Stop Selling Our Heritage for Crooked Oil: Save Arctic Wildlife Refuge!

Arctic Folly

By Jimmy Carter
www.washingtonpost.com

Congress is about to make one of those big decisions that marks an era. Unless wiser heads prevail, it may do it badly — making the wrong decision in the wrong way and about the wrong place. At stake is America’s greatest wildlife sanctuary, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. To dissuade Congress from this environmental tragedy, Americans must rally, and quickly.

Congress had its Pyrrhic energy victory this summer, with a new energy policy that ignores much-needed conservation measures and gives the oil industry large new tax breaks regardless of where it drills and pumps. Surely Congress has done more than enough to increase the profits of the oil industry.

Yet now, in a separate decision, the White House and Big Oil are pressuring Congress to allow drilling rigs to rip into the ecological heart of America’s preeminent wildlife sanctuary. We must not confuse this with Prudhoe Bay, which lies west of the Arctic refuge and is already an industrial landscape resembling Houston more than Yellowstone.

With increasing gasoline prices bringing economic hardship and concern to many Americans, we must not be misled by oil lobbyists who are trying to convince us that our energy security is singularly dependent on sacrificing the Arctic refuge. They promote the false premise that development will touch just a few thousand acres when, in fact, it would introduce roads and pipelines spider-webbing across hundreds of thousands of acres on the fragile coastal plain.

We cannot drill our way to energy security or lower gasoline prices as long as our nation sits on just 3 percent of world oil reserves yet accounts for 25 percent of all oil consumption. An obvious answer is to increase the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles, at least to the level we set more than a quarter-century ago.

Instead, the administration recently proposed a tiny increase in gas mileage for SUVs, minivans and pickups. Not effective until the 2011 models, this would save about one month’s current consumption of fuel over the next 20 years — far less than will be saved in just one state by a new California law. The new ruling offers automobile makers an opportunity to avoid the reductions by modifying the size of various models as they persist in manufacturing gas guzzlers. It is not a coincidence that Moody’s has just downgraded the debt of General Motors and Ford to junk status, while makers of efficient vehicles prosper.

I have been to the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to study the wilderness wildlife. Far from being the frozen "desert" some suggest, this is a rich, Serengeti-like haven of life: nursery for caribou, polar bears, walruses and millions of shorebirds and waterfowl that migrate annually to the Lower 48. To sit, as Rosalynn and I did, watching a herd of musk oxen circle-up to defend their young and then to find yourself literally in the midst of thousands of caribou streaming by is to touch in a fundamental way God’s glorious ark of teeming wildlife.

We Americans use a lot of energy, and millions of us want to do so in a more efficient way that also allows us to cherish our disappearing wilderness heritage. In the Arctic refuge we cannot have it both ways. In the next few months Americans could lose this special and amazing place through a backdoor legislative maneuver.

Each fall Congress endeavors to combine budgetary directives covering the nation’s $2.5 trillion dollar annual budget in a single "reconciliation" decision. In a tricky ploy to avoid full debate, drilling advocates have buried their despoil-the-Arctic goal in this mammoth measure. So, conservation-minded Americans must ask our elected representatives to vote down any final budget reconciliation bill that would allow the sacrifice of our Arctic sanctuary.

Now is the time to speak up for the ecological integrity of this unsurpassed 18-million-acre wilderness. Many Americans will be in Washington on Sept. 20 for the Arctic Refuge Action Day rally on the Mall and to contact congressional representatives personally.

If we are not wise enough to protect the Arctic refuge, future generations will condemn us for needlessly sacrificing the wilderness of their world to feed our profligate, short-term and shortsighted energy habit. The pathway to a better, more sustainable energy future does not wind through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

http://arctic.fws.gov/

Hundreds protest drilling in arctic refuge

Boston.com
September 21, 2005

ANCHORAGE, Alaska —Hundreds rallied outside the Capitol in Washington to protest oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a weeklong lobbying effort by environmental groups.

Politicians and protesters from across the country joined a contingent of Alaskans at the rally on the west lawn of the Capitol.

Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut on Tuesday described a two-pronged fight to save ANWR and wean the nation from its dependence on oil.

