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March 14, 2005

An Open Letter to Sen. Judd Gregg Re: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The following open letter went out today to Sen. Gregg's DC office, and to all major NH newspapers.

March 14, 2005

Senator Judd Gregg
393 Senate Russell Building
Washington, DC 20510

Re: An open letter to Senator Judd Gregg regarding the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Dear Senator Gregg,

It is my understanding that you, as the head of the Senate Budget Committee are helping the Bush administration and the powerful oil industry to open up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

Here is how the political end-run that you are facilitating works: by installing Refuge drilling in the budget, advocates of drilling avoid the legislative process. Using the budget process, only a one-vote majority will be required, and budget resolutions are not subject to filibusters. As you know, early in 2004, this tactic was defeated by a 52-48 vote margin. But now, with an additional 4 Republican votes after the 2004 election, the margin may be reversed.

"It was in the president's budget and we're trying to do what the president asked for," you told reporters on March 9, 2005. Is it a Senator’s job to do whatever the president says, whether it is right or wrong? I thought it was a Senator’s job to represent the best interests of the people in his or her state. For many reasons described below, I don’t think that’s what you’re doing here.

The fact that this plan is yet another case of arrogant neoconservative, we-know-better politics is only one problem with this backhanded 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 you and Mr. Bush 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.

Many conservationists argue that this end-run around the legislative process (a process in which drilling advocates have lost many times in past attempts to start drilling in the Refuge) is really a vendetta 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 decides whether or not oil and gas drilling should be allowed in pristine wild areas in the US.

It isn’t like the poor oil industry has been shut out of Alaska’s coastline. The Refuge contains the last 5% of the entire Alaskan coastal plain that does not already allow for oil drilling. Can’t they leave just one little bit for the huge diversity in wildlife that lives there?

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 US treasury. With conflicting figures on both sides of this argument, the likelihood of substantial environmental damage, and an already troubled US economy, it is clear that this type of gambling is irresponsible and does not belong in the US budget.

Mr. Gregg, when George W. Bush says that we need to be less reliant on foreign oil, he is speaking a partial truth. Why does he not say that 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, wouldn’t it be in our best interest to wean ourselves from this addiction as quickly as possible?

The US EPA estimates that by increasing the fuel efficiency of our vehicles by a mere 3 MPG, we would save about five times the amount of oil believed to be in the Refuge. But even this fact fails to address what’s really needed.

Perhaps the greatest danger related to oil use is global warming. Now, Mr. Gregg, I know that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and myriad oil lobbyists like to deny that global warming is actually happening. However, you may recall that recently a friend of the oil industry shocked the White House by stating that global warming is very real. 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 US". 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. They got him in the driver’s seat, but I guess he didn’t deliver what they wanted him to say. He told delegates at the January 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 you were a genuinely responsible politician who cared about his constituents and not special interests like the oil lobby, you would be leading the way to immediate changes to genuinely safe alternative, renewable energy sources.

Fortunately for your constituents, there is still time to stop this foolish political move you have tried to hide in the Senate budget process. I urge my fellow citizens of New Hampshire to contact your office and demand that you remove oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge immediately from the Senate’s budget resolutions. I also urge Senator John Sununu’s constituents to contact him and demand that he not support passing the Senate’s budget resolutions as long as your oil provision is part of it.

Finally, since two things at issue here are transparency in government and accountability of representatives, as a citizen of New Hampshire and a constituent of yours, I call on you to publicly address the points I make in this open letter.

Sincerely,

Tom Jackson
Portsmouth, NH

CC VIA EMAIL:

Portsmouth Herald
Fosters Newspapers
Mount Washington Valley Newspapers
Concord Monitor
Nashua Telegraph
Manchester Union Leader
Keene Sentinel

Posted by Joe Public at March 14, 2005 12:50 PM

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