Posted on 12/19/2005 7:27:07 PM PST by ncountylee
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Maria Cantwell vowed Monday to keep the Senate in session until the brink of Christmas to defeat legislation that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
"If this language is allowed to stand, one of our nation's most pristine wildlife areas will be lost," Cantwell, a Democrat said as she outlined plans by her party and its allies to defeat language offered by Alaska Republican Ted Stevens to open ANWR.
"This is nothing more than a sweetheart deal for Alaska and the oil companies," Cantwell said. "That's why I am prepared to use every procedural option available to me as a senator to prevent this language from moving forward."
The showdown is likely to come on Wednesday when the Senate is expected to vote to force an end to debate. Sixty votes are needed to break a filibuster that Cantwell has promised. Neither side would say whether it had the votes to prevail.
Alaska Republican Ted Stevens triggered the tempest by getting permission to add the ANWR language onto a $453 billion defense-spending bill. Stevens, who has been fighting to open the refuge for 25 years, argued that provision meshes with the bill because the military is the nation's largest consumer of oil.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
Disgusting liar.
One of our most pristine expanses of ice and snow will suffer 20 acres worth of destruction and fuel our economy for 100 years. Oh well I guess that snow is just to important to some idiots.
I thought the appropriations bills could not be fillibustered? that this was why ANWR was attached to that, so it could get a straight up or down vote.
Appropriations bills can be filibustered.
... and if it doesn't pass, it's a sweetheart deal for the Saudis.
The rules should go back to the way they were in the 1950s where you had to remain on the floor and have a quorum to maintain a fillibuster. Now you can recess, take breaks etc. and keep the bill locked up in debate.
Too bad we can't find some vast wasteland someplace in the US with oil. Wait a minute, what is tundra? Why I see that the definition is "The word tundra derives from the Finnish word for barren or treeless land." Sounds like wasteland to me.
Has anyone other than a self-righteous, condescending, whiney liberal tree-hugger ever really used the word "pristine"?
I think not.
So she puts the lives of carabou over the lives of our troops? I now see were the democrats stand.
Keep shooting at those feet, Maria. You guys don't know when to stop digging.
Won't this look good in a Senatorial ad along about October of 2006?
I think we all forgot what a great Poker player Bush is.
It's a sweetheart deal for the American economy and a big step towards oil independence -- an unexceptable state of affairs for the Left, apparently. Inconveniencing a few caribou and industrializing 20 acres of a desolate/frozen section of "Gaia" pains their delicate sensibilities to no end.
Let the Democrats shut down government.
No kidding. I don't think there's a single Dem who has the stamina for a true filibuster. And after they're all worn down, we'll just pass the friggin' thing anyway.
How much is gas in Seattle?
Maybe she's talking about potential caribou, as in caribou that could wander into the area for some reason?
I'm not sure that you want to pick a fight with Senator Stevens. As head of Appropriations, he could find a lot of red pencils to strike all appropriations for the State of Arkansas and any other state with a Senator voting to oppose cloture. Oh wait.....that would violate the comity of the Senate and Republicans won't do that.
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