OIL DEPENDENCE

The Senate’s refusal late last week to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling was a stunning rebuke to President Bush’s energy program. The Senate’s refusal last month to increase automotive fuel-efficiency standards was a stunning rebuke to the alternative. In these tumultuous times, Americans may derive some comfort from consistency.

Or not. The consistency here, nearly three decades after the first Arab oil embargo, is a consistent failure to develop a comprehensive national energy policy. The rousing call to lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil remains little more than empty words, a statement of purpose utterly lacking in conviction. As if to underscore this futility, the Senate voted overwhelmingly last week to ban oil imports from Iraq, a strong stand that will actually mean something should Saddam Hussein ever decide to resume oil exports.

The vote against ANWR drilling was the right vote. Environmental arguments aside, this proposal was flawed because it would merely have given the appearance of energy independence. The amount of oil under the tundra’s 1.5-million acre coatal plain is estimated at 6 billion to 12 billion barrels. At best, that’s a year to a year and half’s worth of the country’s current consumption; it would have reduced the United States’ oil imports from 62 percent of total consumption to 60. Government geologists say other places – unprotected parts of Alaska, the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico – have more oil that could be tapped at more reasonable prices, but none have the symbolic value ANWR held for both sides in this debate.

For both, ANWR was symbolic of the kind of sacrifice Americans would have to make to achieve energy independence – the sacrifice of pristine wilderness or the sacrifice of easy oil and unfettered consumption. Beyond the symbols, the numbers come down clearly on the side of the latter. The easy oil already has been found, pumped, refined and burned. As it gets harder, prices will soar and the consumption side of the equation inevitably will have to be addressed. The only question is whether it will be done calmly as part of a coherent policy or in a panic.

Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are advocates of coherent policy – they supported the modest and entirely doable increase in automotive mileage standards, they opposed the sham independence drilling ANWR would have offered, they understand that true energy independence lies in conservation, efficiency and the development of non-fossil alternative fuels. When Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski, a bitterly disappointed advocate of drilling ANWR said the vote last week proved “we need more Republicans in the United States Senate,” Americans should hope he was referring to the sort of Republicans Maine sends there. Otherwise, the Americans should resign themselves to being consistently dependent.