10 TO 12 YEARS AGO....

People said the following:

“If drilling [in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] were approved today, it would be ten years before oil arrived in refineries.” — Sierra Magazine, January-February issue, 2002.

“Oil extracted from the Wildlife Refuge would not reach refineries for seven to ten years and would never satisfy more than two percent of our nation’s oil demands at any one time.” — Senator Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), April 17, 2002.

“It would take years and years of development” to generate any supply. — Vice President Al Gore, September 30, 2000. He preferred releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve instead.

The Bush plan to drill in ANWR offers “no real action to bring oil prices down now, no real prospect of freeing ourselves from dependence on big oil and foreign oil.” — Al Gore, Sept. 30, 2000.