ANWR's Index Number of years that the Navy didn't pump oil in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, preserving it for a "major national emergency": 43 The NPR-A was established in 1923 by President Harding, and was originally called the Naval Petroleum Reserve. A journalist named William Hard described the purpose of this new reserve in The Nation in 1923: "To conserve oil in the ground for the use of the government at some future time when the customary commercial supplies of oil might be insufficient and when some great impending national emergency might demand a source of fuel for our fighting ships." The reserve got its current name when President Carter changed the name and transferred control from the Navy to the Department of the Interior in 1976. READ MORE about the pillage of the NPR-A. sources: American Geological Institute return to index