Washington ? Pitching the president’s energy agenda, Interior Secretary Gale Norton told a farm group in Arkansas last week that oil drilling in an Arctic wildlife refuge would produce more than 700,000 jobs.

She also cited the number at stops in Missouri and Indiana and has used it in recent months on talk shows, in speeches and in newspaper op-ed articles.

But some independent economists call the figure highly suspect, based on a 12-year-old study using assumptions that may or may not be valid. A separate study for the Energy Department estimates about a third as many jobs. Environmentalists say a more accurate number though disputed as well would be about 50,000.

Even some drilling supporters say the Norton number is at best a “high water mark” guess.

As the Senate prepares in the coming weeks to debate whether to allow oil companies to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the spin from both sides of the issue has contained distortions ranging from the amount of oil the refuge contains to the likely environmental impact.

But it is the issue of jobs that has resonated most clearly in Congress where the future of ANWR, as the refuge is called, will be decided. Last summer the Teamsters Union dangled a 735,000 jobs number before lawmakers, helping win House passage of an energy bill that includes drilling in the refuge.

Some economists question whether the analysis from 12 years ago can provide an accurate forecast of jobs today.

“The numbers don’t make sense. … They’re not even in the ballpark,” maintains Dean Baker, an economist whose analysis has been cited frequently by environmentalists.