Alaska's Governor Asks Reid To Drill ANWR

Governor Sarah Palin wants Congress to allow drilling in Alaska and on the Outer Continental Shelf:

In a letter to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other key leaders, Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin urges Congress to allow drilling for oil on the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska, an area she calls "the most promising unexplored petroleum province in North America."

"What will it take for Congress to enact comprehensive energy policy?" Palin asks in the letter, dated yesterday. "In my opinion, the debate about energy policy is no longer theoretical and abstract. Our failure to enact an energy policy is having real consequences for every American in their daily lives and has begun to affect America's place in the world."

Of course, the democrats want to fix the problem by raising taxes or imposing a windfall profits tax. Either of which would only make prices go up significantly.

how much of ANWR are we talking about you ask?:

Palin addresses the concerns of environmentalists about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.

Oil exploration and development "can be conducted in a safe manner," she writes, pointing out the footprint of oil development facilities in ANWR would take up "less than 2,000 acres" of a refuge roughly the size of South Carolina.

South Carolina has 19,270,000 acres. That is less than 1% of the total area of ANWR.

As a disclaimer I would like to say a few things about this notion that people who support drilling in ANWR, as well as any other place oil is found, hate nature. I do not want to see this countries many beautiful areas destroyed. Too many people in this country think that just because I want to drill oil in places like this, I do not care about the environment. They could not be more wrong. I love nature. I am an avid hunter and fisherman. So I guess I hate animals and fish. Wrong again. I do not want to see land destroyed. I want clean, safe waters. As a matter of fact I believe that I do more for these things than most. I spend more than $300 a year on hunting and fishing licenses. That money is used to develop healthier populations of animals and the restocking of fish. It goes to run fisheries. It goes to plant and maintain food crops. And the list could go on and on.

I don't think drilling for oil in an area roughly the size of my small hometown in an area the size of South Carolina is going to effect the animals as much as people think. The people that talk about the poor, poor animals could not have spent much time around these animals. Too many people think that animals are weak defenseless creatures that must be protected by man. Once again they are wrong. Animals are extremely resilient and capable of adapting to almost anything they encounter. Suppose we put a drilling facility right in the path the caribou use to travel through the area. What do you suppose they are going to do? Are they going to just stop and stand around, waiting to starve to death? No, they will walk around. It may slow them down a half a day or so, but they will go around.

DRILL NOW