As it was pointed out earlier today by someone in the comments section, we lost this round of the ANWR fight in large part thanks to the actions of three Democrats who chose to vote with the Republicans against the Cantwell amendment. As the final vote was 51-49, we would have won had just two of them chosen to vote with the rest of their party. My hope is that somehow Hawaiian Senators Akaka and Inouye, and Louisiana Senator Landrieu are made to see what’s really at risk here, and just how much their votes have cost us… With that said, however, we shouldn’t dwell too long on the defeat, but instead start thinking about what can still be done. On that subject, here’s a post from someone named Lorax at the Daily Kos site as to possible next steps:
1. Focus on defeating the entire Senate budget. This is a distinct possibility, if we can cobble together a coalition of Arctic Wildlife Refuge drilling opponents and enough fiscally conservative Republicans to oppose this bloated, deficit-expanding budget. It is very common for budgets to go unapproved. Dems can offer to support the budget if Arctic Wildlife Refuge drilling is removed.
2. The House budget does not include a provision for Arctic drilling. This is somewhat of an anomaly, as the House has been much more enthusiastic in the past about drilling the Arctic Wildlife Refuge than has the Senate. The budgets will have to undergo a reconciliation process, and maybe we can use this as another bottleneck to protect our national treasure.
3. Worst-case scenario–the budget passes both houses with a provision to open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Then we take it to the corporations. BP and ConocoPhillips, while not model corporate citizens, have renounced their desire to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. We can support them by only buying gas from them and their subsidiaries, while boycotting ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, the satan-spawn corporations behind this administration and drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. We can hit them where it hurts. A majority of Americans oppose drilling the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and we can get many of them to boycott the soulless Houston bastards behind this crap.
3 Comments
This article about Landrieu’s vote might be of interest to people:
http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/library-72/1111043557302230.xml?nola
She traded her vote for funding to mitigate Louisiana’s eroding wetlands. That might sound like trading one environment for another..but Louisiana’s interest in the wetlands seems to be more about protecting the fishing and oil industries while ensuring that New Orleans doesn’t slip into the Gulf.
Any clue as to why the votes from Hawaii were cast that way? Being non-contiguous, do they have some sort of special pact with Alaska?
They say that it has to do with native peoples having control of their land but I tend to think it was that C-130 with the cargo hold full of cash that Cheney flew down there.