Although the Senate last month approved drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge there are many hurdles still facing exploration advocates. The first is the budget process itself. Because the House and Senate approved vastly different budgets, a joint committee must now try to reconcile the competing versions. If they fail to reach agreement, the entire budget – including the ANWR provision – is dead. Second, drilling in ANWR is likely to be opposed in court. This all gives energy policy-makers time to reconsider the wisdom of drilling in the refuge.

Supporters of drilling say it is important to tap the oil in far north Alaska because it is America’s last remaining large reserve. If this is true, it would make more sense to save the ANWR oil for an energy emergency, a position supported by Sen. Susan Collins.

“Americans have a right to develop our energy resources, but not to waste them,” she said. “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.”

She’s right, of course, but efforts by Sens. Collins and Olympia Snowe to raise car fuel efficiency standards have fallen short in Washington.

A further reason to delay action on ANWR is that estimates of how much oil is under the reserve differ greatly. Although the president included $2.5 billion in ANWR revenues in his budget for 2006, such a figure is purely speculative because the results from the only test well drilled on the coastal plain remain secret.

According to a U.S. Geological Survey estimate, the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain contains between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Using a figure of 10.4 billion barrels of oil, the mean production level estimated by the Geological Survey, the Energy Information Administration calculates that if production in ANWR starts in 10 years production could reach 900,000 barrels a day in 2025.

In the same report, the 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.

While attention has focused on ANWR, the Bush administration has quietly moved ahead with plans to allow oil drilling in a sensitive area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, despite objections from native leaders. The 23 million-acre reserve is located west of ANWR. Under a plan issued by the Bureau of Land Management in January, up to 400,000 acres would be opened to exploration even though it has been off-limits to development for decades due to concerns about wildlife. The area is thought to hold the potential for 1.4 billion barrels of oil.

“What’s the rush here? There are plenty of areas open to leasing in NPR-A right now and plenty of leased areas that haven’t been explored,” North Slope Borough Mayor George Ahmaogak Sr. said recently. In a 29-page letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the mayor, a subsistence hunter, also said the BLM’s drilling plan does little to protect the wildlife that his people depend on.

Rather than rush ahead with drilling in either place, Congress must do more to encourage conservation and efficiency. Then, if a real emergency arises, the oil in the reserve and ANWR will still be there.