Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to help secure America’s energy future? President Bush certainly thinks so. He has argued that tapping ANWR’s oil would help ease California’s electricity crisis and provide a major boost to the country’s energy independence. But no one knows for sure how much crude oil lies buried beneath the frozen earth with the last government survey, conducted in 1998, projecting output anywhere from 3 billion to 16 billion barrels.
北极国家野生动物保护区（ANWR）下面有充足的石油帮助保障美国的能源未来吗？布什总统当然这么认为。他认为，开采ANWR的石油将有助于缓解加州的电力危机，并极大地推动国家的能源独立。但没有人确切知道冻土下埋着多少原油，上一次政府调查是在1998年进行的，预计产量在30亿至160亿桶之间。
The oil industry goes with the high end of the range, which could equal as much as 10% of U.S. consumption for as long as six years. By pumping more than 1 million barrels a day from the reserve for the next two three decades, lobbyists claim, the nation could cut back on imports equivalent to all shipments to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. Sounds good. An oil boom would also mean a multibillion-dollar windfall in tax revenues, royalties and leasing fees for Alaska and the Federal Government. Best of all, advocates of drilling say, damage to the environment would be insignificant. “We’ve never had a document case of oil rig chasing deer out onto the pack ice.” says Alaska State Representative Scott Ogan.
这一范围的最高值相当于石油行业在长达六年的时间里美国消费量的10%。游说者声称，在接下来的二三十年里，通过每天从储备中抽取100多万桶石油，该国可以减少相当于从沙特阿拉伯运往美国的所有货物的进口。听起来不错。石油繁荣还意味着阿拉斯加和联邦政府将获得数十亿美元的税收、特许权使用费和租赁费。钻井倡导者说，最重要的是，对环境的破坏是微不足道的。阿拉斯加州代表Scott Ogan说：“我们从未有过石油钻井平台在浮冰上追逐鹿的记录”。
Not so far, say environmentalists. Sticking to the low end of government estimates, the National Resources Defense Council says there may be no more than 3.2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the coastal plain of ANWR, a drop in the bucket that would do virtually nothing to ease America’s energy problems. And consumers would wait up to a decade to gain any benefits, because drilling could begin only after much bargaining over leases, environmental permits and regulatory review. As for ANWR’s impact on the California power crisis, environmentalists point out that oil is responsible for only 1% of the Golden State’s electricity output—and just 3% of the nation’s.
环保人士说，并非如此。国家资源保护委员会坚持政府估计的最低值，表示ANWR沿海平原的经济可开采石油可能不超过32亿桶，这只是杯水车薪，对缓解美国的能源问题几乎没有任何帮助。消费者将等待长达十年才能获得一些好处，因为只有在就租约、环境许可和监管审查进行多次谈判后，才能开始钻探。至于ANWR对加州电力危机的影响，环保人士指出，石油只占加州电力产量的1%，而仅占全国电力产量的3%。
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