Driving and Heating Your Home

HOW MUCH OIL & GAS IS IN ANWR'S COASTAL PLAIN?
Only drilling will tell. The geologic indicators are very favorable for the presence of significant oil and gas resources in ANWR, but the limited data means that there is a high level of uncertainty about how much oil and gas may be present. Consequently, current estimates represent the best scientific guesses. However, most geologists agree that the potential is on the order of billions of barrels of recoverable oil and trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas and that these resources may rival or exceed the initial reserves at Prudhoe Bay. The validity of these estimates can be proved only by drilling exploratory wells. Authorization for exploration must be given by Congress and the President.
In 1996 the North Slope oil fields produced about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, or approximately 25 percent of the U.S. domestic production. However, Prudhoe Bay, which accounts for over half of North Slope production, began its decline in 1988, and no new fields have yet been discovered with the potential to compensate for that decline.
http://www.anwr.org/backgrnd/potent.html

This is the kind of thing I think about when I fill my gas tank and when I write that check to Duke Energy for using their natural gas. The Democrats need to explain to the American people why staying out of ANWR is more important than American families having more money to buy clothes, feed children... stuff like that. They need to tell us why pleasing environmentalist extremists (and political contributors) is more important than the budgets of those American families.

I would mention that I'd also like to know why, at a time when Americans are struggling with gasoline prices, we are not allowed to drill off the east and west coasts, but I don't have a map for that.

The "Coastal Plain of ANWR is that little yellow section of the map above.