Perhaps the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be opened to oil exploration, perhaps it shouldn't. Either way, if it were not for Rep. Don Young ANWR would likely be open today and its oil flowing down the Alyeska pipeline.

Rep. Young is among the most stridently anti-environmentalist members of Congress. The League of Conservation Voters gave him a 0 percent rating on his environmental legislation voting record for the 109th Congress. By contrast Republican presidential candidate John McCain received a 41 percent rating for the same session. It's not only that Rep. Young has a consistent anti-environmental voting record, but that he has aggressively attacked environmentalists with inflammatory statements. For example:

"Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans." (Alaska Public Radio)

In this and other statements, Young fails to distinguish between a small number of militant environmentalists, as in "The Monkey Wrench Gang," from mainstream Americans who are concerned with environmental protection for practical reasons of sustainability and because they believe we should be stewards of the Earth. In fact, in response to the 2007 Gallop poll question, "Should protection of the environment be given priority even at the risk of curbing economic growth?" 55 percent of Americans responded "yes." Only 37 percent responded "yes" to "Economic growth should be given priority even if the environment suffers to some extent."

Americans should be concerned about clean water, clean air and sound ecological practices when it comes to oil development. Safely producing oil is not that difficult; a pipe is sunk in the ground and oil is pumped out. As long as it is contained in a pipeline or tanker there is little environmental damage. But, despite their advertising spin, the petroleum industry has created a corporate culture of anti-environmentalism resulting in events like the Exxon Valdez oil disaster (no accompanying tugboat), Cook Inlet waste discharge, and the breach of BP's North Slope feeder lines (no regular maintenance). The result is an attitude of arrogance that, with a few exceptions such as some of the work Chevron has done, marginalizes green practices, thereby requiring regulatory oversight for the job to be done right.

The development of the Sakahlin II project off Russia's east coast is a case of what happens when there is little regulatory management of oil development. The largest combined oil and natural gas development in history undertaken by Shell, Mitsubishi and now Gasprom has resulted in what environmentalist activists in that remote region have called a disaster. Pipelines cross a thousand wild salmon spawning streams and the now-eroding scar is filling streams with sediment, destroying the salmon. They fear it will be only a matter of time before there is a breach in the below-ground pipeline laid in permafrost. The indigenous Evenki feel the oil development has run roughshod over their lands and traditions.

There are plenty of other examples of oil industry hubris. A drive out the North Road from Kenai is like a drive through Kazakhstan. Rusting pipe yards, dilapidated buildings and groundwater pollution from pre-Clean Water Act days that nobody wants to talk about highlight the tour.

Mainstream, environmentally aware Americans are understandably leery of oil development in remote places like the Alaska Arctic. They want to know that there will be responsible regulations with teeth forcing the oil companies to comply with best practices, and that indigenous peoples' concerns will be heard. Don Young, as one of the most prominent spokesmen for Alaskan interests, could have been the person that assured America that development in the Arctic would be done according to the highest standards, and he could have crafted legislation to see to it that those standards were met.

But no, instead Rep. Young has labeled environmentalists as the un-American enemy forcing mainstream Americans who would be inclined to support a middle-of-the-road position into one camp or the other. So far they have chosen environmental protection. In alienating and polarizing Americans, one of Alaska's few voices on the national stage has, in effect, done more than anyone to lock up ANWR.

Alan Boraas is a professor of anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College