March 2, 2005
FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE TRIAL LAWYERS...:
Senate GOP ready to push Artic oil measure (H. JOSEF HEBERT, 3/01/05, Associated Press)
Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H. said Tuesday it was reasonable to assume ANWR would be part of the budget measure. "The president asked for it, and we're trying to do what the president asked for," Gregg said after meeting privately with Republicans on his panel.Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and a strong supporter of refuge oil development, said he was "very optimistic we're going to get the ANWR provision in this budget."
Gregg's panel was expected to begin work on the budget language next week. Senate floor action - including a vote on the ANWR provision - was likely before the congressional Easter recess March 19.
Given the wider majority of 55 Republicans against 44 Democrats and one Independent, Republicans leaders believe they have the best chance yet to gather the 51 votes needed to include ANWR in the budget language, which is not subject to filibuster.
That would be a stinging defeat for environmentalists who consider protecting the refuge as their most important challenge in Congress. Environmentalists have stepped up their lobbying, hoping to convince lawmakers that drilling in the refuge would harm the area's breeding grounds for caribou, as well as polar bears, musk oxen and millions of migratory birds that camp on the refuge's tundra.
A small group of senators and key administration officials are flying to Alaska's North Slope this weekend to try to dramatize their argument that the refuge can be developed in an environmentally sound way, using modern drilling technology. They will visit the refuge and North slope oil drilling activities west of the protected area.
The group includes Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who has been there several times; the new energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, making his first trip; James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; and GOP Sens. Domenici, John Thune of South Dakota, Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Robert Bennett of Utah.
"We will see for ourselves how American ingenuity and innovation protects our environment and our wildlife while allowing us to develop our own energy," Domenici said.
Better bring lots of bug spray. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 2, 2005 3:31 PM
More like lots of mittens. Its still winter up there.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 2, 2005 4:10 PMJust hope they don't wind up like Alexander Supertramp.
Posted by: Governor Breck at March 2, 2005 4:15 PMI'm all for drilling ANWAR; expanding nuclear power; developing ethonal amendments to gasoline formulations; expanding credits and enhancements for hybrid vehiclE ownership and adding reasonable conservation measures to the energy package to enhance its acceptablity to envronmental conservationists, right and left.
The ultimate goal is to reduce our payments to the totalitarians in the mid-east and Venezuela. We need to show we're serious about it.
Posted by: at March 2, 2005 4:53 PM--The ultimate goal is to reduce our payments to the totalitarians in the mid-east and Venezuela. We need to show we're serious about it.--
As long as China's absorbing it, doesn't really matter.
Bill Nye was on Cavuto yesterday and said there's only a couple of years worth of oil in ANWR and Cavuto called him on it, ohhh, so there's 10 years, big deal. We need an energy policy. Excuse me, how long has it been sitting in Congress????
Posted by: Sandy P at March 2, 2005 5:11 PMThe greenies have been using that "ten year" line for going on four decades now. From famine to overpopulation to AIDS deaths to air quality to ocean pollution to oil reserves to animal extinction to ozone depletion to a new ice age, exactly none of their predictions has come true. Do they think we are so stupid that we haven't noticed how wrong they've been?
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 2, 2005 10:56 PM