for thousands of people would be required. As was recently said on ``60 Minutes,'' it would be ``urban sprawl on the tundra.''

       The probable environmental consequences of drilling also go well beyond the animals of the North Slope. The Trans-Alaska and Prudhoe Bay oil fields have averaged more than 400 spills a year of everything from crude oil to acid, including an oil spill of approximately 9,000 barrels just last week. Current oil operations on Alaska's North Slope emit tons of harmful pollutants every year which cause smog and acid rain and contribute to global warming.

       And that gets to the larger point. We have a long-term energy problem in America, but drilling in the Arctic Refuge will not help solve it. In fact, drilling in the Arctic deludes us into thinking we can oil-produce our way out of our energy problem. We can't because nature has left us with too little oil within our control to meet our needs. We must draw what we can from our own resources in an environmentally-protective way.

       But, in the end, that will not be enough. To become more energy independent and environmentally-protective, we must also conserve, we must be more efficient, use alternative energy sources and rapidly develop new technologies like fuel cells.

       That is why we want to protect the Arctic Refuge, and why we will fight all attempts to drill there for oil with any legislative weapon we possess, including a filibuster in the Senate.

       In short, for the sake of America's energy and environmental future, we are once again today drawing a line in the Arctic tundra. We will do everything necessary to protect it.