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The Arctic Refuge and Public Are About to Get Drilled

As my raft group paddled into an eddy on Alaska's Canning River for our final pullout, we experienced the reality of what Interior Secretary Gale Norton has dismissed as "flat white nothingness."
A fox scuttled across the tundra. A golden plover squawked at us. We found her nest on the tundra and gave it a wide berth.

Caribou materialized out of a fog bank coming off the Beaufort Sea. They vanished, and then reappeared. An Arctic tern registered its displeasure at our presence by relieving itself on the top of one tent.

The next day I strolled to the top of a nearby bluff. Twenty-four caribou crossed a stream just below me. Later, I awakened from a nap. Two caribou stood perhaps 20 to 30 feet upwind, sniffing for danger.

Back in camp, there were shouts. Two musk oxen trundled between the tents and the cooking area.

The Canning River, as western boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is ground zero in our nation's greatest land-use battle.

Its fate will be decided thousands of miles away, likely today in a U.S. Senate procedural vote.

Supporters of oil and gas drilling in the refuge put development of what they call "ANWR" into the Senate budget bill. By Senate rules, the budget resolution cannot be filibustered.

As of last night, the Bush administration was poised to win a wafer-thin victory. Pro-drilling votes of Hawaii's Democratic Sens. Dan Inouye and Daniel Akaka likely will offset defections by such GOP senators as John McCain and Lincoln Chafee.

Vice President Dick Cheney, architect of the Bushies' dig it-drill it energy policy, might be called upon to break a 50-50 vote.

Ninety-five percent of Alaska's coastline is presently open to oil exploration.

Drilling in the refuge has, however, been a goal of America's ruling political dynasty since "Poppy" Bush was inaugurated in 1989.

The coastal plain finds itself frequently demeaned by those who see the refuge not as America's greatest wilderness, but as a future site of haul roads and oil and gas platforms.

One oil company flack called it a "flat crummy place." Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, described Gwich'in Athabaskan natives, who oppose drilling, as "Canadian Indians who live in Alaska."

We've heard it before. Dismissive terminology is the favored rhetorical device of the world's wrecking crews.

Remember, a half-century ago, the Seattle editorialist who dismissed calls for a national park in the North Cascades as coming from "mountain climbers and bird watchers."

Gale Norton has been nicknamed the "Stepford Secretary" for her rote recitation of the party line. If the woman had music in her soul -- which she does not -- she might spend a day on the Canning River before the campground of our 2001 trip gets littered with 25-gallon drums.

The final push to drill the Arctic Refuge has a curious resemblance to America's politics of 100 years ago, only in reverse.

Under President Theodore Roosevelt, America was coming out of the Gilded Age. Given its name by Mark Twain, the Gilded Age was the opulent, corrupt era of the late 19th century in which corporate moguls ruled the country.

The trust-busting Roosevelt inaugurated a progressive era.

He created our national forest system and designated national monuments in the Grand Canyon and Olympic Mountains. He protected the vast estuary of Alaska's Copper River Delta from exploitation by greedy coal barons.

America today is entering a new Gilded Age. The Arctic Refuge and the American public have this in common: Both are about to get drilled.

A 2004 Medicare "reform" bill insulated the pharmaceutical industry from price competition.

The bankruptcy "reform" act, passed last week by Congress, is a multibillion-dollar boon to the credit card industry.

A recent tort "reform" bill moved damage suits into federal courts, which are less likely to yield big judgments to Americans who are maimed by defective or shoddy products.

The environmental record, established under Teddy Roosevelt, is being put in reverse.

President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, created what was then called the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960 as one of his last acts in office. A bill in Congress would name the coastal plain after Ike.

Susan Eisenhower, the president's granddaughter, last week called for preservation of the coastal plain, and appealed for the GOP not to turn its back on this legacy.

"I believe the Republican Party has had an outstanding historical tradition, when you think of the leadership it gave to civil rights, when you think of the leadership it gave to the environmental movement, to the balanced budget process," said Eisenhower. "These are solid Republican traditional values."

"I don't believe good stewardship goes out of style, frankly," she added.

A modest use of intelligence could preserve the Arctic Refuge, and take America in a new direction.

The refuge would likely satisfy six months of America's demand for petroleum. Increasing fuel efficiency standards for new cars and SUV's would save far more oil than the coastal plain could ever produce.

As Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., tirelessly points out, hundreds of thousands of Americans could be put to work were the country to commit itself to develop renewable sources of energy.

Instead, it's back to the future.

The Canning River may well be crisscrossed by haul roads and platforms the next time I see it.

It'll be a crying, bloody shame. Why? Allow for a few concluding words by a fellow refuge visitor (and son of Yakima), the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas:

"The Arctic has a call that is compelling ... it is a call to adventure. This is not a place to possess like the plateaus of Wyoming or the valleys of Arizona. It is one to behold with wonderment.

"It is a domain for any restless soul who yearns to discover the startling beauties of creation in a place of quiet and solitude where life exists without molestation by man."
 
 

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