Drilling for oil in Alaska deserves its own vote

If drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is vital to the energy independence of the United States, the argument for drilling should be able to stand on its own merits.
The United States Congress is a deliberative body, one of the greatest in the world. Surely it is up to the task of debating the pros and cons of tapping the oil beneath ANWR. Members of the House and Senate have access to the some of the best researchers in the nation. Surely the pros and cons of drilling can be assembled by proponents and opponents of drilling so that sufficient members of the House and Senate can agree to approve or reject ANWR legislation.
Instead, proponents of drilling are using a despicable tactic to jam the legislation through Congress.
Arctic Refuge drilling has been attached to a Defense Department spending bill that should be passed on its own merits. The House passed the bill with the Arctic attachment Monday. It is now up to the Senate to preserve some semblance of integrity in Washington by stripping the ANWR provision from the defense bill.
If proponents of the rider -- Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, being chief among them-- refuse to modify the bill, opponents are duty bound to reject it. Neither house of Congress should allow funding for nation's troops to be held hostage to unrelated riders such as the ANWR provision.
That the House allowed it to happen speaks to its callowness -- or perhaps to the eagerness of its members to wrap up their work and head home for the holidays. The Senate has an opportunity to earn its reputation as the higher house.
Worth the debate
The value of drilling in ANWR is subject to interpretation, based on how much oil is recoverable. It appears almost certain that there's 6 billion barrels or so; perhaps twice that.
By comparison, the Prudhoe Bay oil field has produced 13 billion barrels since 1977 and has about 3 billion left. The United States uses about 7.3 billion barrels of oil a year.
Even as the amount of oil that could be recovered from ANWR is open to debate, the amount of environmental damage that would be involved in extracting that oil is in dispute. Proponents say the damage would be minimal, and might even be a boon to the area's caribou, as they say the Alaskan pipeline has been.
Opponents say one of the last untouched areas of the earth would be scarred by roads, rigs and pipes. They see it as an ecological sacrilege.
Finally up for debate is who would benefit from gaining access to the oil. Certainly the East Coast would see no direct benefit, since logically the oil would stay on the West Coast or be exported to Asia.
Regardless of where the oil was used, it would take a bite of the U.S. trade deficit, which grows with every barrel of oil we buy from South America or the Middle East.
The point is that to drill or not to drill is a complicated issue that should be debated on its merits, not tied to the tail end of a defense funding bill during a week that Congress is hurrying to get things done and adjourn.
Alaska, the Department of Defense and the United States of America deserve better.