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Alaska Wild Update #199 - Mar 26, 2003 QUOTE OF THE WEEK STEVENS: "In the time I've served here, many people
have made BOXER: "We're a government of laws, not men. This is a country
HEADLINES US SENATE VOTES TO PROTECT ARCTIC REFUGE (AGAIN!) HOUSE BUDGET RESOLUTION
PASSES WITHOUT ARCTIC PROVISION
On Wednesday, March 19, the US Senate voted 52-48 to accept an amendment sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) to remove a provision for drilling in the Arctic Refuge from the budget bill. Drilling proponents had attempted to put drilling in the Arctic Refuge into the budget bill because there is a limit on the amount of debate allowed. Typically, controversial legislation requires 60 votes to end debate and force a vote. Debate time during a budget bill is automatically limited. Wednesday’s vote is a huge victory for the American people, the majority of whom oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Eight Republican Senators joined all but five Democrats in supporting the successful amendment to take drilling out of the budget. Senator Boxer showed many beautiful photos of the Arctic Refuge on the
floor of the Senate and implored her colleagues not to throw it away for
a limited supply of oil. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), a member of the Budget committee, took the floor and urged his colleagues not to use the budget process to consider Arctic drilling. “No matter where a Senator might consider himself or herself in the discussion over the fate of the Refuge, and this issue was debated at length during the Senate's consideration of the energy bill last year, no Senator has said that the primary reason to change the management of the Refuge was because we just needed the revenue.” Finally, close to the end of the debate, Senator Lincoln Chafee gave an impassioned floor speech about his time spent on the coastal plain – the very area proposed for drilling- when he was camping there last summer. “What a surprise it was to go this far north and see such beautiful country. It is like the plains of Wyoming or Montana. And it was a great surprise to me. So all the environmentalists who talk about it being the Serengeti of America, they are right. This is unique. It is special. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment for that reason.” The final exchange took place between Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), when he threatened his colleagues who were voting against drilling, and Barbara Boxer, whose response is this week’s Quote of the Week. All of the Senators who were specifically targeted by the other side as possible switches stayed true to their past votes or their campaign pledges. Thanks goes to all 52 Senators who voted for the Boxer amendment, but especially to newcomers Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) who had never cast a vote on the issue, but had pledged during their campaigns that they would vote for Refuge protection. Also special thanks to all the Republicans who came under intense pressure from the White House and their own party leadership. Click to see how you
Senator voted and to send a thank you to those deserving.
NPRA COMMENT
EXTENSION
But the process is not without danger. While the House version does not have any specific mention of Arctic, it does have instructions to the House Resources committee that could be used to allow drilling in the Refuge, leaving the House version somewhat ambiguous. Here’s how the process works. The budget resolution is a non-binding set of recommendations. The recommendations are in the form of budgetary target numbers for specific years. For instance, it may recommend that spending through the Resources committee be X amount in 2004, Y in 2005 and so on. Because there is no mention of how this money is to be raised, the House Resources committee is free to follow any particular path to arrive at their budget target numbers. They could choose to allow drilling to raise the revenues, or they could follow a different path to meet their targets. In the Senate, Boxer’s amendment removed instructions that mandated raising revenues by allowing drilling, therefore leaving the Senate side without any particular instruction at all. If the instructions had survived, the Senate would have reconciled current law in a way that allows them to meet their budget targets. Reconciliation is changing current law to allow the budget targets to be met. In this particular case it would mean that current law protecting the refuge from development would have to be changed, thus opening the Refuge to drilling. Since the language that was removed specified that the law preventing drilling in the Arctic was to be the one that was reconciled, the resolution would have led directly to drilling in the Refuge. Boxer’s amendment removing the reconciliation instructions prevents drilling from being authorized. Now the Senate and the House will meet in a conference committee to work
out the differences between the House version (with the ambiguous budget
reconciliation instructions) and the Senate version (with no reconciliation
instructions). In order to keep the final budget resolution free of Arctic
drilling, the House will have to follow the Senate’s approach and
remove all the reconciliation instructions. (Take action on this issue
at the Alaska Wilderness League.)
Conference committee members will likely be appointed by March 28 and
leadership in the Senate and House have said that they would like to have
the final budget resolution passed by the time they break for Easter week
on April 11. With last week’s Senate vote, there were many, many great stories of grass roots activism to help win the vote. Here are just a few… In Minnesota, upon hearing that Senator Norm Coleman was still wavering
at the last minute, activists organized an "impromptu" event
in front of Coleman's office only an hour before the vote. AP, Pioneer
Press, Ch 5 TV, and MN-NPR were all there. They asked Coleman's staffer
what the Senator was going to do and he said he couldn't comment on it
- and one of the activists had a giant blow-up of the letter Coleman has
been sending to his In Florida, for the 100th anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge system, Interior Secretary Gail Norton came to an event at Pelican Island (the first Wildlife Refuge). Organizers collaborated to have an airplane circle the event while Norton was speaking towing a banner that read “Don’t Drill the Arctic Refuge” much to the enjoyment of the local crowd. Hundreds of people in Illinois turned out for several slide shows presented by Jeff Barrie and Gwich’in Elsie Hume in the week leading to the vote. In just 24 hours, a letter was circulated and received signatures from groups in 44 states to show nationwide opposition to including drilling in the Refuge as part of the budget resolution. In Arkansas, VIPs including former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, actor Robert Redford, and former Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers all called Senator Mark Pryor in the days leading up to the vote. And the real thanks goes to the thousands and thousands of people that
you all talked to and who circulated the alerts, made the phone calls,
and sent the emails and faxes to keep the tremendous pressure on until
the final 52-48 tally was read. In a time of unprecedented threat, with
drilling supporters controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House
of Everyone please give themselves a great big THANK YOU!! And then go thank
your Senator if they voted right. |
