protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

From the NRDC, with additions from me in brackets:

In the seven years since George Bush and Dick Cheney began a “Drill and Spill” rampage worthy of nineteen-century oil barons, the price of oil has skyrocketed 100 dollars and the price of gasoline has more than doubled.

But don’t wait for them to admit failure. The White House is too busy exploiting our pain at the gas pump in order to hand Big Oil the ultimate prize: access to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and America’s spectacular coastlines.

Their plan is simple and cynical. The president and his Congressional allies will sell America the big lie: If we’d only let the oil giants drill where they want, our problems at the pump will be over.

Please go to http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/stop_arctic_and_offshore_drilling and tell your senators and representative to reject these shameless land grabs by Big Oil. Tell them to start kicking our national oil habit instead of emptying our wallets and destroying our last wild places.

America cannot drill its way out of this energy mess. We simply don’t have enough oil to move the world market.

President Bush’s own Energy Department estimates that drilling in the Arctic Refuge would lower prices at the pump by less than four pennies per gallon – and that would be 20 years from now!

Drilling off the spectacular coastlines of California, New England and Florida might produce a few weeks’ worth of oil and lower prices by a few more pennies. Meanwhile, the price of gas has gone up 50 cents just this spring.

There’s only one way to end our energy pain, and that is by breaking our destructive dependence on oil. We need cars that get at least 40 miles per gallon. We need millions of plug-in hybrids that connect to a cleaner electric grid powered by renewables like wind and solar. We need more mass transit and better biofuels.

These are the real energy solutions that President Bush has sacrificed on the altar of oil addiction. Only the oil companies [and car companies, which have failed to act on technologies that have been available for years!] would want more of the same.

[Thanks so much for taking action!]

A federal court has temporarily blocked the Shell oil company from drilling exploratory wells this summer off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. . . .

By putting Shell’s operation on hold until the full case can be heard, the court has granted an eleventh-hour reprieve to polar bears and other wildlife, and shown its concern about the impacts of drilling. We’re gearing up for a full hearing next week in federal court.

this beautiful place. There’s a new move on to open ANWR to drilling, even though the Bush administration’s own figures show that doing so would reduce gasoline prices by only a penny per gallon in 20 years. You can read about it &, if you’re a U.S. resident, respond with messages to your senators here.

Thanks for caring!

The Senate has already voted to give permission for oil drilling in this sanctuary. Now the House is considering the question, again. Americans have repeatedly let their representatives know, in overwhelming numbers, that the modest amount of oil that may be obtained from ANWR is not worth the devastation. The administration and the oil-industry lobby keep putting it on the agenda anyway.

Please, let’s be even more dogged than they are, but on the side of Mother Earth. You can send an e-mail or fax to your senators and congressperson at the National Resources Defense Council website; it’s really easy. Thanks!

From National Resources Defense Council:

Pro-drilling supporters eked out a win last night on a budget resolution that was specially crafted to allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But . . . there are many more rounds of this fight ahead of us. . . . The House of Representatives will act next when it decides whether or not to include Arctic drilling in its version of the budget resolution later this month. . . .

Last night’s Senate vote was extremely close: 51 to 49. . . . The Senate will have to cast at least two more votes on the budget bill this year if they hope to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling. So it is absolutely critical that you keep the pressure on them, no matter how they voted last night.

To see how your Senators voted, go here.

Let’s keep working on this.

This is a message from the National Resources Defense Council:

Last week, the Senate Budget Committee caved in to Big Oil and passed a budget resolution that includes a provision designed exclusively to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The entire Senate will vote on this resolution as early as Thursday! Last December, we blocked Arctic drilling by generating tens of thousands of phone calls to Capitol Hill. It’s time to do it again!

Please call your senators right now [you can find their phone #s on their websites]. Tell them:

“Vote NO on the budget because it’s bad for the Arctic Refuge, bad for the environment, and bad for the American people. Vote YES on any amendment to strip Arctic drilling from this budget bill.”

If you are unable to call, then please send
electronic messages to your Senators by going
here right now.

Senate leaders are using this budget ploy to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling because they know they can’t pass it through the legitimate legislative process. They aren’t even pretending that their budget resolution is about balancing the budget. In fact, their resolution contains only one reconciliation instruction: the provision that would open the Arctic Refuge to drilling.

Thanks for pitching in to help!

from my friend Peter, a wild man who has a special mission to show conservative Christians why it actually fits their theology to care for the earth. He does a great job!

He & our mutual friend Trimble Gilbert (the Gwich’in elder from Alaska) will be coming to Michigan next month, & their thought is to swing over to Chicago & Minneapolis too. Peter said Trimble asked about me & wants to see me—& I definitely want to see him! So Peter & I will talk at more length soon about what exact dates they’ll be able to come, whereupon I can get to work finding a few places for Trimble to speak. The most fruitful should be the western suburbs, where people need to rise up against their NONenvironmentally friendly representative, Henry Hyde. I have a lot of connections there, so hopefully we can work out something.

Peter says the interview I did with Trimble a couple of years ago (published in PRISM, magazine of Evangelicals for Social Action) has been very useful, because he sends it ahead to churches & it lets them know who Trimble is & why they should have him speak. Hurray! I’m so glad to know that something I wrote is having an effect.

This is SO important as ANWR continues to be threatened. Getting these conservative folks to care could make the difference.

I haven’t gotten to visit ANWR yet, but I already love it because of its value to the Gwich’in people & the Porcupine River herd of caribou, whose northern-shore birthing grounds would be spoiled by oil drilling. I interviewed Father Trimble Gilbert about it a couple of years ago; he has become a dear friend (see my “visit Alaska” goal).

Unfortunately, the Bush administration & Senator Ted Stevens have no reverence for ANWR’s practical & spiritual significance; they keep trying to open it up for drilling. The latest attempt was yesterday, when a drilling-in-ANWR provision was attached to the defense budget authorization bill. Shameless! But good news for now: some folks filibustered specifically against that provision-see this excerpt from an AP story. “Stop debate” here = end the filibuster, which would have let the provision through. Sixty votes would have been needed to stop debate. (Obviously the first sentence here was written in a hurry-it lacks a verb.)

The 56-44 roll call Wednesday by which the Senate voted to block oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge as part of a defense bill. Sixty votes were needed to stop debate on the issue and allow a vote on the defense bill.

On this vote, a “yes” vote was a vote to stop debate and proceed to a vote on final passage and a “no” vote was a vote to continue debate.

Voting “yes” were four Democrats and 52 Republicans.

Voting “no” were 40 Democrats, three Republicans and one independent.

I am thankful that Illinois senators Durbin & Obama were among the “no” votes. I’ll be contacting them to thank them. Please consider sending a response to your senators too!—either praise or disappointment, whichever is appropriate. You can find the list of votes here. Thanks!!