It appears that drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may become a reality. Whatever your reason for taking a stand on this exploration, it is clear that the effort would provide some needed competition with OPEC, making American petroleum markets that much less susceptible to manipulation and political uncertainties in the Middle East. To do that, it need not make the U.S.A. an “energy independent” nation. It just gives us some welcome leverage in the market.

A recent vote in the U.S. Senate makes the likelihood of ANWR exploration more likely, even though other obstacles will slow the process enough to prevent any oil from actually being produced for something like 10 to 12 more years.

The renewed debate over ANWR brings the economy and environment of the Alaskan coastal plain into focus once again, and native Alaskan tribes are embroiled in the politics and economics of potential oil exploration. It seems that the Gwich’in Indian tribe, about 90 percent of whom live in Canada, contend that ANWR exploration threatens their traditional lifestyle. Claiming the need to preserve tradition, as well as the breeding habitat of the porcupine caribou, the Gwich’in have steadfastly opposed ANWR drilling.

As of 2002, only 800 Gwich’in tribal members were living in Alaska. The Gwich’in tribal lands lie 140 miles (air miles, separated from the drilling area by a mountain range) from the coastal plain in question. By caribou trail, the distance from Gwich’in country to the proposed ANWR drilling site is closer to 250 miles. Hardly the backyard of the 10 percent who occupy Gwich’in land in Alaska, though Gwich’in supporters describe the area as “right outside the southern border of the drilling area.”

The ANWR exploration, however, will take place on Inupiat tribal and public (not Gwich’in) lands. The Inupiat consider themselves to be environmentally sensitive and conservative. The Inupiat are also tradition-bound to caribou and other wildlife and support opening ANWR. Revenues derived from oil on Inupiat lands, according to one spokesman, will allow the Inupiat to rise above their present “third world living conditions.”

There’s more to this dispute than caribou. The Gwich’in themselves want to cash in on revenues from oil exploration by leasing their tribal acres for drilling. Earlier land lease attempts by the Gwich’in failed to produce oil revenues when exploration was unsuccessful. Keeping ANWR closed will reduce outside competition for revenues with any future Gwich’in oil. Coincidentally, keeping the ANWR off-limits will also prevent exploration from creating changes in the lands and wildlife that originally supported the Gwich’in in Alaska.

The Inupiat, like the Gwich’in, have a keen economic interest in the outcome of an ANWR decision, environmental debates aside. Amid the facts about ANWR, there is much disagreement about motive, but predictably, each side is arguing from a position that promotes its own economic interests.

No one seriously believes that ANWR production will create energy independence for the United States. Energy independence is nonsensical anyway, unless domestic energy costs us less than we can buy it for abroad.

Even though the question of whether or not to open ANWR is being decided in the political arena, the market consequences will be very real. Producers and tribal Alaskan interests have already demonstrated that they wish to follow their separate economic interests. For the U.S. as a whole, Alaskan oil production will compete with OPEC production, reduce the upward pressure on market prices, release resources for other productive uses, and decrease market fears about a volatile energy market. All are good reasons to proceed.