National security. The phrase has been repeated so many times in the last three-and-a-half years that it now means everything and nothing. There is no subject that hasn’t been “justified” by association, including gay marriage, prescription drug re-importation, Mexican guest workers, file sharing, Dick Cheney‘s energy meetings, collective bargaining for federal workers and many others. At the same time, more complicated issues that are vital to national security like dependence on foreign oil, massive deficits, and a falling dollar are all but ignored because there aren’t any votes for Republicans to harvest or political points for the President to score.

The recent push in the Senate to allow drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve was full of misinformation and cynical claims of national security implications. Before the vote took place, the President argued:

“Congress needs to look at the science and look at the facts and send me a bill that includes exploration in ANWR for the sake of our country,” he said in a speech on energy policy.
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“More than half of the oil that we consume in order to maintain our lifestyles comes from overseas or abroad and our dependence is growing. I believe that creates a national security issue and an economic security issue for the United States and that’s why its important for us to utilize the resources we have here at home.”

The President and others who make this argument are misleading the American public. While studies vary on exactly how much oil is recoverable at ANWR, the Department of Energy’s own Energy Information Administration found that even at peak capacity, ANWR would only contribute 4% of domestic oil needs. The total amount of oil under ANWR is thought to be equal to the total oil consumed in the U.S. in just nine months.

One year. Given the speed at which we are pursuing alternative sources of energy, that looks to be insignificant. Trading destruction of the land that comes with roads, drilling, and shipping and disruption of the wildlife population for which the reserve was created by President Eisenhower for literally a drop in the bucket is foolish and shortsighted. If there was enough oil there to buy us enough time to find a long term solution, it wouldn’t have taken 10 years to pass, and tacked onto a budget resolution at that. The irony is that the budget resolution maneuver was necessary to prevent a filibuster, but the federal government may never see a dime from the leases on the land:

Under the administration’s plan, half the $2.4 billion would go to the state of Alaska. Current law calls for 90 percent to go to Alaska.

One way or another, oil is going to reach a point where there isn’t enough left to run all the things that require it. If we wait too long, alternative fuel won’t be enough. At some point, there will not be enough oil to produce plastics, lubricants and some synthetic fibers. Oil is running out faster than the earth is creating more, and the centerpiece of the President’s energy policy is to wring out a few more drops at the expense of a protected ecosystem.

While the President makes the situation worse by increasing tax credits for fuel inefficient trucks and SUVs and reducing the tax credit for fuel efficient hybrid vehicles, more oil could be saved by a modest increase in fuel efficiency standards than all the oil possibly found in ANWR:

Updating fuel efficiency standards to reflect the capabilities of modern technology would produce even greater savings. Increasing fuel efficiency standards for new passenger vehicles and trucks to an average of 40 miles per gallon over the next decade would save 60 billion barrels of oil over the next 50 years — 11 times the likely yield from the Arctic Refuge.

Now, I’m no environmentalist. I’d go up to ANWR and pour motor oil on baby polar bears if it would buy us 10 years to come up with a long term solution and an administration willing to do the work that entails. But this administration isn’t that. They are more interested in avenging previous drilling defeats, not just in ANWR, but in Florida, California and Colorado as well.

Two of the President’s biggest supporters in the Iraq War are former national security/defense officials James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, two of the most extreme hawks in American politics. When I first heard about their new venture, Set America Free, I was positive that they would be heavily behind drilling in ANWR, but that was my mistake:

We call upon America’s leaders to pledge to adopt this Blueprint, and embark, along with our democratic allies, on a multilateral initiative to encourage reduced dependence on petroleum. In so doing, they can reasonably promise to: deny adversaries the wherewithal they use to harm us; protect our quality of life and economy against the effects of cuts in foreign energy supplies and rising costs; and reduce by as much as 50% emissions of undesirable pollutants. In light of the “perfect storm” now at hand, we simply can afford to do no less.

When people who have spent their entire careers looking at national security from a Republican perspective say that we’re weaker for our dependence on oil, we should listen. These decisions shouldn’t be left to politicians who take enormous sums of money from energy companies for their campaigns, but scientists and economists who have the training to extricate us from the black hole where we currently reside.