text: Actually, the Wilderness Society writer is correct, as TAPS doesn't need the oil.  Her problem is that all Alaskans need the oil , the jobs it creates, the payrolls it funds, and the revenue it brings into the state.  She continues to punish we here in Alaska for the environmental sins of those in the Lower 48.  
  
  Finally, we can and are drilling our way to energy independence.  It is what fracking is all about.  Perhaps she missed the last decade in the oil patch.  We have about crushed OPEC and Russia in a tsunami of low cost American natural gas and oil produced in the most environmentally friendly way currently possible.  Bring Chukchi, Beaufort, ANWR 1002, and NPR-A online and we can get flow thru TAPS back to a respectable level.  Combine it with GTL / CTL off the Slope and we can generate some serious jobs, payroll and revenue for decades to centuries.  And the caribou, salmon, greyling, char, and mosquitoes will all do just fine.  Cheers -