Several mis facts in Charlie's Opinion here.  First the US is still a net importer of crude oil.  What Charlie misunderstands is that much of the new oil being produced today is light sweet crude oil.  The vast majority of US refineries use heavy sour crude.  Its not easy to revise the refinery to use different grades of crude.  So this light sweet crude is sold to refineries that can use this type of crude oil and heavy sour crude is still imported.  The US uses approximately 19.4 million barrels per day of crude and crude oil products.  The US only produces approximately 15.4 million barrels per day.  Thus the US is a net importer of approximately 4 million barrels per day.

Before Prudhoe Bay was developed the stewards of the land claimed 5,000 caribou inhabited the area.  Today approximately 60,000 caribou inhabit the area.  It would appear that oil production has been good for the caribou.  Same will probably happen in ANWR.  Who is a better steward of the land.