The Bush-Kerry tundra turf war

[whometense]

From Salon's War Room

There's a Bush vs. Kerry rematch this week over the tundra turf of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

At the request of the Bush administration, Republicans in the Senate have tacked a provision onto a budget resolution which would open the refuge to drilling. Since budget resolutions can't be filibustered, now the advocates of opening the refuge only need 51 votes to let oil companies into the still-pristine land of muskoxen and caribou.

Sen. John Kerry has joined Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in a campaign to try to strip the Arctic drilling provision out of the budget resolution. The senators believe they have the votes to succeed in doing so, but the forces working to pry open the Arctic for drilling are just as confident that they have the votes to pull it off.

Meanwhile, the Bush adminstration's new line on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge isn't just that the country needs the relatively small amount of oil under it, but that the sprawling machinery for extracting it won't really trouble the wildlife living there. (Really.) Bush's interior secretary, Gale Norton, in an Op-Ed piece in Monday's New York Times argued that drilling technology has improved so much, that the caribou and muskox will barely notice it at all.

A scolding from the Times editorial board casts a shadow on Norton's sunny notion: "Where Ms. Norton sees undisturbed tundra, see hundreds of miles of pipelines, roads and drilling platforms, which would fragment wildlife habitats and corrupt a wilderness that, according to recent polls, a majority of Americans wish to leave undisturbed. We have expressed such reservations ourselves. But what troubles us most about President Bush's fixation on drilling is what it says about the shallowness of his energy policy."

Whatever the cost to wildlife, the Times says, the limited amount of oil there wouldn't do much to fix our energy problems, adding: "Any number of modest efficiencies could achieve the same result without threatening the refuge. Simply closing the so-called S.U.V. loophole -- making light trucks as efficient overall as ordinary cars -- would save a million barrels a day. Increasing fuel-economy standards for cars by about 50 percent, to 40 miles per gallon, a perfectly reasonable expectation, would save 2.5 million barrels a day."

But if you think that Bush administration and the Republican controlled Congress is likely to go for either of those ideas, we've got a caribou-friendly drilling platform to sell you.

-- Katharine Mieszkowski

(18:15 EST, March 15, 2005)

[sandnsea]

1. Fixations

That's exactly what it is. Just like with the privatization to destroy SS. Somehow in their minds they think if they shove this stuff through, it'll prove their "man-date". :eyes:

I know I'm always impressed when men shove stuff on me that I don't want.

They are such idiots.

[whometense]

2. There's something really really strange about all this.

Even pathological. And I think maybe it does have to do with their nonexistent "man-date".

Ted Stevens getting apoplectic over ANWAR. The personalization. (What did Kerry ever do to the guy for god's sake?) It's almost like they've come to believe in their man-date so strongly that they go ballistic when challenged. (You still here? You still QUESTIONING me???? GO AWAY.) It's honestly like they no longer accept the democrats' right to exist. Like in their minds we're already gone.

Maybe that's why Stevens was so crazy today. A lively, active, unhumbled, in-your-face Kerry was more than he could handle.

[LittleClarkie]

5. Maybe Moore was right about the bully mentality

Rush keeps talking too about how the Dems don't get it.

I keep wondering what he wants, Dems to just lay down and let the Repubs do exactly as they want?

This administration can't stand ANY blocking of what they want. Most of their judges went through. But no, ALL of them have to go through. It's like they are anti-Democracy. Like spoiled children. It really is bizarre.

[whometense]

3. Look at this thread

in LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1308509

(Alaska Sen.) Stevens says he may quit if ANWR doesn't go

FAIRBANKS - Sen. Ted Stevens says he may retire if his role in the gridlock over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge helps contribute to an extended ban.

At issue is legislation the Alaska Republican accepted 25 years ago that set the stage for the stalemate.

Stevens told national reporters in Washington, D.C., on Friday that he is "clinically depressed" about the situation. He later backed off that term in talks with Alaska reporters, noting he has not been diagnosed by a psychiatrist and is not taking any medication. But he said he has asked his doctor about his doldrums, and was advised to take some time off.

Stevens also said he's wondering whether he should seek another term if he loses next week's vote on ANWR language in the budget resolution.

more…

Maybe he really has lost it.

[Withywindle]

4. Stevens needs to retire...

Did you see that dustup between him and Durbin on C-SPAN2 this evening? I had to leave for work, I didn't see how it was resolved, but Durbin had been speaking about the experience of going camping in the Wildlife Refuge and then was talking about how little difference the drilling would actually make in improving the energy situation, and Stevens got VERY agitated and cut in to "ask a question" but he was really just ranting, and Durbin finally snapped, "Excuse me, I didn't yield the floor to you!"

:scared: