The News on CNBC for March 25, 2004

THE NEWS ON CNBC for March 25, 2004, CNBC

March 25, 2004 Thursday

GUESTS: Karen Tumulty, Lisa Murkowski, Ron Wyden, Riki Ott, Bart Conner

BYLINE: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory, Craig Crawford, Bill Press, Pat Buchanan, Robert Hager, George Lewis, Brian Curtis

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SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI ®, ALASKA: Thank you.

CARUSO-CABRERA: Tell us more about what you think should be done in order to deal with the high price of gasoline.

MURKOWSKI: Well, we've got two problems right now that are driving the high price of oil. Basically, for the long term, we are not producing enough domestically to offset the high prices that OPEC is setting. In the short term, we simply don't have the capacity at the refinery level to meet the demands. So we're having to import this oil to meet the demand that we have in this country.

CARUSO-CABRERA: Should the oil companies be allowed to drill in the wildlife refuge in your state?

MURKOWSKI: Well, we have-I have been arguing as a proponent of opening ANWR for some time. Seventy-five percent of the people in Alaska believe that we should be opening up ANWR. What people don't recognize is that we do have, located very close to the major finds in Alaska, we have the potential for huge reserves of oil that are yet untapped, as yet unexplored, because the Congress has not yet authorized that.

We've got the ability to help reduce the importation of foreign oil by increasing our domestic supply, and we have not yet been able to do it.

CARUSO-CABRERA: That may be a long-term solution, but what if we said to the oil companies today, All right, you can drill there. Wouldn't it take quite some time for that oil to get to market? What do we do in the short term?

MURKOWSKI: Well, it depends when you say quite some time. Keep in mind that what we would have to do if we drilled-were able to do-drill in ANWR is, it's a short 45-mile pike. It's not like the natural gas pipeline we're talking about, which is thousands of miles in length. So our construction time to get the actual oil to the market would be several years. But it's not multi years down the road.

CARUSO-CABRERA: But in the meantime, we have the summer driving season coming up very, very soon, and there are predictions that the price could go even higher. How do you feel about the strategic petroleum reserve? Some senators have argued oil should be released from that, and that the government should stop buying in order to reduce pressure.

MURKOWSKI: We need to make sure that, as we are protecting our energy security, we're not doing anything in the very, very short term that's going to compromise that security. And that strategic reserve is designed specifically, exclusively, to kind of provide that safety net, if you will, so that we're not held hostage to the extent that we could otherwise.

So if, in fact, we could really release enough that would not harm the nation's security-energy security-and allow for a price reduction, it might be worth considering. But when we look at how much we would have to release in order to really make a difference in the price, I think it does-it does beg the question as to whether or not we're not compromising our energy security, and we need to be very, very cautious if we look at that.

CARUSO-CABRERA: All right, thank you for your time, Senator Murkowski.

MURKOWSKI: Thank you.

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