By Senator Malcolm Wallop (ret.) & George C. Landrith

Sooner or later, the immense oil and gas reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - more commonly known as ANWR - must be tapped.

The Republican Minority in the Senate says sooner, the Democrat Majority prefers never. Senators in both parties who promised hard-core environmentalists they'd designate the area wilderness now have a dilemma - keep their word, or risk being voted out of office when energy emergencies arise, as they surely will with Middle East oil supplies becoming increasingly unstable.

The House of Representatives showed courage last August by authorizing billions of dollars for research on alternative energy development and energy efficiency in a comprehensive energy bill.

In addition to encouraging conservation, the bill opened federal lands to exploration - but with stringent environmental safeguards. While allowing exploration on Alaska's frigid coastal plain, the House action limited drilling to just 2,000 acres-a relative flyspeck in the 19.6 million-acre barren refuge that few Americans have seen or will ever see.

Since September 11, Americans in separate national polls agreed with the House's decision to move forward with drilling in the Arctic refuge because the facts clearly show that the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Americans who have followed the issue know that 88 percent of our energy comes from oil, gas and coal; and that no combination of conservation, technology or alternatives can come close to replacing those fossil fuels. They also know it takes years for research, testing, permitting, construction, and distribution systems to come on line - regardless of the energy source.

What they don't know - and neither do energy experts - is how to predict energy supply and demand for 2003, 2005 or 2010 - especially during a war on terror that could produce an energy crisis similar to the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74.

Failure to confront a potential crisis places us in an untenable position. Aside from meeting the needs of a growing population, it takes eight times more petroleum to fuel military operations than it did in WWII. As our victory over the Taliban shows, that increased consumption more than pays for itself by keeping American casualties to the barest minimum.

Weaning ourselves from foreign oil is a key factor in reviving our sluggish economy as well. Oil imports reached 60 percent this year - including 1.2 million barrels a day from Iraq. More than 20,000 foreign supertankers continually offloaded oil at east, west and gulf coast refineries - thus transferring more than $200,000 a minute to foreign economies while ours remains buried in recession.

Congress's overall attempts to address energy policy have been halfhearted and shortsighted thus far. We've had several national energy policies in the quarter-century since the Arab oil embargo, but they've focused on developing other nation's resources - not ours.

Since 1990, federal actions have removed more than 100 million acres of land from exploration. At the same time, not a single acre has been earmarked for increasing supply. Although America has abundant untapped oil reserves, mostly on federal lands, there have been no major discoveries - except in Alaska - in thirty years.

As a result, the petroleum industry lost more than 450,000 high-paying jobs in the 90s and much of its infrastructure and expert workforce was dismantled. Last winter, when energy prices skyrocketed, the complacent politicians who encouraged the dismantling, were outraged and demanded action. There was nothing industry or government could do at that point. Only unseasonably warm weather and a cut-back in travel spurred by a recession and the trauma of Sept. 11 saved us from a full-scale emergency.

We'd like to think the potential for an energy crisis no longer exists because prices and demand are down. Yet most senators admit, when pressed, that we need to find more oil and gas. The rub comes with the question, but where?

"Well, not in my state." If not onshore, how about offshore? Not off the East Coast. Certainly not off the West Coast. And there's little interest in the Gulf Coast.

Only Alaska wholeheartedly welcomes oil and gas development. In a state where a new survey reports more than 75 percent of respondents said they lived in Alaska because of its pristine environment, the same percentage supports ANWR development.

ANWR's petroleum resources are truly a national resource that should be shared with people in every state. Prohibiting drilling in this promising strip of land is a luxury we can't afford.

Environmentalists can end this stalemate. They should for once put energy, jobs and national security before preserving 2,000 acres of wilderness in a wilderness 50 percent larger than the state of Texas.

They can put America first in this time of national crisis by letting their senators off the hook. America needs ANWR's oil and natural gas - sooner rather than later.

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Malcolm Wallop is a former U.S. Senator from Wyoming and chairman of Frontiers of Freedom, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans and restoring constitutional limits on the extent and power of government.

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George C. Landrith (the president of Frontiers of Freedom) is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.