Arctic Wilderness Bill Reintroduced

The Alaska Wilderness League today applauded a bipartisan coalition of senators and representatives for introducing legislation to permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The two pieces of legislation, which seek to designate the fragile 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain of the Refuge as statutory wilderness, were introduced in the Senate by Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and in the House by Representatives Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Nancy Johnson (R-CT) with bipartisan support.

"We praise the leadership of Sen. Lieberman, Reps. Markey and Johnson and the cosponsors 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 just a few months' 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-member migratory Porcupine River Caribou Herd, as "the sacred place where life begins."

Today's announcement comes on the heels of a national poll in December, 2005 by Zogby International which found that a majority of Americans oppose oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge by a margin of 55-38 percent.

"Sponsors and cosponsors of this bill are hearing the voices of the American people loud and clear," Shogan said. "Recent polls have demonstrated that a majority of Americans want to keep the Refuge wild and free from development."

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC REFUGE...

"Drill for oil in Yosemite Valley? A geothermal steam plant near Old Faithful? A hydroelectric dam on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon? Even the Bush administration would not go that far in search of energy sources because law bans such exploitation in the national parks. But its zeal for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is nearly as dumb. The refuge should have been made a national park in 1980, when Congress considered the designation. But for the oil industry, it would have been.

For the fifth consecutive year, the administration is seeking congressional approval to industrialize parts of the Alaskan North Slope - for only enough oil to meet the nation's needs for, at most, six months. Thwarted in the past in up-or-down votes in the Senate, the administration now is attempting to win approval by slipping a rider into the budget bill. The thinking is that no one would risk the wrath of voters by trying to kill the budget just because it contained the refuge rider. Think again. Polls show that most Americans oppose drilling and production in the refuge and disruption of its amazing variety of birds, fish and other animal life.

Bush aides and their industry friends are pulling out all the old tricks, promising that drilling will be done from ice pads and only over 2,000 acres of the refuge, with no widespread wreckage of the wilderness.

Don't believe it. If oil is found, it can be gotten out only through pumping stations and pipelines to Prudhoe Bay. These facilities have to be maintained year-round, meaning access roads and places for workers to live. In any case, it would take as long as 10 years for the oil to reach the market.

The administration has already thrown open millions of acres of the American West to energy exploitation and more millions in the former national petroleum reserve west of the Arctic plain and Prudhoe Bay. Some of the openings make sense, others don't. The latest ruckus is over allowing oil and gas wells on desert grassland in New Mexico, putting water supplies at risk. State officials solidly opposed the drilling but got a brushoff at the Interior Department.

If the administration was serious about a comprehensive energy policy, it would at least raise gasoline mileage standards on cars, light trucks and sport utility vehicles, helping to clean up the air in the process.

Even industry ardor for drilling in the Arctic refuge seems to have waned in the face of popular opposition. Why then bull ahead on this issue?"

-Editorial in the Los Angeles Times, 2/1/2005