Sam Gibbons: “as I rise to the podium here, I want to bring up a poster which shows what this Arctic National Wildlife Area really is.…”

“as I rise to the podium here, I want to bring up a poster which shows what this Arctic National Wildlife Area really is. First of all, let me say that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 19.5 million acres of Alaska, set aside in 1960. Also in 1960, they set aside 1.5 million acres for exploration for oil. That is called the area 1002 part of ANWR. This is area 1002. This is the area we are going to be drilling on for oil and gas. As you can see, no big trees, no big mountains, no big herds of anything. It is just frozen tundra out there. {time} 1745 But the 1002 area will continue to provide, as the USGS has already said, an estimated oil reservoir for this country that will equal the amount of oil we will get from Saudi Arabia for 30 years, Madam Chairman; 10.4 billion barrels would make it the largest oil reserve find in the world since the nearby Prudhoe Bay discovery was done 30 years ago. Madam Chairman, the area 1002 is not a wilderness. It is part of ANWR set aside 18 years ago for oil and gas exploration. This is where this 2,000-acre surface disturbance is going to take place. We are not talking about a pristine wilderness area that one would find in any of the southern 48 contiguous States that have forests. So with that, Madam Chairman, I just wanted to bring to the Members' attention that this is not the pristine wilderness that most people have in mind.…”