He said the goal is "yes, to protect ANWR, but beyond that, to break this great nation of an addiction."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., encouraged the crowd to pressure members of Congress in their home states who support drilling.

Many speakers emphasized the threat that oil development poses to the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which often calves on ANWR’s coastal plain and which is hunted by the Gwich’in Athabascans of the Yukon and Old Crow flats.

A few counter-protesters came to the gathering, wearing signs that said "Say no to ANWR — Say yes to Saudi Oil" and "opposed to ANWR? Ride a bike home."

In the ANWR debate, each side claims Alaska Native support. The 65 Alaska Native protesters Tuesday were featured prominently. Some wore name tags identifying their hometowns: Akiak, Chevak, Kaktovik, Point Hope, Togiak.

The Gwich’in say they depend on the caribou that breed in the refuge, and have been the most visible Natives against ANWR development.

The Gwich’in say they have the support of many tribal groups, including the Tanana Chiefs Conference and the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council.

The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., owned by Inupiat Eskimos, and the Alaska Federation of Natives have endorsed development.

Whether half of Alaskans or some lesser percentage oppose ANWR drilling set off a lengthy discussion among the Alaska contingent and Alaska congressional aides.

Chuck Kleeschulte from Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office said drilling would bring billions of dollars to the state. The money could pay for schools and other services that the group had been complaining were not coming fast enough to rural Alaska, he said.

Elise Wolf of Homer, whose family moved to Anchorage before oil arrived, said she’d gladly give up her Alaska Permanent Fund dividend check if the industry would leave. Tourism is the industry for Alaska, she said.

Kleeschulte said the millions earned in tourism weren’t likely to replace the billions earned by oil.

Drilling supporters are pinning their hopes on a budget package Congress is supposed to consider next month. The budget reconciliation bill is likely to contain an ANWR development measure and would be immune to Senate filibuster.

Senator Clinton: Proponents Of Arctic Drilling Exploiting Disaster

By MEGHAN CLYNE
New York Sun
September 21, 2005

WASHINGTON - Over the din of beating tom-toms, surrounded by activists wearing antlers and dressed as polar and grizzly bears, Senator Clinton yesterday dismissed high gas prices and the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina as a "diversion," cautioning that proponents of arctic drilling were exploiting recent crises to make their case for a long-term anti-environment agenda.

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were delivered to hundreds of demonstrators amassed on the West Lawn of the Capitol as part of Arctic Refuge Action Day, and her midday speech followed remarks by other congressional Democrats, including Senator Kerry of Massachusetts. The roster of participants included several environmentalists and left-leaning activists, among them the director of the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi David Saperstein, and a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Mrs. Clinton told those opposed to drilling to be "absolutely firm in our opposition" to drawing petroleum from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"Some might say, ’Well, senator, we have gas prices going up - don’t we need to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?’" Mrs. Clinton said. "And of course the answer is that we do not. The answer is that that is a diversion. The answer is that we need to break our addiction to foreign oil."

As gasoline prices remained at more than $3 a gallon yesterday, and as Hurricane Rita further threatened domestic oil production along the Gulf Coast, Mrs. Clinton cautioned against conflating recent decreases in domestic supply with the need to tap ANWR’s resources. "You know very well that those who have supported drilling for years are using the increase in oil and gas prices to make their case today," she said.

"Here’s what I think," Mrs. Clinton said. "It makes no sense to respond to a disaster in the gulf by making a disaster in Alaska."

The senator, whose remarks were greeted with cheering and applause, also excoriated the chairman of the Senate’s environment committee, Senator Inhofe, a Republican of Oklahoma, for introducing legislation last week that would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to ease environmental laws to facilitate the post-Katrina rebuilding effort.

"We want to help people in the Gulf Coast recover quickly," Mrs. Clinton said, "but not at the expense of their health and the long-term health of their environment."

