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Alaska Wild Update #197 - Feb 24, 2003 QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Evidently, we're supposed to exempt Alaska from
all the requirements of federal law except the receipt of federal largesse.” HEADLINES VOTE ON ARCTIC REFUGE EXPECTED IN MID-MARCH BUSH BUDGET, ENRON STYLE: ASSUMING REVENUES FROM ARCTIC FY03 APPROPRIATIONS BILL PASSES; SEVERAL BAD TONGASS RIDERS DEFEATED, SOME PASS ARCTIC WILDERNESS
BILL REINTRODUCED – OVER 130 COSPONSORS!
Excerpts from Reuters, by Tom Doggett The Senate is expected to vote mid-March on whether to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, according to statements recently by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM). Senator Domenici, who heads the Senate's energy panel, said he expected
budget legislation to be sent to the Senate floor for a vote the week
of March 16 that would contain language giving oil companies access to Backers of drilling want to add the Arctic drilling language to the 2004 budget bill, which cannot be filibustered and would need only 50 votes to pass. Vice President Dick Cheney would be expected to break any tie vote in the 100-member Senate in favor of drilling. Such a move would get around the Senate rules that require 60 votes to cut off debate on controversial bills (like drilling in the Arctic Refuge) and allow a vote on the issue. Budget bills cannot be filibustered. The Senate's parliamentarian would have to decide whether an Arctic drilling provision could be added to the budget bill. Drilling proponents claim such language is appropriate for budget legislation because it would raise $2.4 billion in government drilling fees from oil companies. The parliamentarian has ruled in the past that Arctic drilling can be included in the budget. Drilling opponents would be able to strip the ANWR language from the budget bill if they get the support of 51 senators. According to statements made earlier, any drilling proposals would be similar to the proposal that passed the House in 2001. In that scheme, drilling proponents claimed to limit the impact of drilling to 2,000 acres of the coastal plain, when in reality, the entire 1.5 million acres would be accessible to development. See the Alaska Wilderness
League site for more details.. BUSH BUDGET, ENRON STYLE: ASSUMING
REVENUES FROM ARCTIC “[The Department of the Interior] is also implementing the National Energy Policy by working with the Congress to authorize exploration and, if resources are discovered, environmentally responsible development of the most promising oil and natural gas reserve areas within a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), sometimes referred to as the 1002 Area. DOI estimates that recoverable oil from the 1002 area is between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of oil, and would disturb about one-tenth of one percent of the 1002 land area." In a style that readily identifies with the accounting gimmicks of Enron, the administration makes the assumption that it will have money from an activity that has never been approved and was just last year soundly defeated in the US Senate. The budget plan assumes the first oil and gas lease sale would be in 2005 and result in $2.4 billion in new revenues. What the administration is saying is that despite not having Congressional approval to drill in the Refuge, and having no control over how much will be brought in from potential lease sales, they are still claiming definitive numbers for their budget. In his budget submitted to Congress, Bush said leasing ANWR land would raise $2.4 billion in leasing fees in 2005, and half that amount would go toward increased funding for the Energy Department's renewable energy technology research programs over a seven-year period. The administration said it wants to lease between 400,000 acres and 600,000 acres in the refuge's coastal plain in 2005. The proposal to spend $1.2 billion in lease sales on research of renewable energies -- part of Bush's pending budget blueprint for fiscal year 2004 -- should help temper opposition to drilling in arctic Alaska, said Rebecca Watson, assistant interior secretary for land and minerals management. "It is ridiculous to pretend the only way to have renewable energy
is to drill in the arctic," said Bruce Hamilton, national conservation
director for the Sierra Club.
