Filibuster looming over ANWR shenanigans

[G_j]

the next 24 hours will be decisive

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5485214,00.html

Congress Struggles With Spending Cuts, Oil

Friday December 16, 2005 11:01 PM

By ANDREW TAYLOR

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans will work into the weekend in hopes that Congress will be able to wrap up a $40 billion-plus spending cut plan, though a fight over oil drilling in Alaska remains an obstacle.

The defense budget and the largest of the government's domestic appropriations bills remain unfinished as well.

The end-of-session chaos was dominated by a bid by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, to attach a plan for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling to a massive defense spending bill for the current year. That legislation blends Pentagon funding and money for the war in Iraq with hurricane relief aid and a scaled-down plan to fight avian flu.

<snip>
Democrats - who said Stevens was flouting the Senate's rules and traditions in trying to attach the drilling plan to the must-pass defense budget - are mounting a fierce drive in opposition and vowed to block the move via a filibuster or other parliamentary moves.

``We're pulling out all the stops with our people because this is outrageous,'' said a senior aide to Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

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http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/534430994.shtml

ANWR or else

Stevens engages in day-to-day battle for ANWR; Christmas recess no certainty

Rose Ragsdale

Petroleum News Contributing Writer

<snip>
“It’s going to be on one bill or the other before I go home,” said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a leading proponent of opening the Arctic plain to oil production.

<snip>
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GOP May Attach Arctic Drilling to Pentagon Budget

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121505Q.shtml

With a budget-cutting measure stymied by stiff resistance to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling, Congressional Republicans began exploring Wednesday a new tactic to win approval of both $45 billion in cuts and the drilling plan. Lawmakers and senior aides said they were seriously considering tacking the drilling proposal onto a Pentagon spending bill that must pass before Congress heads home in the next few days.
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***************TAKE ACTION ! *********************
The pro-drilling lobby is at it again! And this time they’re exploiting our armed forces.

Your tireless efforts and the refusal of some principled lawmakers to allow oil companies to destroy one of our last, great wild places has so far kept Arctic drilling out of the budget reconciliation act. Now the drilling lobby is trying to slip a provision that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into the defense appropriations bill.

It’s a dirty trick, and we can’t let them get away with it. Call your Senators right now to stop Big Oil's war on Arctic wildlife!

It’s shameless to exploit support for our troops for the sake of oil companies’ profits. It’s even worse that the pro-drilling forces in Congress would do so for the sake of drilling that would save Americans no more than a penny on a gallon of gas -- twenty years from now.

It wouldn’t save Americans much money, but drilling would destroy one of our greatest wildlife sanctuaries. Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling would ruin millions of acres of pristine habitat and threaten polar bears, caribou, and the Refuge’s other treasured creatures.

We have only a little time left to save this special place and the creatures that live there.

The next 24 hours will be decisive, so please call right now.

We have to spread the word to stop the sneak attack. After you call your Senators, forward this message to anyone you know who cares about saving our wildlife and hates dirty tricks!

Our arctic wildlife is counting on you, but you haven’t let them down so far. As always, thanks for all you do to protect our treasured wildlife!

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Do Know Someone in One of These States?

Arizona
Maine
Minnesota
Ohio
Oregon
Rhode Island
If so, forward this message to them right now!

Every call is important right now, but Senators from these states are especially crucial to protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.