M iXi M            

Michael McArthur
HC 62 Box 223
Lowville , NY  13367

mjunkmailm@netscape.net

Dear Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton:
Dear Senator Chuck Schumer:


The 1.6 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is the United States'
premier birthing and nursing ground for arctic wildlife including grizzly and polar bears, musk oxen, the
arctic fox, wolves and wolverines, 135 bird species, and a migrating herd of 180,000 caribou which
supports thousands of native people still living in harmony with this rugged land. 

Oil drilling in this pristine refuge promises potentially devastating consequences for the region's
fragile habitat, native communities and unparalleled wildlife.

Senator Frank Murkowski, sponsor of S.389, a sweeping energy bill which would allow oil and gas
development in this Arctic refuge, asserts that drilling can be conducted without harming wildlife and the
environment.  Such claims don’t hold up, however.  For instance:

-- An average of 409 spills have occurred annually on Alaska’s North Slope since 1996, while operations
produce tons of nitrogen oxides, which cause smog and acid rain, and large amounts of sewage, garbage and
scrap metal. The drilling sites in the Arctic Refuge would be strewn throughout the delicate coastal
plain, linked by pipelines and roads.  This is not clean, unobtrusive drilling.

-- The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the oil that could be extracted would fuel the U.S. market for
less than six months. Consider that increasing fuel efficiency standardsfor new vehicles to an average of
39 miles per gallon over the next decade would save 51 billion barrels of oil over the next 50 years --
more than 15 times the likely yield from the Arctic Refuge!  This is not realistic energy for the future.

-- The oil market is global, and oil from the Arctic Refuge would expandglobal oil reserves by just 0.3
percent -- a quantity far too inconsequential to affect prices at the pump or elsewhere.  This plan will
not lower gas prices.

-- Drilling in the Arctic Refuge would have no impact on California's electricity problems or any other
state's electricity problems. Most U.S. electric power plants do not useoil. Less than 1 percent of
California's electricity is generated by burning oil, and the average for the United States as a whole is
only 3 percent. Besides, no oil from the Refuge would flow to refineriesfor at least a decade. This is
not a solution for the California power crisis.

Despite all this, Senator Murkowski, President Bush and oil industry executives continue to push for oil
development in this fragile corner of the Arctic.

This policy will ravage one of the last truly wild landscapes in the United States. Please respect our
children’s and grandchildren’s environmental heritage and keep the drilling rigs out of the Arctic.  

Sincerely,

Michael McArthur