Meanwhile, in a different corner of the energy debate … A proposal to allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge shares the spotlight with fuel-efficiency standards as one of the two most controversial items in the energy bill debate. Controversy over the refuge has turned into a triumph of spin over science, with both sides commandeering the facts that best suit their needs. Drilling proponents exaggerate how much oil the U.S. would recover from the refuge, as well as the subsequent reduction in dependency on foreign oil; environmentalists, meanwhile, beat the drums of environmental catastrophe perhaps a tad too loudly. Kenneth Baird of the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “People use the facts in pretty strange ways. It seems like there’s always something missing in the analysis.”
