Alaska Senators Make Another Push For Oil Drilling in ANWR

[Joanne98]

WASHINGTON - Hoping to capitalize on consumer concern about gasoline prices, Alaska’s two Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if the price of oil hits $125 a barrel.

With oil hovering near $110 a barrel and gasoline expected to reach $4 a gallon, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens said that they hoped the continuing price spiral would spark consumer clamor and overcome opposition to opening the wildlife refuge to drilling.

“This has got to come from the ground up,” Murkowski said. “From the constituents, from the American consumer saying ‘Enough, Congress.’ This is the No. 1 issue domestically in the country right now, what is happening with the price of energy.”

Efforts to open up the refuge for drilling have had a long and storied history in Congress, with Stevens or Murkowski (or her father) offering up some form of legislation annually. In 2005, when Congress rejected yet another bid to open the refuge to development, Stevens called it the “saddest day of my life.”

This year’s proposal has a few new twists that Murkowski, the lead sponsor, says might help persuade some former skeptics.

After the state of Alaska gets a cut of the 12.5 percent royalties, 50 percent of the proceeds would go toward alternative energy research overseen by the Department of Energy. Another 33 percent would go toward federal low-income home energy assistance or weatherization programs. The final 17 percent would go toward the food stamp program.

Drilling in ANWR would do more than any economic stimulus package, Stevens said. It also would trim U.S. dependency on foreign sources of oil.

“The money we send overseas for oil could be spent in the United States, stimulate our economy,” he said. “I think this country’s going to need a real stimulus before this year’s over.”

The Bush Administration also sees the development of ANWR as a national security issue and continues to support the “environmentally responsible production of energy” from the refuge, said Shane Wolfe, a spokesman for Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

The Interior Department hasn’t seen the legislation and wouldn’t comment on it, but the president’s 2009 budget assumes that ANWR would open for development, Wolfe said.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/14/7687/

[better tomorrow]

1. this is just a ploy to get the oil for the HAARP weather satellites...

the oil is good to power HAARP and the satellites and they need to get to it but at our cost. Then, they can control the weather even more.

SEE EASTLUND SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACTS. They spell it right out...

And, here is more on ARCO.....

The federal government enjoys a long tradition of screwing over the inhabitants of the Last Frontier. Generally speaking, the feds are as welcome as a case of herpes. And studies done by the EPA, the Swedish government and others indicate that HAARP could interfere with communications, navigation systems, wildlife migration and possibly human health. "There has never been a transmitter of this power in this frequency," Eastlund says. "It would be wise to assess its impact." Though there are many questions, the military insists that all is well and there is nothing to worry about. "We are not doing anything to the ionosphere -- we are just looking at it," insists Air Force Phillips Laboratory spokesman Roy Heitman. Although an ad-hoc grassroots organization called NO HAARP is trying to stop the project, founder Clare Zickuhr admits, "It's all a whitewash, is going to happen." An ARCO retiree, Zickuhr is convinced HAARP is a secret weapons project. "It has all the appearances of a secret program. This is not good science -- they have no idea what this thing could do to the ionosphere. To put this in the hands of the military scares the hell out of me." (Remember however that, although this particular ex-ARCO employee - Zickuhr -- is against the project, the HAARP facility in Alaska was never-the-less CONSTRUCTED by ARCO POWER TECHNOLOGIES.

So Zickuhr's views apparently do not reflect the views of ARCO in general in regards to the project. - Branton) And if you're not yet convinced that ARCO -- The ATLANTIC RICHFIELD COMPANY -- is a front for the fascist "Nazifeller" New World Order infiltration of, if not invasion of, North America, then try this one on for size: ARCO-ALYESKA, WACKINHUT, ILLEGAL SPYING, ORGANIZED CRIME... ("Oh what a tangled web we weave..."): STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GEORGE MILLER CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT HEARINGS ON ALYESKA COVERT OPERATIONS NOVEMBER 4, 1991 (A few excerpts from this lengthy hearing appear below - Branton): "This is the first of two days of hearings before the House Interior Committee on the subject of covert surveillance authorized by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company and conducted by The WACKENHUT Corporation. "On August 7 of this year, the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs filed a written request for documents from Wackenhut and Alyeska in connection with allegations that the Wackenhut Corporation conducted undercover surveillance of Charles Hamel on behalf of Alyeska and its OWNER companies.

In letters to both Wackenhut and Alyeska, I expressed concern that the surveillance of Mr. Hamel was for the purpose of obtaining information on and/or interfering with Mr. Hamel's communications with this Committee. "Charles Hamel has been a source of information for Congress, state and federal regulatory agencies, and the media, concerning environmental, health and safety VIOLATIONS by Alyeska and its oil company owners (that is, ARCO or Atlantic Richfield. - Branton). Mr. Hamel has served as a conduit for whistleblowers, including Alyeska employees, to make public information on oil industry practices. At the same time, Mr. Hamel has at least two significant business disputes with ALYESKA and EXXON... "In the next two days, we will explore the issue of whether Alyeska's use of a 'bogus' environmental group formed by Wackenhut spies was an effort to disrupt and compromise a source of information for this Committee's continuing investigation of oil industry practices in Alaska... "In my view, it is important to find out why some of the largest and most powerful corporations in this country would resort to such elaborate 'sting' tactics to INVADE and DESTROY the privacy of Mr. Hamel, federal and state officials, environmentalists and ordinary citizens... "We believe that the testimony and the evidence presented in these hearings during the next two days will show that the covert surveillance operation involved the much more sinister and disturbing motives of SILENCING environmental critics and intimidating whistleblowers..."

[Speck Tater]

2. All the ANWR oil would give us 17 months supply. That's all.

And it would take 8 to 10 years of infrastructure construction before the first drop of oil was pumped.

"...the US Department of Interior under Gale Norton estimated that ANWR contained 10.4 billion barrels of oil, and that the maximum production from ANWR would be 1.4 million barrels a day. The US currently uses about 7.5 billion barrels of oil a year, so ANWR represents the equivalent of 17 months oil usage by the United States."

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2782

[MISSDem]

3. Never!

This must not happen.