Democrats to open ANWR?

Interior secretary Ken Salazar is visiting Alaska and promising the "Drill Baby Drill" chorus members a fair hearing. Seems like the biggest environmental risk is a salmon run that might be damaged or destroyed. That would be a serious loss, but the oil is also of considerable value. My instincts are with the environmentalists on this one, but I have to figure that the economics favor drilling. I wonder how effective environmental safeguards can be? We may be testing them soon!