Alaska’s congressional delegation is engaged in last-minute maneuvering to force their colleagues to approve oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Maine’s senators and representatives have long opposed drilling in ANWR and should continue to do so. They have settled on the best reason for leaving ANWR alone: If this is America’s last reserve of oil, it shouldn’t be squandered now.

Sen. Susan Collins first articulated this view and has now been joined by her Maine colleagues. “Americans have a right to develop our energy resources, but not to waste them,” she said earlier this year. “We could do far more to reduce our reliance on foreign oil by increasing the efficiency of our automobiles than by drilling in the Arctic.”

Unfortunately, efforts by Sens. Collins and Olympia Snowe to raise car fuel efficiency standards have fallen short in Washington. Instead, the administration has renewed efforts to open ANWR to oil drilling.

The president included $2.5 billion in ANWR revenues in his budget for 2006, even though such a figure is purely speculative. A Senate budget bill included the ANWR provision, but the House version did not. Because the two chambers are far from agreement on a budget bill, the Alaska delegation has turned to other means to open ANWR. The latest maneuver is to include ANWR in a defense authorization bill forcing colleagues who oppose drilling to vote against money for U.S. troops, a move Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain called “disgraceful.”

Rep. Tom Allen was even more blunt. “The Arctic refuge is a national treasure and its fate deserves a straight up or down vote in the U.S. Congress,” he said. “Instead, it joins a long line of measures rammed through Congress with sleazy tactics.”

Tactics aside, the point remains that drilling in ANWR should be a last resort. The oil there should be saved for when the United States truly needs it. We’re not at that point now.

According to a U.S. Geological Survey estimate, the ANWR’s coastal plain contains between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Using the survey’s estimated mean production level of 10.4 billion barrels, the Energy Information Administration calculates that if production in ANWR starts in 10 years it could reach 900,000 barrels a day in 2025.

In its 2005 Annual Energy Outlook, the administration predicts dependence on petroleum imports will reach 68 percent in 2025, with the United States importing 20.2 million barrels a day. ANWR production would put only a tiny dent in the country’s oil imports.

Leaving the oil in the ground makes sense. So does having a thorough, honest debate.