There are several excellent diaries over at Kos on this issue. I am just trying to increase it's presence.
The vote on the FY 2006 Budget Resolution that will contain language authorizing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is due on Wednesday. Several excellent and informatative diaries have been posted during the last couple of days concerning this issue.(Links below for talking points.) What's been missing our discussion is the "2000 Acre Footprint Scam" described in this month's editon of the Audubon Society magazine (March/April 2005)page 16: "There's a catch, of course. The 2,000 acres don't have to be contiguous.."
Fodder for Letters to everyone;
From the National Wildlife Federation:
1. The 1.5 million acre coastal plain where oil drilling is proposed is the most biologically productive part of the Refuge.
2. The Refuge is home to thousands of calving caribou, denning polar bears, roaming grizzlies, and rare muskoxen.
3. Northern pintail ducks, mallards, tundra swans and white fronted geese are among the many migratory species known to inhabit the coastal plain during the year.
4. According to the US Geological Survey and the oil industry, it would take at least a decade to tap any oil from the Refuge.
5. 95% of Alaska's Arctic coastal lands are already available for oil exploration including the National Petroleum Reserve (the size of Indiana).
6. Refuge oil will make no difference in prices at the pump. The amount of oil would be such a small percentage of daily world oil production that it would have no effect on the globally established price of oil.
7. Audubon Society: The impact of the drilling operations would extend far beyond the 2,000 acres stated in the law. Road building, gravel pit excavation, and pipelines would create a spider web of encroachments on the entire coastal Refuge.
No comments:
Post a Comment