Destroy as much as you can while there’s still time

The current approach of the Trump administration

Photo by Joris Beugels on Unsplash

Back when I was working for a Congressman on Capitol Hill in the early 1990s, one of the issues we championed was protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from oil drilling. As part of his purported National Energy Policy at the time, the first President Bush had called for drilling there. After all, this was the era before fracking, before the United States had re-established itself as the world’s largest oil producer, and one of its largest exporters. Back then, at least increasing our oil production and thus reducing our dependence on foreign oil producers as well as lowering the price of oil was a legitimate argument in favor of despoiling ANWR. No more, though.

Now, we are once again the world’s leading oil producer, generating 18 percent of the world’s oil. Now we have much more fuel-efficient vehicle technologies such as electric cars and the hybrid vehicle I now drive. Even the large pick-ups are far more fuel-efficient than they were back in the 1990s, and all without compromising their power. Oil prices are low on a real basis. Any of the arguments used in favor of drilling ANWR in the 1990s have disappeared.

So why is the Trump administration opening up ANWR for drilling now? Any of the legitimate…