The Current Debate
Economic, Energy, and Environmental
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) consists of 19 million acres in northeast Alaska. It is administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in the Department of the Interior (DOI). Its 1.5-million-acre coastal plain is currently one of the most promising U.S. onshore oil and gas exploration and development prospects. Together, the various fields on this Federal land could hold as much economically recoverable oil as the giant 11-billion-barrel field at Prudhoe Bay, found in 1967 on the State-owned portion of the coastal plain west of ANWR. At the same time, the Refuge, and especially the coastal plain, is…
