Get out your hankeys: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) "clinically depressed" over ANWR

[Agathon]

You'd think that the hunting and fishing wing of the repugs would have something to say about this - they tend to be nature lovers (and oddly enough are also prime targets for assimilation to the Green movement).

[Sava]

Originally posted by Agathon
You'd think that the hunting and fishing wing of the repugs would have something to say about this - they tend to be nature lovers (and oddly enough are also prime targets for assimilation to the Green movement).

The Republican Party (in TR's days) used to stand for conservasionism... but nowadays, it's just the party of corrupt corporate crooks and religious fundies.

[Agathon]

The Republican Party (in TR's days) used to stand for conservasionism... but nowadays, it's just the party of corrupt corporate crooks and religious fundies.

And yet they retain all their stooges, who would rather blind themselves in the face of the facts than vote democrat.

Unless you're rich, voting Republican is the ultimate act of self pwnage.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Agathon
You'd think that the hunting and fishing wing of the repugs would have something to say about this - they tend to be nature lovers (and oddly enough are also prime targets for assimilation to the Green movement).

---

And yet they retain all their stooges, who would rather blind themselves in the face of the facts than vote democrat.

Unless you're rich, voting Republican is the ultimate act of self pwnage.

It is because those people are the same ones who think gay people are the spawn of Satan, Creationism should be taught in school and think the Second Coming will occur in thier lifetime.

[Drake Tungsten]

It's no wonder your side keeps losing elections. You don't even know your enemy...

[Sava]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
It's no wonder your side keeps losing elections. You don't even know your enemy...

or maybe someone is in denial about the political company they keep

[Odin]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
It's no wonder your side keeps losing elections. You don't even know your enemy...

I live around the enemy. I know the enemy I know the hicks because I am one.

[Odin]

I live around the enemy. I know the enemy. I know the hicks because I am one

[Odin]

DP

[Sava]

haw haw somebody hit quote instead of edit

[Odin]

GOD DAMN BUTTONS!!!

[DRoseDARs]

Well, looks like Sen. Stevens won't have to slit his wrists now...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20050316/ap_on_go_co/arctic_drilling_17

Senate Votes to Open Alaskan Oil Drilling

55 minutes ago

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush (news - web sites).

The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said. The House has not included a similar provision in its budget, so the issue is still subject to negotiations later this year to resolve the difference.

The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northern eastern corner of Alaska.

Drilling supporters acknowledged after the vote that for refuge development to get final approval Congress must still pass a final budget with the Senate provision included, something Congress was unable to do last year.

Still, "this is a big step," said Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska, who said he had tried for 24 years to open the refuge, but failed because Democrats blocked the effort through filibusters. The budget is immune from a filibuster, meaning drilling supporters will need only a majority — not the 60 votes required to break a filibuster — to succeed when the issue comes up for final action later this year.

Environmentalists have fought such development and argued that despite improved environmental controls a web of pipelines and drilling platforms would harm calving caribou, polar bears and millions of migratory birds that use the coastal plain.

Bush has called tapping the reserve's oil a critical part of the nation's energy security and a way to reduce America's reliance on imported oil, which account for more than half of the 20 million barrels of crude use daily.

It's "a way to get some additional reserves here at home on the books," Bush said Wednesday.

The Alaska refuge could supply as much as 1 million barrels day at peak production, drilling supporters said. But they acknowledge that even if ANWR's oil is tapped, it would have no impact on soaring oil prices and tight supplies. The first lease sales would not be issued until 2007, followed by development seven to 10 years later, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.

"We won't see this oil for 10 years. It will have minimal impact," argued Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., a co-sponsor of the amendment that would have stripped the arctic refuge provision from the budget document. It is "foolish to say oil development and a wildlife refuge can coexist," she said.

Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., argued that more oil would be saved if Congress enacted an energy policy focusing on conservation, more efficient cars and trucks and increased reliance on renewable fuels and expanded oil development in the deep-water Gulf where there are significant reserves.

"The fact is (drilling in ANWR) is going to be destructive," said Kerry.

But drilling proponents argued that modern drilling technology can safeguard the refuge and still tap the likely — though not yet certain — 10.4 billion barrels of crude in the refuge.

The vote Wednesday contrasted with the last time the Senate took up the ANWR drilling issue two years ago. Then, an attempt to include it in the budget was defeated. But drilling supporters gained strength last November when Republicans picked up three additional seats, all senators who favored drilling in the refuge.

Opponents of drilling complained that Republicans this time were trying "an end run" by attaching the refuge provisions to the budget, a tactic that would allow the measure to pass with a majority vote.

The 19-million-acre refuge was set aside for protection by President Eisenhower in 1960, but Congress in 1980 said its 1.5 million acre coastal plain could be opened to oil development if Congress specifically authorizes it.



The House has repeatedly passed measures over the years to allow drilling in ANWR only to see the legislation stalled in the Senate. But last week, the House refused to include an ANWR provision in its budget document, although any differences between the Senate and House versions would likely be resolved in negotiations.

Drilling supporters argued that access to the refuge's oil was a matter of national security and that modern drilling technology would protect the region's wildlife.

Environmentalists contended that while new technologies have reduced the drilling footprint, ANWR's coastal plain still would contain a spider web of pipelines that would disrupt calving caribou and disturb polar bears, musk oxen and the annual influx of millions of migratory birds.

[Agathon]

Drilling supporters argued that access to the refuge's oil was a matter of national security and that modern drilling technology would protect the region's wildlife.

Oh how I long for the day when these people will burn. I'll pour the oil on them myself.

[Sava]

more oil would be saved if Congress enacted an energy policy focusing on conservation, more efficient cars and trucks and increased reliance on renewable fuels and expanded oil development in the deep-water Gulf where there are significant reserves.

[Sava]

I've been lurking at the DU and I've come across yet another moronic statement. A lot of DU'ers are saying things like:

"OMG we should drill for oil at GOP member's houses"
"I hope there's oil under Bush's ranch"

okay... let me say this. if there is oil under your house, YOU ARE BLOODY ****ING RICH. I SURE AS HELL WANT THERE TO BE OIL UNDER MY HOUSE!!!

yet more stupidity from the DU...