NY Times reported without challenge Sen. Stevens's claim that Senate promised to open ANWR for drilling
SUMMARY: The New York Times reported without challenge Sen. Ted Stevens's (R-AK) claim that in 1980, the Senate promised to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil drilling. In fact, the 1980 law creating ANWR only said that it would be up to Congress to decide whether to give permission to drill.
A December 22 New York Times article by Carl Hulse reported without challenge Sen. Ted Stevens's (R-AK) assertion that his push to gain authorization for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was an attempt to force the Senate to fulfill a 1980 promise to allow the drilling. Stevens recently attempted to gain approval for drilling in ANWR by attaching an amendment to a defense appropriations bill, a move that angered some Democratic and Republican senators who argued that it violated Senate rules prohibiting the addition of extraneous measures to bills being considered in conference committees. As a December 22 Washington Post article by Juliet Eilperin reported, Democrats and Republicans opposed to Stevens's amendment filibustered the defense bill, and the Senate subsequently "agreed to pass the defense bill, without the drilling provision."
In describing the rejection of the defense bill containing Stevens's amendment, the Times reported: "Mr. Stevens denied that he had upended any rules and said he was only trying to do right by his state and force the Senate to follow through on a promise made in 1980 to allow drilling in the refuge."
But as a December 23 Sacramento Bee article by Liz Ruskin and Rob Hotakainen noted, the purported "promise" to allow drilling in ANWR came from two senators in particular -- Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) and Paul Tsongas (D-MA), two key sponsors of the 1980 bill that expanded Alaska's 9.5-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Range to create the 19-million-acre land preserve now known as ANWR. The promise allegedly made to Stevens by Jackson and Tsongas did not come from the Senate as a whole; in fact, the 1980 bill creating ANWR left it to a future Congress to decide whether to drill in the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain area of ANWR. The question of whether to open this area to drilling was the topic of recent debate in the Senate.
The Bee reported:
Congress couldn't decide what to do with the far northeastern corner of the state, the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge, which was believed to be an excellent oil prospect but also important to caribou and other wildlife. Alaska's senators wanted it available for oil development and Democratic leaders wanted it protected as wilderness.
In the end, they compromised. The 1980 law says the land would be studied and a future Congress would decide what to do with it. So Stevens keeps trying.
He often says that he actually won the fight back in 1980. The two Democrats in charge of the bill, Sens. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts and Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, promised to allow oil drilling on the coastal plain, Stevens insists. It burns him that some of the strongest opposition to drilling ANWR now comes from the senators from those states.
"These people are filibustering fulfilling the commitment of Senator Tsongas and Senator Jackson," Stevens complained this week. "Those two gentlemen left us prematurely and, as a consequence, we have fought now for 25 years to fulfill that commitment."
But if Stevens did win that promise from the senators, he didn't win it in law.
As the Post noted on December 22, the 1980 law creating ANWR -- on which Stevens said he struck his deal with Tsongas and Jackson -- contained language "saying only [Congress] could determine whether drilling was permissible in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." The bill did not contain a promise to open part of ANWR to oil drilling. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (16 U.S.C. §§ 3101-3233) states: "Production of oil and gas from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is prohibited and no leasing or other development leading to production of oil and gas from the range shall be undertaken until authorized by an Act of Congress."
Is there a bigger LOSER in Congress than Sen. Stevens? Or crybaby?
Bigger losers, certainly. Bigger crybabies, no way.
What an effing goofball. Get a load of that Hulk tie. If I were an Alaskan I'd sure be embarrassed.
Sorry, I was channeling Henry Blake from M*A*S*H for a second (what's IN this eggnog, anyway?).
So Senators Tsongas and Jackson both "promised" Stevens, but they're todead to confirm it? How conveeeeeeeenient!
The tie is appropriate for a Republican member of "the World's Greatest Deliberative Body":
"HULK SMASH!
The New York Times' Carl Hulse' latest article on the defeated ANWR provision, which either he or his editor chose to supertitle 'The Overview', is, I hope, the last of his worthless reports on this matter; and if not, it matters little to me, who, as a Times reader, was glad to take the time to follow the U.S. Senate's completion of the Defense Appropriations bill, and quite inadvertently, to take the pulse of The Times (or more accurately, the pulse of Carl Hulse) on this matter; a weak pulse, but not yet gone; or not nearly as gone as the departed ANWR provision, which I as a Senate follower, am gladder still to bid goodbye, and…
Good Riddance.
But regards the latest nonsensical report on the matter by Carl Hulse; regards his (or his editor’s) 'Overview':
So now the defeat of the ANWR provision is a betrayal of trust?
Does Senator Stevens (or even reporter Hulse) have any idea at all what a trust is; any idea at all what the obligations of government and the Senate are; and to whom both government and the Senate are obliged?
Who thinks it’s the obligation of government and the Senate to (illegally) payback (imagined) promises; to hold the kidnapped Defense Appropriations bill for ($5 billion dollars) ransom; to (illegally) attach the ANWR provision to a defense measure; to do this with U.S. Troops in the field?
Who thinks these things?
I have an idea of who does and does not; Senator Stevens does (and perhaps the hopelessly unenlightened Carl Hulse also); but I know who does not think such things as those:
44 U.S. Senators did not think so; standing firm on a most firm Senate Rule 22, they did not think so; standing up for the People, they did not think so; for the people to whom government and the Senate are obliged, 44 U.S. Senators stood firm, and stood up; they stood firm on Senate Rule 22 and stood up for the People…
The People of the United States of America
..who at this time, this Christmas time, have their hearts with their sons and daughters who constitute our troops in the field; who are in the field I say; and who require our support, and our appropriations; who required (and got) our Defense Appropriations, despite those unenlightened sorts, who think that the obligations of government and the Senate are to (illegally) payback (imagined) promises; those who think that government and the Senate has some obligation other than to…
The People of the United States of America
…and their sons and daughters who stand in the field at this time, this Christmas time.
The Defense Appropriations bill goes forward; good riddance to the (illegally) attached ANWR amendment; good riddance to the most foolish mischaracterizations of the Senate’s actions this week, and the fools who mischaracterized them (a betrayal of trust?); I say good riddance to that, and to them.
That’s the ‘Overview’.
And to the sons and daughters of The People of the United States of America who constitute our troops in the field at this time, I say Godspeed on your redeployment home; Godspeed at this Christmas time.
Stevens takes contributions from the BIG OIL companies that lust to drill in ANWAR.
Stevens could add substantially to his children's TRUST fund if he could come through and deliver for his Oil buddies.
If he FAILS to deliver ... as he has for the past 25 years ... then it's a betrayal of his TRUST funds.
Another perfect example why term limits should be part of the political landscape, if not by law, at least by the voters. It is a shame that all the people do not have a say in the election of someone like this that in a lot of ways has more possible influence over national issues than even the President.