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks yesterday echoed sentiments expressed by many environmental advocacy groups, which in recent weeks have expressed concern that Hurricane Katrina and skyrocketing oil prices would serve as justification for tapping into the arctic preserve to boost domestic oil supply. A proposal to use ANWR’s resources had been slated for consideration next month by both houses of Congress as part of a budget reconciliation bill, which would have bridged $2.6 billion of a $35 billion budget gap by leasing land in the arctic refuge to oil companies. Owing to the massive federal expenditures anticipated as part of the post-Katrina rebuilding effort, however, the budget-reconciliation legislation, including the proposals for opening ANWR to petroleum excavation, was postponed until the end of October, Ms. Harper said.

Despite the temporary reprieve for ANWR, Mrs. Clinton urged maintained vigilance. "I believe that our continuing opposition sends a clear message that we will not be diverted from the primary goal of weaning us from this addiction to foreign oil," she said yesterday, noting that drilling in the arctic "would not have any material impact on either oil prices or U.S. oil imports."

Bemoaning the fate of the porcupine caribou resident in ANWR, New York’s junior senator said the solution to "$65-a-barrel oil" was not increasing domestic petroleum output but instead devising alternative fuels. "The answer to our energy challenge does not lie under the plains of the arctic refuge," she said, "but in the minds that are ingenious in America."

"We could work our way out of this," Mrs. Clinton added, "if the people in power today would get out of the way and quit looking to the past and start looking to the future."

Yesterday, Angela Harper, a spokeswoman for the chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senator Domenici, a Republican of New Mexico, disputed that drilling in ANWR would harm any indigenous wildlife. "Drilling technology and environmental procedures are now so safe," she said, adding that increasing oil prices showed now more than ever the need to diversify America’s domestic oil supply, 30% of which, she said, comes from the Gulf Coast.

Mrs. Clinton concluded her remarks yesterday by saying, "We are better than this," and lamenting the "disgraceful treatment of the people left behind in the Gulf Coast." While departing the event, she was asked to "endorse" a sign held by a demonstrator blaming President Bush for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Iraq war, and the devastation wrought by Katrina. Mrs. Clinton autographed the poster.

http://arctic.fws.gov/journey.htm

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Blasts Big Oil & Bush-Cheney Gang

by William Hughes
Media Monitors Network
September 20 2005

The Bush-Cheney Gang gave the store away in the so-called “Energy Bill.” It granted $4 billion in tax breaks to Big Oil, despite the fact that ExxonMobil had profits of $24 billion last year! Now, environmentalists rallying in Washington, D.C., on 09/20/05, suspect that parts of the pristine Arctic Wildlife Refuge will soon be opened up to oil drilling. At the protest, RFK, Jr., labeled George Bush: “The worst environmental president in U.S. history!”

Washington, D.C. - While a traumatized nation is focused on cleaning up the environmental horrors resulting from Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast area, concerned individuals, under the sponsoring umbrella of the "Arctic Refuge Action Coalition," and from other environmental groups, too, from across the country, rallied on the West side of the nation’s Capitol, on Sept. 20, 2005. They were there specifically to raise the consciousness of the U.S. Congress to the real dangers facing parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located in northeast Alaska, from a man-made predator - Big Oil!

Some legislative background is in order. President George W. Bush, in Aug., 2005, signed into law a so-called “Energy Bill." It is, in reality, a massive and obscene giveaway to Big Oil! It contains $4 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to the oil industry, which is presently enjoying record profits. It will also "loosen environmental protections." One of that law’s key beneficiaries, ExxonMobil, has made $15 billion in profits during the first six months of this year alone and had reaped a staggering $24 billion in profits in 2004. The law did not include any provision for Arctic Refuge drilling. However, Congressional-watchers are concerned that lackeys in the Congress for Big Oil-the Mother of all Special Interests and also the #1 culprit suspected of getting the U.S. into the Iraqi War-will use the budget reconciliation legislation process to “ramrod the controversial proposal through Congress.” This is a legislative device comparable to the one that the sneaky Bill of Rights’ shredders in the Congress used in Nov., 2001, to pass, in the middle of the night, the dreaded - USA Patriot Act!

