The most controversial of President Bush's proposals is his plan to open up a tiny portion of ANWR to drilling. Even Sen. McCain has opposed oil exploration in ANWR -- a position he should seriously reconsider given the current energy crisis. There are almost 20 million acres in ANWR, but only about 2,000 acres -- 0.01 percent of the total -- are needed for drilling. And this small territory could produce around 10 billion barrels of oil. Congress passed legislation to allow drilling in ANWR more than a decade ago, with bipartisan support, but President Clinton vetoed it. Had drilling started then, we'd likely be paying less at the pump today.
President Bush also called for expediting permits to build new oil refineries, another step in the process of lowering gasoline prices. We now import significant amounts of already refined gasoline because we lack capacity here to refine enough crude oil to meet our needs. The last new refinery was built three decades ago, largely because of challenges to permit applications. The president's plan would send all legal challenges to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for a decision within 60 days of the permit's approval, and he would authorize the secretary of energy to issue binding deadlines for permit decisions to speed the process. He also called on Congress to allow refineries to be built on abandoned military bases.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quick to condemn the president's proposals, calling them "the same old ideas meant to pad the pockets of Big Oil." But that kind of rhetoric won't do anything to bring down the rising price of gasoline, which threatens not just family budgets but the entire U.S. economy. It's time Congress put election-year politics aside and get serious about allowing domestic oil production to solve this crisis.