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Would Teddy Roosevelt Drill at ANWR?

Senator John McCain is getting tired of taking questions about his opposition to drilling for oil at ANWR. His response, which has become rote, is that drilling at ANWR would be like drilling at the Grand Canyon or the Everglades-unthinkable.

Senator McCain likes to say that his desire to preserve ANWR, a section of northern Alaska that is essentially a trackless tundra, stems from his emulation of his hero President Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was well known as a great champion of conservation. During his Presidency, Roosevelt established many of our now well known national parks and had untaken other measures to preserve picturesque wilderness areas and natural resources.

But a close examination of Roosevelt's conservation philosophy suggests that perhaps Senator McCain is wide of the mark in suggesting that his hero Roosevelt would have approved locking out petroleum resources of ANWR from exploitation forever, especially during a time of high energy prices.

According to an essay by Daniel Filler on Teddy Roosevelt's conservation philosophy, Roosevelt advocated management of America's natural resources to ensure their sensible exploitation so that they would be available for future generations. "Roosevelt recognised America's vast natural resources as the source of the country's economic wealth and subsequent political strength globally. The abundance of land, timber, waterways, and mineral deposits fueled the continuing expansion of American industry."

As for the question as to whether ANWR is the equivalent of the Grand Canyon, Teddy Roosevelt might have had a different opinion. Filler quotes Roosevelt as saying, about the Grand Canyon, "I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it; not a bit...What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American, if he can travel at all, should see."

In other words, Roosevelt believed that preserved areas were set aside for the enjoyment of visitors, hikers, campers and, especially, hunters. Roosevelt wanted to preserve wild life so that people like him, living the "strenuous life", would have them available to shoot in large numbers.

Roosevelt would notice that five million people have visited the Grand Canyon last year, something he would heartily approve of. Then he would also notice that about 816 people have visited ANWR in the same year. He might, if transported to the 21st Century, visit the place himself and would know why. ANWR is hardly a picturesque wilderness like the Grand Canyon. It is essentially a frozen desert.

But what about the caribou, one might ask. Roosevelt would take note that caribou seem to be thriving in the Purdue Bay area of northern Alaska, where oil drilling has taken place for decades. He would take note of how modern drilling methods leave a tiny foot print on the land. Teddy Roosevelt was not a friend of big business, all historians know, but he was not a fool either.

The one thing about Roosevelt that would clinch the deal for him stems from another aspect of his character that many people admire, almost as much as his conservation. Roosevelt was, above everything else, an American nationalist.

Teddy Roosevelt, after all, did not let a minor thing like the national sovereignty of the nation of Columbia get in the way of digging the Panama Canal. The Canal was important for American commerce and national security and if that meant fomenting a revolt and detaching part of Columbia and making it the nation of Panama, then so be it.

And who can forget, "Pedicaris alive, or Rasuli dead!" Roosevelt's preference for gun boat diplomacy would have modern liberals in shock. But no one messed with American citizens, no matter where in the world they were, on Teddy Roosevelt's watch.

So Teddy Roosevelt would observe how the nation he loved had somehow gotten itself dependent on oil sheiks and dictators like Hugo Chavez for petroleum resources. He would also notice how ordinary people were suffering from high fuel prices whiles speculators, the type of businessman Roosevelt loathed, were getting rich.

One would suspect that Teddy Roosevelt's anger would be heard from sea to shining sea.

So, one suspects that, contrary to Senator McCain's belief, Teddy Roosevelt would be all for drilling at ANWR, as well as off the Continental Shelf, in the oil shale fields of the Rocky Mountains, and in the newly discovered fields of Montana and the Dakotas. He would insist that it be done sensibly and in an environmentally sound way-Roosevelt was no libertarian after all and believed that business needed government to provide "adult" supervision. But he was no modern liberal either, no matter how the left tries to leech onto his legacy, and would have been appalled at the idea that his form of progressivism was being used as a weapon to attack capitalism itself.

Of course Roosevelt would also be in favor of renewable energy resources; wind, solar, biofuels, and even nuclear. He would even, one suspects, smile on the idea of fusion power fueled by lunar helium 3. Roosevelt would likely explode at the idea that the Outer Space Treaty forbids the United States to annex the Moon. He was an imperialist too and would wonder what fool came up with the idea of not doing it. Did we not land on the place? Is it not ours, therefore, by right?

So maybe, if Teddy Roosevelt is somewhere in the next life, he can do his country one last service by appearing to John McCain, say in a dream, and letting him know that drilling at ANWR is really a bully idea.

Theodore Roosevelt Conservation as the Guardian of Democracy, Daniel Filler
ANWR.ORG