Before leaving for Europe this morning, President Bush took the opportunity to claim that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) would “give this country a chance to help us through this difficult period by finding more supplies of crude oil, which will take the pressure off the price of gasoline”:

I’ll also remind them, though, that the United States has an opportunity to help increase the supply of oil on the market, therefore, taking pressure off gasoline for hardworking Americans, and that I’ve proposed to the Congress that they open up ANWR, open up the Continental Shelf, and give this country a chance to help us through this difficult period by finding more supplies of crude oil, which will take the pressure off the price of gasoline.

However, it’s unlikely that ANWR will “help us through this difficult period” by “[taking] the pressure off the price of gasoline.” The reason is that it would take years to develop and the amount of oil it would produce represents only a small fraction of domestic oil consumption — a quantity that is unlikely to have a significant impact on prices in the global oil market.

It’s yet another example of the Bush administration using a crisis or problem to justify a pre-existing policy proposal that is unlikely to solve the problem (see: the tax cuts, the invasion of Iraq, etc.).

Update 6/11 9:07 AM: Here’s more from Media Matters.