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International Indian Treaty Council CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS |
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10/25/2005 Statewide Arctic Update New Report documents How Drilling in the Arctic Refuge would violate Human Rights of Gwich'in -- www.gwichinsteeringcommittee.org Thank you to everyone for keeping those calls, faxes, emails, and letters to the editor going. This is not the time to give up. Many of you have been fighting for Arctic protection for years and years. You’ve dealt with a battle over the Arctic in the budget before and you came out victorious. Again and again, through several administrations, we have prevailed over attempts to drill in the Sacred Place Where Life Begins. Remind yourself that Congress has failed to pass a budget the last two out of three years. No matter what happens this round, we will need you again next year and the year after that until we permanently protect the coastal plain as Wilderness. Keep up the fight.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Majority leaders are moving forward by using the reconciliation process to justify authorization of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The plan is to use inflated revenue projections to raise $2.4 billion from leasing to oil and gas companies. Raising $2.4 billion from Arctic Refuge leasing will never happen, and if Congress includes these revenues in its Budget Reconciliation it will be giving away one of America’s greatest treasures at a bargain basement price. TIMING In the Senate last week, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee marked up and passed legislation that would authorize drilling in the 1.5 million acre coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge. This would allow for lease sales to begin (if the Senate passes the Reconciliation package) and therefore generate money to the Treasury. Next week the Budget committee will take all of the committees changes to law and fold them into a large Budget Reconciliation package for the Senate floor, but a vote is not likely to happen until at least November 18.
Tomorrow in the House, the House Resources Committee is scheduled to pass their language to open the Arctic Refuge. In addition to authorizing drilling, Representative Pombo (CA-R) may also include some weakening of the OCS moratoria. House Budget Committee will act the week of October 31. A floor vote is expected in the House, the week of November 7.
Because the Arctic drilling provision will be wrapped up in the larger Budget Reconciliation package, we will need to defeat entire package to defeat Arctic development. This is a tough ask for anyone, but the last vote on defeating the Budget Resolution in April failed by just three votes in either body. Since then, there has been renewed scrutiny of some of the fairly drastic cuts to entitlement programs in the Reconciliation package—cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and education funding. This gives us hope that the confluence of all these objectionable provisions might be enough to sink this massive bill.
Furthermore, the new Republican leadership was not able to amass the votes necessary to boost the Resolution cuts from $35.7 billion to $50 billion in an effort to offset mounting Katrina relief costs. They postponed an amendment to achieve these additional savings to next week. If they succeed in mustering the votes to change the budget targets, it will make conference with the Senate even more difficult.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Contact your friends and family and ask them to call their legislators immediately to urge them to vote against any reconciliation package that includes provisions to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This effort to drill in the Arctic Refuge is a policy decision, masquerading as a revenue raiser. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge won’t raise the money the committees say it will, or reduce money at the pump, so it’s misleading to include it in the reconciliation bill. There are several reasons why the American people and the Congress should be skeptical of these fuzzy numbers:
Legislators who especially need to hear our message:
SENATE TARGETS:
Senator/State Phone Fax [all start with (202) area code]: Republicans who have voted previously to protect the Arctic but feel pressured to vote for the budget despite Arctic being included.
John McCain, Arizona: 224-2235 228-2862 Olympia Snowe, Maine 224-5344 224-1946 Susan Collins, Maine 224-2523 224-2693 Norm Coleman, Minnesota 224-5641 224-1152 Gordon Smith, Oregon 224-3753 228-3997
HOUSE TARGETS:
State/District, Representative Phone Fax [all start with (202) area code]: 24 of these Republicans signed a letter asking Arctic drilling not be included in the budget reconciliation package.
Connecticut 5, Nancy Johnson 225-4476 225-4488 Connecticut 4, Chris Shays 225-5541 225-9629 Connecticut 2, Robert Simmons 225-2076 225-4977 Delaware, Michael Castle 225-4165 225-2291 Illinois 15, Timothy Johnson 225-2371 226-0791 Illinois 10, Mark S. Kirk 225-4835 225-0837 Iowa 2, Jim Leach 225-6576 226-1278 Maryland 6, Roscoe Bartlett 225-2721 225-2193 Maryland 1, Wayne Gilchrest 225-5311 225-0254 Michigan 3, Vernon Ehlers 225-3831 225-5144 Michigan 7, Joe Schwarz 225-6276 225-6281 Minnesota 6, Mark Kennedy 225-2331 225-6475 Minnesota 3, Jim Ramstad 225-2871 225-6351 New Hampshire 2, Charles Bass 225-5206 225-2946 New Hampshire 1, Jeb Bradley 225-5456 225-5822 New Jersey 7, Michael Ferguson 225-5361 225-9460 New Jersey 11, Rodney Frelinghuysen 225-5034 225-3186 New Jersey 4, Christopher Smith 225-3765 225-7768 New Jersey 2, Frank LoBiondo 225-6572 225-3318 New Jersey 3, Jim Saxton 225-4765 225-0778 New York 24, Sherwood Boehlert 225-3665 225-1891 New York 19, Sue Kelly 225-0544 225-3289 New York 25, James Walsh 225-3701 225-4042 Pennsylvania 8, Mike Fitzpatrick 225-4276 225-9511 Pennsylvania 6, Jim Gerlach 225-4315 225-8440 South Carolina 4, Bob Inglis 225-6030 225-1177 Virginia 11, Thomas Davis 225-1492 225-3071 Wisconsin 6, Thomas Petri 225-2476 225-2356 Wisconsin , James Sensenbrenner 222-5101 No fax Washington 8, Dave Reichert 225-7761 225-4282
Activist Resources and Contacts
Learn more about the Arctic and Budget Process: http://www.sierraclub.org/wildlands/arctic/budget_process.asp
Need facts on wildlife and cultural impacts, gas prices, how much oil is in the refuge? This link has great fact sheets: http://www.arcticrefugeaction.org/about_refuge/
For information on fish and wildlife in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: http://arctic.fws.gov/index.htm --- Send letters to Alaska papers: Anchorage Daily News: www.adn.com Juneau Empire: www.juneauempire.com Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: http://www.news-miner.com/ --- How to contact the US Congress: http://www.vote-smart.org/congressional_resources.php How to contact the Alaska State Legislature: http://w3.legis.state.ak.us/home.htm.
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