I can understand the political need to augment our dwindling national oil reserves, even if it will take up to 10 years to see any effect on our petroleum supplies (whatever the amount). I can also understand a desire to support the economic vitality of the petroleum industry, if only with a symbolic victory.  And I can understand couching such actions with a justification of promised contributions to the national treasury...

I don't agree that risking the natural treasures of the Arctic Refuge to the ravages of oil production is worth the Pyrrhic benefits - perhaps that is a philosophic issue over which reasonable persons might disagree.  But what I can't understand is a rational, objective person approving the creation of yet another "vested right" in an industry that promises decades of continued destruction despite any future enlightenment of the environmental damage and public cost.  Just how many years will the "energy developers" get to rely upon the boon of a low cost government lease?  And how soon will the American public find itself trying to buy them out for millions of dollars?

If this proposal had followed an appropriate legislative process, passage would include adoption of carefully considered criteria, and the American public would at least be protected from repeated error despite the lessons of experience.  Following the current circuitous route, the budget provision opening the Arctic to private exploitation provides no guidance or limiting criteria.  Proponents will find that they have delegated unbridled discretion to agency administrators in an entitlement program that will assuredly become a public boondoggle.