Jay Leno on oil drilling in ANWR

Jay Leno takes the Democrats to task for blocking oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR):

Can someone please explain any rational basis for the Democrats' continued obstruction of drilling in ANWR?

There are an estimated 10 billion barrels of domestic oil waiting to be harvested in ANWR. ANWR comprises 19 million acres in Northeast Alaska, 17.5 million of which are totally off-limits to drilling or any other kind of economic activity.

In 1980 a Democrat controlled Congress, at the behest of President Jimmy Carter, set area 1002 aside for possible energy exploration. Since then, although there are active oil and gas wells in at least 36 U.S. wildlife refuges, we have been prevented from using this domestic source of oil.

The most recent attempt to authorize drilling in ANWR -- successfully filibustered by Senate Democrats in 2005 -- limited the surface disturbance to 2,000 acres, a very small portion of a very big coastal plain in a very big wildlife refuge in the biggest state in the Union. The vast majority of ANWR will be completely unaffected by drilling. It would occur only on a small part of the coastal plain where there already is some human habitation. Alaska has 141 million acres of protected lands, an area equal to the size of California and New York combined.

The statute creating ANWR contemplated future oil production on the coastal plain, subject to congressional approval. It is worth noting that another wildlife refuge in Alaska, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, has had drilling onsite for decades.

The oil production there rarely makes the news because it has not caused any problems, even though Kenai has far more wildlife than ANWR.

In addition to Kenai, Prudhoe Bay, only 55 miles west of ANWR, has produced more than 10 billion barrels of oil since the 1970s. Decades of studies show this oil production has affected the environment negligibly. Environmental opponents of drilling cannot cite a single species driven toward extinction or even a decline in numbers attributable to Prudhoe Bay. That drilling also was done with decades-old technology and methods far less environmentally sensitive than ANWR would require.

Flowing at one million barrels a day -- equal to 20 percent of today's domestic oil production -- ANWR oil would almost equal America's daily imports from Saudi Arabia. I just don't get it.