Posted on 02/23/2017 11:57:00 AM PST by BradtotheBone
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) Former U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski in 2001 gave a speech urging colleagues to approve oil drilling in America's largest wildlife refuge. The Alaska Republican held up a blank sheet of paper to illustrate his point.
The field of white, he said, was all you could see each winter on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, implying that such a barren landscape would not be harmed by oil rigs.
Sixteen years later, Murkowski's daughter is trying again. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is sponsoring legislation to open the refuge that takes up Alaska's northeast corner and is larger than West Virginia and Connecticut combined. With a Republican Congress and president, she's hopeful that the timing is right.
"If you ask me," she told The Associated Press by phone from Washington, D.C., "it's always been a good time to open it."
The coastal plain is not the apex of Alaska scenery, but it's a nursery for polar bears, muskoxen and the vast Porcupine Caribou Herd. Migratory birds from all 50 states nest there. Few people visit, but the coastal plain is part of a refuge that's the very definition of wilderness: no roads, no campgrounds, not even any established trails. Environmental groups are planning strategies to keep drill rigs out.
"There are some places that are just too sacred to drill," said Alli Harvey, a Sierra Club campaigner in Anchorage.
Legislation signed by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 created the Arctic National Wildlife "Range." Congress in 1980 changed the name, expanded the refuge to 30,136 square miles and declared much of it wilderness.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Yay!
Alaska Ping!
There’s absolutely know reason for us to be dependent on other countries for energy.
DRILL BABY, DRILL!!
....”There are some places that are just too sacred to drill,” said Alli Harvey, a Sierra Club campaigner in Anchorage.....
Anyone else need a lesson on why Environmentalism is a religion?
Progs are so cute...They use words they don't understand.
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