Alaska senator offers compromise bill on ANWR oil

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A bill introduced Friday by U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska would permit oil production in the ecologically sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but only from directional wells that are drilled outside the refuge’s borders.

Murkowski, a Republican who first announced her plan last week during an address to the Alaska legislature, characterized the bill as a compromise that addresses environmentalists’ concerns about impacts within the refuge while allowing for some of the oil beneath it to be tapped.

“Everybody wins with this bill. America improves its energy security and the conservation community is ensured that there will be no visible impact on the refuge,” she said in a statement.

Murkowski’s newly elected Democratic colleague from Alaska, Senator Mark Begich, signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill. The senators, like most elected officials in the oil-dependent state, support opening the refuge’s entire 1.5-million-acre coastal plain to oil development.

Environmentalists criticized the idea.

Reuters