WASHINGTON, Mar 6, 2001 (UPI) -- Controversy as fierce as a polar blizzard is swirling through Congress with the introduction of a bill, which if passed, would permit drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Opponents have introduced their own legislation that would make it illegal to ever drill there.

The 30,000-square-mile ANWR is in the northeast corner of Alaska. The northern boundary is 130 miles of coastline on the Beaufort Sea. The 175-mile eastern boundary borders on Canada.

Set aside in 1960 during President Dwight Eisenhower's administration, it was made a national wildlife refuge while President Jimmy Carter was in office. The original plan was to prohibit oil drilling in the entire ANWR. Pressure from oil companies, however, left the matter of drilling on 2,300 square miles of the coastal plain subject to future Congressional action.

Drilling for oil in the ANWR is necessary, say proponents, to move America toward energy independence.

Opponents say the refuge is a completely unique resource that cannot be disturbed without damaging it forever. The oil under the frozen tundra can be obtained elsewhere and represents a small portion of America's energy needs, they say.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the area's most probable amount of economically recoverable oil is between 4 and 8 billion barrels. The numbers drop if oil prices fall below $20 a barrel, and rise a bit if oil goes to $40 a barrel.

Any potential oil would be produced over a 30- to 40-year period. The output would likely total between six and 12 days' worth of oil per year for 35 years, starting in about 10 years. The U.S. uses about 7 billion barrels annually and depends on imported oil the equivalent of 208 days a year.

The Bush administration strongly supports drilling in the refuge. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton said "our responsibility is to study the environmental issues there and to look at the studies that have been done in the past and to show that those things can be done in an environmentally responsible way."

Norton compared the Arctic refuge to a four-bedroom house. "The area that might be disturbed is the size of a toaster within that house," she said.

Outgoing director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jamie Clark, has differed. "When people talk about opening ANWR ... to oil development, they are advocating sticking an oil well right smack in the middle of the wildest place left in America. It's tugging at a thread that could unravel the entire 19-million acre Arctic refuge, and a lot else as well," she said last year.

During last year's presidential campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush said, "I am absolutely convinced we can explore ANWR in an environmentally friendly way."

Melanie Griffin, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Program said at the time, "Governor Bush's comment that oil can be extracted in an 'environmentally friendly way' is like talking about 'tree-friendly chain saws.' Oil and wildlife don't mix."

Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) is spearheading the drilling legislation. He recently accused environmental groups of opposing the drilling because "they need a cause," and "have to raise money and membership." Murkowski has taken more than $100,000 from oil and gas interests.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the ANWR has the greatest biological diversity of any protected arctic area and "is among the most complete, pristine, and undisturbed ecosystems on earth." Caribou, grizzly, musk oxen, polar bears, wolves and more than 160 bird species are found in the refuge.

When 150 scientists wrote to President Clinton last November, opposing oil drilling in the refuge, they pointed out that it is the only protected intact arctic ecosystem in the United States and referred to the coastal plain as "a vital component of the biological diversity of the refuge." Thirty years of oil development at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, 60 miles west of the ANWR, has seriously degraded 800 square miles of arctic habitat. There are about 300 oil spills a year there, with more than 50 larger than 1,000 gallons.

The proposed drilling legislation calls for "an environmentally sound program for the exploration, development and production of the oil and gas resources of the (coastal plain)" and ensuring that the activities "will result in no significant adverse effect on fish and wildlife, their habitat, subsistence resources and the environment."

The oil industry and Norton are promoting new environmentally sensitive techniques of working in winter, building roads and oil rig platforms from ice instead of gravel and reducing well numbers through slant drilling.

However, a lead U.S. government caribou researcher, Steve Fancy, told United Press International that oil recovery in the area without significant adverse environmental effects "is not possible." Fancy referred to techniques of ice roads, winter and slant drilling as "smoke and mirrors," and said large year-round elevated gravel roads are unavoidable in bringing the oil out once it is found and that such roads will seriously disrupt the ecosystem.

Fancy added, "The close proximity of the marine, coastal lagoon, arctic coastal plain and mountain habitats and the major rivers that tie them all together ... and the arctic coastal plain's role as a birth place for animals such as caribou, swans, geese and shore birds that travel thousands of miles every year to have their young, has implications for ecosystems far removed from the coastal plain."

Many scientists are concerned about Eskimo communities that have depended on the caribou herd for thousands of years for food, medicine and clothing. There seems to be a consensus among biologists that disrupting the relatively narrow coastal plain of the ANWR is courting ecological disaster.

Opinion polls show that most Americans do not want drilling in the ANWR. A backlash to the drilling proposal is emerging. There are renewed demands for the imposition of more stringent mileage standards on cars, SUVs and light trucks and for greater energy efficiencies.

Many voices are calling for a comprehensive national energy policy, but not one that intensifies America's dependence on oil, foreign or domestic.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.