By Jack London on Monday, October 9, 2000 - 05:23 am:
I'd be curious to hear Steve, AK's opinion on this one but I seem to have lost his email address(hope he's still tuned in):
October 9, 2000 It's Not Oil vs. Beauty in the Arctic By FRANK H. MURKOWSKI
WASHINGTON — Clinging to a position that would prevent America from developing some of the most promising of its domestic energy resources, Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman have repeatedly stated their opposition to oil exploration in a tiny sliver of the Arctic Coastal Plain. They say it would yield only a six-month supply of oil, and only at the cost of the destruction of a pristine wilderness. In suggesting that we must choose between Arctic oil and environmental protection, they are presenting a false choice. What is at stake here, according to the latest estimates of the United States Geological Survey, is 16 billion barrels of oil — an amount sufficient to replace all of our imports from Saudi Arabia for the next 30 years. And it can be extracted and moved to consumers in the "lower 48" states without harming the wildlife that inhabits the coastal plain at various times of the year. More than 25 years of experience at nearby Prudhoe Bay, a region that has supplied America with roughly 25 percent of its domestic oil production since the late 1970's, have shown that energy production and environmental protection can coexist. At the time Prudhoe Bay was discovered, some claimed that oil development would devastate the central Arctic caribou herd. Today that herd is more than triple the size it was then. Nesting populations of migratory birds in the area are also on the rise. It is clear that we now have the technology that can both develop the oil and protect the environment. The 19 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is roughly the size of South Carolina. In 1980, Congress declared 8 million acres of the refuge as strictly protected wilderness and an additional 9.5 million as refuge lands off limits to energy exploration. Mindful of the fact that the remaining 1.5 million acres of coastal plain was North America's best and last hope of a giant oil discovery, Congress designated the coastal plain as a special study area that could be opened to oil and gas leasing. In the intervening years, a federal environmental impact study has shown that exploration of the coastal plain could occur during the winter, when animals are not present and no habitat would be disturbed, to determine if any recoverable oil is even present. If a large oil field were found, the oil could be developed using directional drilling technology, which requires very little use of land at the surface. It would disturb only 2,000 acres or less of the flat, treeless tundra that makes up the coastal plain. In other words, we can determine if the oil is there with no environmental impact at all, and if a very large field were found, we could develop it with minimal environmental impact. The sad fact is, at present, we aren't even allowed to look. America will remain dependent on oil for the foreseeable future, and increasingly, our dependency is on foreign oil. During the Clinton-Gore years, our oil imports have soared 17 percent while domestic production has decreased 14 percent. We now rely on foreign suppliers for 58 percent of our crude oil, and that reliance carries several risks. As we import more oil on foreign tankers, which lack the safety features required of American ships, the risk of oil spills increases. Pushing production out of America to nations without our environmental standards increases global environmental risks. Moreover, our growing dependence on foreign oil, including oil from Iraq, is inconsistent with our foreign policy objectives. And we endanger our economy as we rely increasingly on a cartel for an essential resource. Mr. Gore and Mr. Lieberman heralded the recent release of oil from our existing Strategic Petroleum Reserve as instrumental in easing prices and building inventories of heating oil. But they oppose looking for the oil field that many geologists think may be under Alaska's coastal plain — a huge field that could have a meaningful and sustained effect on consumer prices. We are flirting with danger by refusing even to see what may lie under the coastal plain. Frank H. Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska, is chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
By Rich Brautigan on Monday, October 9, 2000 - 03:48 am:
Mr. Pinguid:
Did you happen to catch the recent staging of Arrogant Worms at the Calumet Theater? As you and I both know, the Upper Great Lakes worm population is a relatively recent immigrant(their local antecedents having perished during the Wisconsin Glaciation period). And this, of course, is what brings me to my current preoccupation with this squirmy subject.
How are your nightcrawler cloning experiments coming along? Is MTU still interested in the DNA patent you've proffered? Is there really an economic future in a new Annelid that nourishes sandy soil, provides brook trout bait and, shall we say, deposits a uniquely valuable psychological pharmaceutical that can be mined by those so entrepreneurially inclined?
I anxiously await your reply!
Trout Fishing in America
PS: See you at this Tuesday's Northern Lights Cuong Nhu Martial Arts Class in Negaunee(don't forget to bring your chi!)
By kewee on Sunday, October 8, 2000 - 09:36 pm:
There's much to be said about your point, orkilla. Kids who are eighteen and eligible are certainly counted as voters. I would like to see the stats from the Keweenaw Academy (and one more time, the label is a joke!).
By LMT on Sunday, October 8, 2000 - 08:31 pm:
Hey orkilla YOU CALL THE COUNTY CLERK!
Ask her about the fact that Ms.J is appealing this order, and there won't be a meeting because of it.
Seems to me she is stalling.
Running scared perhaps, that maybe all the non hill faction don't want the zba to reach the only conclusion they can!
Call em like I see em
LMT
By orkilla on Sunday, October 8, 2000 - 07:41 pm:
Oh the tangled web. The water is murky in the Keweenaw again. This time it has to do with underhandedness. Paul, do us all a favor, check with the clerk at the courthouse on how many students at Keweenaw Academy have been registered to vote for CZAR Lyle? And Mt. Bohemia? The water is murky, seems like that brown stuff on the fan has washed off into the lake. Swim silent, swim deep, swim, swim swim.