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an environmental attorney and nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, was the primary speaker at the protest action, which was attended by a crowd estimated at over 1,000. He also spoke at a press conference before the event. Kennedy said in answer to a question about the present administration that, "You can’t talk honestly about the environment in any context today without speaking critically of this president. This is the worst environmental president in American history. There is no doubt. There is no competitor." Kennedy labeled the energy bill "a boondoggle" for Big Oil. He also referred to the members of Congress as being "indentured servants" of the energy industries and accused the Bush-Cheney Gang of not having "a national energy policy." Kennedy said the only values that they care about is "corporate profit taking." He concluded by saying, "We need to fight to take our democracy back."

A concise description of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the specific area under immediate risk from exploitation by Big Oil, reads like this: "The 19.6 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a spectacular wilderness of boreal forests, rugged mountains, sweeping tundra vistas, wild rivers, coastal lagoons, and barrier islands. Located in the northeastern corner of Alaska, the Arctic Refuge features a complete range of arctic and sub-arctic ecosystems and an extraordinary assemblage of wildlife. The Arctic Refuge is a place of unparalleled beauty, so wild and untrammeled that one may walk for days without seeing signs of another human being. There is no greater place in America to experience wild nature, hike, fish, hunt, raft, camp, or simply lose oneself to the natural rhythms of the land. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has called the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain ’the center for wildlife activity’ for the entire refuge. But the oil industry and its allies in the White House and Congress are lobbying hard to open this part of the refuge to oil drilling."

Some battles to save the environment hit even closer to home. The Chesapeake Bay, a priceless estuary, which borders the states of Maryland and Virginia, and with over 200 miles of shoreline, is "dying" from pollutants, which have created huge "dead zones" in it. The Bay’s watershed spans an incredible 64,000 sq. miles. The Baltimore Sun reported, on Sept. 11, 2005, that "eighty percent of the fish get squeezed into 20 percent of the water" of the bay, in order "for them to breathe!" Does it make any sense for our country to be playing the dubious, and costly role, of Global Cop, while unique natural assets, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the Chesapeake Bay, are under a sentence of death?

When I was growing up in Baltimore, in the late 40s, near historic Fort McHenry, I learned how to swim in its harbor. Most of the kids doing so, like myself, ended up with problems with their ears from the toxic chemicals in the water. However, after the federal government passed the "Clean Water Act," in 1972, many waterways of our nation, including Baltimore’s contaminated harbor, began a long road back to renewal. Unfortunately, well intentioned laws aren’t enough to get the job done. Eternal vigilance, (read perpetual activism), is the price for a clean and healthy environment. Why? Because, the enemies of our natural world never sleep! Few of my generation will ever forget the massive oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, on March 23, 1989, into the waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Could that kind of catastrophic event ever happen again? Tragically, the answer is, yes!

On the propaganda front, Right Wing loonies, like Rush "Pills" Limbaugh, regularly demean environmentalist activists. His arguments are based on the most outrageous kind of lies. Environmentalists are maliciously labeled by these windbags as "liberal conspirators," "tree-huggers," and "greenies, who are responsible for the fuel cost crisis." Limbaugh, like others of his ilk, is just an insufferable pimp for the special interests, such as Big Oil, and the Gas, Mining and the Timber industries, too. He won’t dare mention to his ditto-headed followers, that he lives in a multimillion dollar oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, drives a luxurious automobile and smokes expensive imported cigars. And, to show you just how vicious the planet-haters are, there is evidence that operatives within the Bush-Cheney Gang are looking to blame environmentalists for the flooding of New Orleans!

As I was standing with my wife, Ann, at the rally and looking at the Capitol itself, I thought about her family’s ancestral connections to one of its brilliant architects - Benjamin H. Latrobe - and how, mercifully, the Capitol building has been preserved for future generations to enjoy. The same thing, sadly, can’t be said for the environment, the natural world, like the Chesapeake Bay, which I have enjoyed for recreational purposes so many times over the years while growing up in the state of Maryland. So much about it and other aspects of our natural world, over time, has changed for the worse. The activist organizers of today’s protest action, Including Mr. Kennedy, and also the other speakers at the event, and the many members of the participating groups, understand the difficult challenges that our fragile environment faces from those who would do it harm.

