{"id":6072,"date":"2005-12-13T12:52:16","date_gmt":"2005-12-13T17:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6072"},"modified":"2005-12-13T12:52:16","modified_gmt":"2005-12-13T17:52:16","slug":"the-bush-administrations-desperate-anwr-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-bush-administrations-desperate-anwr-spin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bush administration’s desperate ANWR spin"},"content":{"rendered":"

In light of the ongoing debate on the Hill over whether to include oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into the federal budget, it’s hardly surprising that the Bush administration, which supporting ANWR drilling, is pushing the issue hard. What is surprising is the desperation with which they’re spinning the benefits of the idea.<\/p>\n

The WaPo’s Dana Milbank noted<\/a>, for example, that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao held a press conference yesterday in which she insisted that, according to “congressional estimates,” the ANWR project could create one million jobs.<\/p>\n

A million jobs? Chao repeated the forecast to incredulous reporters after the event. “Congress has made estimates that about a million people will be involved,” she affirmed. Is that over the life of the project? “I don’t think so,” Chao said. “That’s probably over a year or so.”<\/p>\n

A million jobs in one year would be so compelling that even environmental groups might be willing to chase the caribou out of ANWR. But Chao was a bit off. The Congressional Research Service, to which Chao directed reporters, put the job growth in the range of 86,000 to 245,000. The million-job forecast, it turns out, is not from Congress but from a conservative think tank and was based on a far larger project than the ANWR drilling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’d think the Labor Secretary would have at least been briefed before hosting a press conference on ANWR about the jobs ANWR drilling would produce. Did it not occur to her that the number sounded a little high? That if a single drilling project could create a million jobs in one year, it wouldn’t be this controversial?<\/p>\n

Interior Secretary Gale Norton played with the ANWR-related numbers almost as carelessly.
\n<\/p>\n

“ANWR would supply every drop of petroleum for Florida for 29 years,” she told a friendly audience at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, “New York for 34 years, Illinois for 43 years, California for 16 years or New Hampshire for 315 years.”<\/p>\n

So how many years would ANWR’s oil keep the whole country fueled up?<\/p>\n

Norton balked at the question. “When you look at it for the whole country, you really get somewhat of a deceiving picture,” the secretary answered. She said that’s “not the way this operates,” and said the question “assumes that unless a source of energy is going to meet all of America’s needs then it’s not worth looking at.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s pretty amusing. It’s “deceiving” to look at how much oil ANWR would produce for the country, but it’s reasonable to argue that ANWR would supply oil for New Hampshire for 315 years. Norton will tell you that ANWR can satisfy Illinois’ needs for nearly a half-century, but asked about the nation, she’ll tell you that this is “not the way this operates.” (If you’re curious, the administration estimates that ANWR would supply the whole country for 13 to 17 months before it runs out.)<\/p>\n

With Norton’s and Chao’s spinning in mind, perhaps it’s not a big surprise that opponents of the policy aren’t changing their mind. Just last week, two dozen House GOP moderates pledged to oppose the project<\/a> and said they wouldn’t bow to pressure from the White House or offers of money for pet projects.<\/p>\n

Presumably, they haven’t heard about the one million new jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In light of the ongoing debate on the Hill over whether to include oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into the federal budget, it’s hardly surprising that the Bush administration, which supporting ANWR drilling, is pushing the issue hard. What is surprising is the desperation with which they’re spinning the benefits of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}