by Tom Jackson

Our senator, Judd Gregg, head of the Senate Budget Committee, recently gave the Bush administration and the powerful oil industry a big boost in their push to open up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

Congress has taken up the drilling issue in the past. In the full legislative process, with debate and a greater majority vote required, attempts to open up the Refuge have failed. However, Gregg facilitated a political end-run two weeks ago. By installing a provision for Refuge drilling in the budget, advocates of drilling avoided the legislative process. Using the budget process, only a one-vote majority was required, and budget resolutions are not subject to filibusters. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced an amendment to the budget to remove the provision that allows oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge, but after the 2004 elections, advocates of drilling went from being a slight minority to a slight majority. Cantwell's amendment was voted down, 51-49, with both Gregg and Sen. John Sununu voting against it, the only New England senators to do so.

The budget itself has not passed yet, and there are still steps through which it must proceed. The House budget resolution has no provision for drilling in the Refuge. The issue will come up for debate, probably this month. Environmentalists are strategizing how to proceed. Concerned citizens are encouraged to continue voicing their objection to their Senate and House representatives.

just bad policy

The fact that this plan is yet another case of arrogant neoconservative, we-know-better politics is only one problem with this backhanded, stick-it-in-the-budget tactic.

Advocates of drilling make it sound as though there are enormous oil reserves in the part of the refuge they wish to open. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey and even oil company executives say that there is only a few months' worth of oil in the area that drilling advocates want to open up. Furthermore, that oil would not be available for a decade. Plain and simple, it is bad policy to damage one of the last pristine areas in North America for a speculated few months' worth of an energy resource we should be phasing out.

It is fiscally irresponsible to include this budget provision as well: the exact amount of oil to be had in the Refuge is unknown. It is impossible to accurately predict how much revenue it would add to the U.S. treasury. With conflicting figures on both sides of this argument, the likelihood of substantial environmental damage, and an already troubled U.S. economy, it is clear that this type of gambling is irresponsible and does not belong in the U.S. budget.

Many conservationists argue that this end-run around the legislative process is really a payback designed to put conservationists on notice that neoconservatives are going to go ahead and do as they please-legislative process, environmental concerns and public participation be damned. In 2004, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) told a group of high-ranking Republicans that the ongoing argument over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is "symbolic." The larger debate is about who controls our public lands.

It isn't like the poor oil industry has been shut out of Alaska's coastline. The Refuge contains the last 5 percent of the entire Alaskan coastal plain that does not already allow for oil drilling.

This area is one of the last pristine parts of North America. Millions of migratory birds nest and feed in the Refuge. The largest migratory caribou herd in the world uses the area that Gregg's provision targets for drilling. That area is also a polar bear denning area. For thousands of years, the Gwich'in Nation (Caribou People) have lived beside the targeted area and consider it a sacred place. The oil industry and the U.S. government should honor the wishes of the Gwich'in people, and the estimated 60+ percent of the U.S. public who oppose drilling in this pristine land.

it's called survival

Gregg's actions are of concern for many reasons-among them, transparency in government, adherence to a representative legislative process, environmental concerns and human rights. And there's one other little matter for concern that's at issue, here: our own survival.

When George W. Bush says that we need to be less reliant on foreign oil, he is speaking a partial truth. We need to be less reliant on oil-period. Considering the political strife caused by control over oil, and the environmental damage its use causes, it would be in our best interest to wean ourselves from this addiction as quickly as possible.

Perhaps the greatest danger related to oil use is global warming. For years, Bush denied that global warming was a reality. Now he admits it's happening, but in both words and actions has made it clear that even if there is something we can do about it, he isn't going to lead the way. He even chose to ignore a scientist whom he helped place in a prominent position. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by representatives of 114 governments in January 2005 that he believes the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." He called for immediate, "very deep" cuts in pollution, stating that it is a matter of the survival of humanity.

The Bush administration thought Dr. Pachauri was going to say whatever they wanted him to say. Exxon specifically asked the Bush administration in a memorandum to the White House in early 2001 to get the previous chairman of the IPCC, Dr. Robert Watson, "replaced at the request of the U.S." The Bush administration then aggressively lobbied member countries in favor of installing Dr. Pachauri, believing that based on his past, he would make declarations favorable to the oil industry. Instead, he told delegates at the January 2005 conference, "Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose."

Our oil use should be treated like the crisis that it is, and if Bush, Gregg and Sununu were genuinely responsible representatives who cared about their constituents and not special interests like the oil lobby, they would be leading the way to immediate changes to genuinely safe alternative, renewable energy sources. Most of the rest of the world has recognized the need for immediate change. It is clear that under the current administration, we are on our own to find ways to make oil use a thing of the past.

One thing Sen. Gregg and other advocates of drilling in the Refuge can be sure of-the battle has just begun.