Now, however, it’s time for all of the rest of us, who care about our nation’s ecosystems, who cherish our country’s wild rivers, its habitat, wildlife and fast-fading glaciers, what’s left of its ancient forests and countryside, and splendid waterways, set within canyons, whose age predates humankind on this planet by tens of millions of years, to play our part and to take a firm stand for the environment and to fight back against those who would exploit it for their own commercial end. If we don’t take action, if we stand aside as spectators, those corporate vultures and powerful multinationals, like Big Oil, will do to the Arctic Refuge, what Enron’s gang of corrupt white-collared criminals did to its own workers, to its natural gas customers and to its investors, too: ruthlessly rip it off!

http://www.nrdc.org/land/wilderness/arctic.asp

Dear NRDC Action Fund Supporter,

As you read this, thousands of concerned citizens are gathering on Capitol Hill
to tell Congress to keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off-limits to oil
drilling.

To mark this national day of Arctic Refuge Action, I wanted to share the
thoughts below from the novelist T.A. Barron — a passionate conservationist
and long-time supporter. They capture so eloquently what is at stake in this
fight for the Arctic.

I hope you will forward his inspiring message to your friends.

And please encourage them to take action in defense of the Arctic Refuge at
http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/ as you have done already.

Thank you.

Frances Beinecke
NRDC Action Fund

http://www.nrdc.org/land/wilderness/arctic.asp

P.S. I think you’ll enjoy reading our blog this week. It features a fascinating
first-hand account of one family’s backpacking trip through the unspoiled
Arctic Refuge 35 years ago.
http://blog.nrdcactionfund.org/archives/2005/09/backpacking_on.html

WONDROUSLY BLANK:
A PLEA FOR THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
by T. A. Barron

The world would be far poorer, Aldo Leopold famously observed, "without a blank spot on the map." Yet it wasn’t long ago that U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski from
Alaska stood in the Senate chamber and declared indignantly that the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge was no more remarkable than a blank piece of paper.

What, really, is a blank spot on the map? What is its value? These questions
are difficult to answer — especially for a money-driven, mechanized society
such as ours.

A blank spot, despite its lack of attention from mapmakers, is not empty. While
it is devoid of cities, villages, roads, and monuments (as well as drill rigs,
trash heaps, billboards, and wrecked vehicles) — it may be full of other
attractions. Such as scenic wonder. Or silence. Or wildlife in grand abundance.

And something else, as well. A blank spot on the map often contains precious
opportunities for people to explore their outer world — and their inner
selves. For a blank spot implies no limits. It is a place of endless reach —
for the sunlit horizon, as well as for the human spirit.

No place on our planet is more richly, wondrously blank than the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. Within its nearly twenty million acres of terrain
lies the last stretch of protected coastline in Alaska, as well as the coastal
plain — the fragile tundra wetland that is America’s premier birthing ground
for arctic wildlife. Caribou migrate over 1,000 miles round trip every year to
reach this place; migratory birds from every corner of the country seek refuge
here.

This is the place that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their supporters in the
energy industry want to invade and cover with roads, drilling pads, and heavy
machinery. To fill in the map. To darken one of the most pristine spots on
Earth.

If they do succeed — on the spurious claim that our nation absolutely must
suck out whatever oil lurks beneath this land (even though the most inflated
estimates show the Refuge providing only a tiny fraction of America’s needs,
and only delivering that a decade from now) — they will, indeed, darken this
spot. With the inevitable oil spills on the tundra. With the bodies of dead
caribou calves. And, worst of all, with the shadows of a lost opportunity to
protect a place that is truly sacred — and wondrously blank.

REGISTER YOUR STRONG OPPOSITION TO SENATOR MURKOWSKI OF ALASKA
Leading Proponent Selling the Myth that "Americans" Support Drilling in Arctic
Call or Fax her today!

DC Address: Senator Lisa Murkowski
United States Senate
709 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0202
DC Phone: 202-224-6665
DC Fax: 202-224-5301

http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic/

"All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people—speaking out—in prose, or painting, or poetry, or music, speaking out in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes. Let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind."
— Robert F. Kennedy

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
— Mark Twain

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— Joyce Kilmer

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