Much ado made about not much oil?

Yesterday's U.S. Senate vote moved the nation one step closer to extracting oil from beneath Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

But the importance of getting oil from there is still in dispute, even among people on the same side of the issue.

Many environmentalists fear losing this contest could damage not just Alaska wildlife but also their political clout in equally important upcoming battles with Congress and the Bush administration.

Drilling boosters argue that the refuge and nearby state- and Native-owned lands, estimated to hold 10.4 billion barrels of oil, could help relieve American dependence on foreign oil.

But it's still not known exactly how much oil could come out of ANWR. Even on the optimistic side, it would meet a small amount of the country's needs.

At its peak, oil from the refuge, along with surrounding land that would likely be drilled to capitalize on the new pipelines, would account for 3 percent to 6 percent of U.S. oil consumption, compared to between 64 and 67 percent from foreign sources, according to the Energy Information Administration, an arm of the Department of Energy.

It also could provide a shot in the arm for Alaska's economy as major North Slope oil fields, such as Prudhoe Bay, run low.

"No one questions the benefit to the country that Prudhoe Bay has represented," said John Katz, head of the state of Alaska's Washington, D.C., office and a veteran of the refuge fight, who spoke days before the vote.

"All of the same arguments that might have been made against opening Prudhoe Bay have been made against ANWR. Yet Prudhoe Bay has provided tens of thousands of jobs around the country and improved the energy supply for the nation," Katz said.

Less than Prudhoe Bay

Compared with the ANWR, Prudhoe Bay is expected to produce roughly a third more — 13.4 billion barrels of oil, 10.7 billion of which has already been pumped, according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

Supporters say the drilling can be done while leaving a small footprint on a fraction of the overall refuge.

The latest plan calls for confining oil-drilling operations to 2,000 acres in the coastal plain of the 19-million-acre refuge. Advances in drilling technology could allow companies to drill sideways for long distances, enabling them to cut down on the number of drilling pads, say proponents.

Yet even some drilling supporters acknowledge ANWR oil will do little to dent the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Dennis O'Brien, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Policy at the University of Oklahoma, said oil from the refuge could be valuable as a way to help reduce the overall U.S. trade deficit. But he said it's too small to have implications for national security and reliance on foreign oil.

"The national-security argument for producing ANWR is a little bit of a, well, it doesn't really meet the national-security test," said O'Brien, who was deputy assistant secretary for international energy security under President Reagan.

Major oil companies have also expressed less interest in the refuge in recent years.

Since 2002, BP and ConocoPhillips, two companies with a large presence in Alaska, have pulled out of Arctic Power, a pro-drilling lobbying group financed largely by the state of Alaska. A number of oil companies have also been noncommittal about the refuge's importance.

While many drilling boosters are reluctant to lay claim to any broader agenda, environmentalists are eager to do it for them.

They point to comments reportedly made by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, in 2003. The D.C.-based publication Roll Call reported that DeLay, in a closed-door meeting with Republicans, said the drilling in the refuge was "about precedent" and the "symbolism of ANWR."

Environmentalists argue the damage to a wild, untouched landscape that's home to polar bears, wolves and a caribou herd numbering 129,000 outweighs the contribution the oil would make to the nation's energy supply.

A fig leaf

The environmental protections in the latest legislation are, they charge, a fig leaf to cover what could become a sprawling complex of oil pipelines, roads and drilling pads. The 2,000-acre limit isn't confined to one spot, but could be made up of lots of smaller facilities spread around the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain.

But they warn the symbolism of drilling there could embolden people to consider lifting drilling bans in offshore areas such as parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.

Others say a continued focus on getting more oil distracts from the more important work of conserving energy and shifting to more eco-friendly energy sources like hydrogen, wind and solar power.

But some environmentalists voice frustration with the focus on a remote part of Alaska when the Bush administration is pressing ahead with a broad range of measures they oppose.

"I don't think it's the most important issue. I do think it's one of the few that has iconic status," said Hal Harvey, director of the environment program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a major donor to environmental groups, in an interview several weeks before the vote.

He ticks off widespread natural-gas drilling in the Rocky Mountains, changes to bedrock environmental laws like the Clean Air Act, and numerous bureaucratic maneuvers that have frustrated environmentalists, as pressing issues receiving less attention.

People leading the fight answer that the refuge's symbolic importance shouldn't be undervalued. In a political arena where regulations are often complex and hard to boil down for the broader public, the refuge offers a clear-cut issue, they say.

"The Arctic refuge is about a very simple decision: Do we protect a place that we have kept wild for 40 years, or do we sacrifice it?" said Jim Waltman, director of refuges and wildlife for the Wilderness Society.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com