[Praetorian]

Just putting this out for comments.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling could harm caribou, snow geese and other wildlife, a new U.S. government study said on Friday,

For the love of Pete, who really gives a damn?

[AlGone2001]

I'll fell morally superior for providing these animals a better quality of life while Saddam Hussein sales oil to us to provide money for military arms and nuclear technology.

/sarcasm (not aimed at you)

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

If we continue to be held hostage to imported oil, we run the risk of a repeat of 1974. One hundred million people waiting over an hour to get gas, or, odd license plates on odd dates, or, maybe no gas at all--we'll see if anybody really gives a flying fornication about caribou or snow geese.

[Praetorian]

Environmental groups oppose the plan, saying drilling would destroy a scenic place sometimes called "America's Serengeti" and would also fail to yield any sizable amount of oil for several years.

I find it odd how not getting an appreciable amount of oil for several years is a valid argument. It would take a few years just to get the operation online once they started. In any case it is a long term project. What do they expect, that the oil will flow immediately and abundantly. This study doesn't seem to provide much in the way of concrete evidence

[RightWhale]

BP has decided not to drill exploratory wells this year in NPR-A, which is to the other side of Prudhoe from ANWR in a very similar environment. BP has declined to drill this year because of market conditions rather than concern over the pristine environment.

[lowbridge]

The department is still filled with a bunch of clinton appointees and enviromentalist wackos. You know the kind: The same ones who would put phony lynx hairs on rubbing posts.

[Shermy]

The estimated 300 oxen living year-round in the plain may be weakened if they are forced to move away from a drilling area, the report said.

I wish we had someone to read through this propaganda. I don't doubt unacceptable damage can done, but what does this report show? The oxen moved from point A to Point B, they expended calories doing so, and they are "weakened." This smells like one of those fake lynx hair stories.

Anyway, it's about the Natural Gas, not so much the oil, which the environmentalists are completely clueless about, as are many others.

[kcvl]

Opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling could harm caribou, snow geese and other wildlife, a new U.S. government study said on Friday, despite the Bush administration's assurances that oil exploration would have little impact.

What government NUT did that study?!

[Williams]

No matter that the report is based on drilling activities that are no longer proposed. Why focus on a silly detail like that? It is scary that most senators oppose developing oil from the edge of the world which is needed by an enormous superpower with hundreds of millions of people. As I have mentioned many times, the caribou did not go to ANWR this year. They stayed hundreds of miles away in Canada. The article also makes it sound like drilling would cover this South Carolina sized park, whereas it is proposed for the extreme Northern and inhospitable 1%.

Oh, and it will take a few years to get the oil. So don't get started. And do you think that Bush is motivated by the fact he is a "former oilman," as opposed to his concerns about the United States?

[kayak]

The idea of drilling in ANWR is an outrage ...... clearly it is detrimental to the wildlife, who are fearful of these man-made structures.

And how could we consider destroying such magnificent scenery. Obviously whole square feet would be disturbed.

[Cicero]

Another instance of what happens because Bush didn't broom the clintonoids out of his government. If the Interior Department doesn't believe in this report, then why the devil did they allow it to be released? Or written in the first place? Clinton would NEVER have allowed anyone working for him to embarrass him like this--and he had a lot more to be embarrassed about.

[alaskanfan]

ANWR is not just about oil. More here

[balrog666]

Opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling could harm caribou, snow geese and other wildlife...

Could? Could? But not will? Then who cares? DO IT!

[Commiewatcher]

I wonder why it is they have wells all over the place in the Canadian Northwest Territories yet I never hear a major bitch from our neighbors to the north about 'destroying the environment'. Sen. Murkowski displayed a very revealing comparison map on the Senate floor of the many, many wells in the NWT vs. the very few in Alaska.

Same type of environment and Canada seems to be successful, so what gives??

[Texbob]

What they are really saying is that the drilling would be harmful to Sen. Land Scam Artist Hillary Clinton and young lady killer Sen. Ted Kennedy.

[montag813]

Why can't we just relocate these animals to the West Bank? there are so many there already.

[dawn53]

The herd, which has dwindled to an estimated 123,000 animals

Is this an oxymoron? Dwindled=123,000

[steve-b]

That's what Bush gets for failing to clean out the Clinton residue....