While debating the budget appropriation for the 2003 budget, already months overdue, Senator Stevens attempted to sneak in several anti-environmental riders including riders that would: -eliminate a provision that forbids initial exploration on the coastal
plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; exempting all of Alaska
from the Roadless Rule; On top of the provision Stevens inserted in the Appropriation Bill at the beginning of the month that prevents any challenging or judicial review of the soon-to-be-released Tongass Land Management Act, the latest round of riders amounted to an all-out assault on America’s public lands in Alaska. The environmental community rallied and put on a strong push to have the bad riders removed. Many moderate Republicans also jumped into the fray to have the bad rider removed. In the end, many of the especially bad riders were removed, thanks to the hard work of many people working in Congressional offices here in DC and to the thousands of people around the country that wrote, emailed, or called in opposition to these riders. The rider exempting Alaska from the Roadless rule was removed, as was the rider calling for a 5X increase in logging. Unfortunately, the rider that prevents further challenging of the Tongass Land Management Plan survived, as did the effort to strike some good language on Arctic. Other harmful provisions which were successfully removed from the bill before final passage include: * an attempt to insulate the 1997 Tongass Forest Plan from legal challenge which would have set a terrible national precedent. * an attempt to Amend the bipartisan 1990 Tongass Timber Reform Act to revive the timber industry's failed legal argument that they are entitled to whatever amount and kind of logging they want. The Arctic discussion in the House revolved around an amendment that Rep. David Obey (D-WI) bravely added to the Interior Appropriations Bill last summer. This amendment prohibited the use of any Department of Interior funds for pre-leasing activities in the Arctic Refuge. Drilling advocates and their allies cut this language out of the omnibus bill passed last night, but this in no way authorizes any sort of industrial activities, "pre-leasing" or not, in the Refuge. In fact, Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), chair of the House Appropriations committee, clarified this language in a discussion on the floor of the House of Representatives last night: "Concerning ANWR…there is no money in the bill for development or pre-development in ANWR. The President didn't request any and the bill doesn't address any." Because the riders were added behind the closed doors of the conference committee and were added to the conference report, the House of Representative had no choice but to have an-all-or nothing vote on the entire Omnibus Appropriations Bill when the conference report came back to the entire House. Congressman David Obey (D-WI) led the way and offered the Motion to Recommit (effectively saying that the bill was so bad that it should be sent back to start over) on the floor of the House. The motion failed along party lines in the House of Representatives, and the House and the Senate then moved quickly to pass the massive Omnibus spending bill. Riders that passed in the Omnibus: * The Stewardship Contracting rider turns management of public forests over to the timber industry by allowing the agencies to enter into an unlimited number of 10-year contracts with logging companies between now and 2013 letting them significantly increase logging on public lands with little congressional oversight. . Exempts renewal of the aging Trans Alaska Pipeline from environmental and public review. While these riders are certainly harmful to the Tongass, it is only through a tremendous effort from across the country that prevented some extraordinarily disastrous riders from also making it through. ARCTIC WILDERNESS BILL REINTRODUCED – OVER 130 COSPONSORS! The Alaska Wilderness League applauded a bipartisan group of Representatives for introducing the Morris K. Udall Wilderness Act to permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The legislation, which seeks to designate the fragile 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain of the Refuge as statutory wilderness, was introduced today by Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT). “We praise the leadership of Representatives Markey and Johnson, and the other co-sponsors for coming together to support legislation that permanently protects Alaska’s most threatened wilderness from the ravages of oil development,” said Cindy Shogan, Alaska Wilderness League’s executive director. “Sacrificing the crown jewel of our national wildlife refuge system for a six-month supply of oil that might be available 10 years from now is unconscionable.” The Arctic Refuge protects some of America’s most spectacular wilderness and wildlife, including polar bears, musk oxen, caribou, grizzlies, and millions of migratory birds. The Gwich’in people, a subsistence culture, consider the Coastal Plain, which serves as the calving grounds for the 130,000 migratory Porcupine River caribou herd, as “the sacred place where life begins.” Sponsors and co-sponsors of this bill are hearing the voices of the American people loud and clear. Recent polls have clearly demonstrated that a majority of Americans want to keep the Refuge wild and free from development. The bipartisan wilderness legislation already enjoys the bipartisan support of 133 House co-sponsors. At the ceremony, Congressman Markey was joined by Members Nancy Johnson (R-CT), Sam Farr (D-CA), Jay Inlsee (D-WA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), along with Gwich’in elder Sarah James and US PIRG Executive Director Gene Karpinski.
Don’t forget to comment! Only 2 weeks left until the comment period closes for the leasing of the NPR-A for oil drilling! Click Here to submit your comments. Students Protest Drilling in front of Senate Office Buildings On Wednesday February 12, around 200 students gathered outside the Russell Senate Office Building to show support for preserving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to ask the Senate to vote down any oil drilling proposal. While inside the Senate building a committee met behind closed doors to discuss budget bill riders which would directly attack provisions that have helped protect the Refuge and the Tongass and Chugach National Forests, rally attendees outside loudly demanded that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be protected as wilderness. Sarah James, Gwich'in elder and spokeswoman and recognized environmental champion, also spoke at the rally. Originally conceived by Phil Jones, a University of Maryland student who became inspired to launch his own rally after attending the Walk to Washington last fall, the rally quickly gained the support of the Sierra Club and the Alaska Wilderness League. Networking with these groups helped the organizers to spread the word to the seven local colleges, universities and high schools that were represented at the rally. Said Phil, "This was truly a grassroots effort. We got the word out mainly through emails and personal appeals. I think it sends a strong message to the Senate that two hundred of us decided to stand outside for two and a half hours in February to help save a place that many of us - and them - have never seen. This is a very resonant issue for a lot of normal Americans." The Porcupine River Caribou herd is starting to move in their migration! |
