Don't forget the bug dope...
 Kaktovik, Alaska |
Could be good TV.
Will the CSPAN crew follow?
Posted on 03/27/2003 9:41:19 AM PST by Trailer Trash
Congress plans ANWR hearing in Kaktovik
Article Published: Thursday, March 27, 2003 - 3:06:27 AM AKST
WASHINGTON--Congress will hold a hearing next month on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil drilling issues in the closest place to the refuge with a roof and a microphone: the village of Kaktovik.
Rep. Richard Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, plans to hold the hearing on April 5.
The military will provide a jet to deliver members of Congress, according to Pombo's spokesman, Doug Heye.
The committee will consider two pieces of legislation: Alaska Rep. Don Young's bill to open the refuge coastal plain to oil drilling and Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey's bill to make the plain an official federal wilderness area.
Markey, after Pombo scheduled a hearing on Young's drilling bill in Washington earlier this month, challenged the chairman to also hold a hearing on the wilderness proposal.
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Pombo responded by saying he would do so--in Kaktovik. The village sits on Barter Island, just north of the refuge. Kaktovik leaders have supported drilling in recent testimony to Congress.
Markey wrote Pombo back March 20, asking that the hearing in Kaktovik be held before the committee takes any action on the oil drilling bill. Holding a hearing on a wilderness proposal after the committee had already approved drilling would serve no purpose, Markey observed.
Heye, Pombo's spokesman, said the chairman hadn't decided whether to schedule action on the drilling bill prior to the April 5 hearing. Even if the committee passes the drilling bill prior to the hearing, the information generated would still be useful for the debate before the full House, Heye said.
Markey, in his March 20 letter, also challenged the wisdom of using a military aircraft.
"I do not feel it would be appropriate to ask the military to divert its attention from the war to make it possible to take testimony on an issue which has already been decided by the committee," Markey wrote.
Heye said the committee had cleared such questions with the military beforehand.
"These are not the kind of planes that would be used in a military theater like Iraq," Heye said. "We asked the military at the very beginning 'Will this be an issue should anything occur?' and we were told point blank 'No.'"
Markey's spokesman, Israel Klein, said that wasn't the point.
"It's not a question of the equipment being used," he said. "It's a question of expending any kind of military resource on something that is not a national security priority in a time of war."
Klein said Markey hasn't been given any official notification of the hearing and so couldn't commit to attending.
"I would think that he would want to attend a hearing on his own bill," Heye said.
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be reached at sbishop@newsminer.com or (202) 662-8721.
Don't forget the bug dope...
Kaktovik, Alaska |
Could be good TV.
Will the CSPAN crew follow?
If I were the Speaker of the House, I'd have one rule in place when it comes to these stupid bills. Any member of Congress who sponsors a bill to restrict development in an area outside their home district would first have to travel on foot from their district to the area in question. Until that happens, the bill doesn't get put on the floor.
They got that decades ago in ANCSA. Ignore it if you want, but the Native claims are settled. The issue is over, even if a few malcontents continue to demand all of Alaska while they are sitting waiting for a fish to bite.
Most people don't like anything that comes out of Congress. The village should get in line to file their complaint. Either that or declare independence and go to war like the little kingdom in "The Mouse That Roared." Continual whining is unseemly and beneath the village; leave that for the French.
You're right, I don't know much about the plight of the lower 48, except Cherokee lost the war. Alaska is my backyard.
There are no reservations in Alaska. The closest thing to being a reservation is Venetie.
I welcome having the hearing at Kaktovik (Barter Island). Let those do-gooders get an earful from those who really owned the land before it was stolen from them by congress.
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