Lawmaker sees refuge as oil stockpile

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, called on Congress to make the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge part of the nation's emergency oil stockpile.

The senator said the refuge in Alaska's northeast corner, considered the nation's best onshore prospect for a major oil discovery, would help the nation in case of an oil crisis, The Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News reports.

The emergency stockpile currently consists of 700 million barrels of federally owned crude stored in huge salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas. The president can release it if commercial oil supplies are disrupted. It also can be drawn down for other non-emergency reasons.

"We came up with the thought, 'Why not ask that they add ANWR to the petroleum reserve?'" Stevens said in a news briefing.

The refuge is also prized by environmentalists.

Congressional efforts to open the coastal plain to oil development have failed repeatedly over three decades.

A Washington Post op-ed piece by Institute for the Analysis of Global Security Executive Director Gal Luft suggested "reframing the issue to cast the refuge as an emergency stockpile rather than a source of production might well change the politics."