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Big Win for Environmentalists: Another Loss for Bush & Oil Barons
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by clorenz1 | November 10, 2005 at 12:05 pm
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Fantastic news! Late last night, after months of intense pressure from millions of pro-environment activists like you, the House leadership dropped its plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of the budget bill.
Arctic National Wildlife RefugeIn the end, they were forced to retreat after some 22 courageous Republican congressmen stood their ground and promised to vote against their own party's budget if it sacrificed America's greatest wildlife refuge. With every single Democrat also opposing the budget, the leadership blinked.
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at 12:43 on November 10th, 2005
This is great news for all of us who oppose drilling in The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In my opinion ANWAR has become a large target for one of the most senseless and needless energy agenda's of any Administration in U.S. History. This agenda promotes the destruction of not only one of the last remaining pristine wilderness refuge's in the world, but the destruction and pilfering of many public parks, and coast lines. As of last week it really looked like the Oil Lobby led by Ted Stevens (R-AK, a corrupt mouth piece for the oil industry) was poised to win the battle. Jeffrey St. Clair reported on November, 4th, in his article entitled, "Blood on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda."
He stated, "With a 51-48
pro-drilling vote yesterday on a deviously-crafted line item
in the U.S. Senate's budget bill, the oil industry has seized
its most prized trophy: access to reservoirs of crude beneath
the 1.5 million-acre wildlife refuge on the Arctic plain," (You can read the entire article here).
However, thanks to environmental groups and last minute suprise voting from 22 Republican's, the House dropped plans to allow oil drilling in the refuge. This is a big win for those who understand the need for places such as ANWAR. But, men such as Ted Stevens will not rest untill their pockets are full with oil money and our National Lands are stripped bare.
There could be a last minute House vote as stated by NRDC President John Adams, "Make
no mistake: we must now remain vigilant. Senate and House negotiators
could still revive the Arctic drilling provision when they hammer out a
final budget measure next month (the Senate version of the budget
includes Arctic drilling). If
that happens, we'll be calling on you to shore up Republican moderates
in the House who have promised to oppose and defeat any such last-ditch
ploy to sneak Arctic drilling into the final budget legislation" (http://www.nrdc.org/about/0511_jha_arctic.asp).
Help is still needed and National Resources Defense Council is a great place to go in-order to help. Even one voice can help swing the House. Public pressure was key in this victory.
Yrs,
C