DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

ANWR is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The site’s homepage contains their charter:

ANWR was established to preserve unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values; to conserve caribou herds, polar bears, grizzly bears, muskox, dall sheep … [and 7 other species]; to fulfill international treaty obligations; to provide opportunities for continued subsistence uses; and to ensure necessary water quality and quantity.

See anything in there about oil drilling? Not unless oil drilling is a “subsistence use.” (I don’t speak Bureaucrat.)

The Bush administration has wanted to open ANWR for oil drilling since before it took office. But in every attempt to win a vote to proceed with his plan to hand over a wildlife refuge to the oil companies, Bush has lost.

Until now. According to a great editorial in the Chronicle,

Though the House has approved drilling, the Senate has always blocked the plan, most recently by a two-vote margin.

There’s a twist this time. Instead of a noisy floor vote, the GOP backers of drilling want to slip a go-ahead for drilling into a much larger budget bill. By doing so, drilling supporters need only 51 votes to win. The budget bill is also immune to filibustering, a key weapon for minority Democrats.

In essence, Bush can’t win the ANWR vote on merit, so he and his oily friends have to resort to backhanded political maneuvering to do something the American people don’t want him to do.

How can I say that drilling in a wildlife refuge is something the citizens don’t want? A poll conducted in late December revealed that 55 percent of Americans said “no” when asked whether oil companies should be allowed to drill in ANWR.

Do I believe so deeply in polls that I consider the above to be irrefutable evidence that Americans oppose drilling in ANWR? No; I’m sure the folks at Zogby could write poll questions that would get 75% of registered Republicans to say that George Bush has all the moral values of a rutabaga. The point is that drilling for oil in ANWR or any other protected land is a complex and sensitive issue that deserves more careful handling than the tactics Bush has resorted to.

How lunatic are the people who want to drill in ANWR? Here’s a guy who claims that “those who are opposed to this plan are, in actuality, supporting the terrorist regimes that plot to destroy this country.” Yeah, that’s me all over. Go Osama!

Take action here: email your representatives about Arctic drilling to make sure they know what you want.