Oil In Alaska: Spread Out and Drill

The House approved oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge earlier this month largely on the promise of an important number. To win moderates in their party, Republicans added an amendment limiting drilling to just 2,000 of the park's 1.5 million acres. But it turns out those 2,000 acres don't have to be contiguous, and only the area of the equipment touching the ground is counted. Since each drilling platform takes up as little as 10 acres, the limit would allow oil companies to spread out over practically the entire park. Another key number is causing consternation: the Teamsters promised Democrats that 700,000 jobs would be created by the drilling. That figure came from an 11-year-old American Petroleum Institute study. Other economists predict the job growth will be less than a tenth that number.

--Reported by Douglas Waller/Washington