Free Republic

An elderly caller to Dan Lavallo's program on WWCO-AM told a harrowing tale Wednesday about energy prices. The man keeps his home thermostat at 40 F during the day, raising it slightly at night to ensure the pipes don't freeze. He is trying to make 200 gallons of oil last the heating season. His is the most dire story we've heard to date, but he is not alone in feeling the pinch. Heating oil was about $2.50 a gallon after Labor Day but climbed to $3.15 this week, and is expected to rise further when $100-a-barrel oil hits the market....

The Senate's energy chief last week revamped an old strategy to almost guarantee passage of legislation that would open up parts of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. Sen. Pete V. Domenici, as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, plans to incorporate ANWR tax incentives and the $3.2 billion in projected revenues from oil development into this year's unwritten budget resolution.

Kevin Hand the new executive director of Arctic Power, the pro drilling lobby group based in Washington has told the Fairbanks News Miner newspaper that he believes drillers have picked up supporters in the Carolinas, Florida, and South Dakota. Advocates counted 48 supporters in the US Senate last year including reported tiebreakers and Democrats.Today they believe they have 51 supporters.The first step in the process will be to count ANWR lease revenues in the annual budget resolution.The resolution, which is supposed to be done by April, sets the overall income and expenditures that Congress expects to live by in the...

A group supporting the opening of a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for "environmentally safe" oil exploration and drilling is urging Americans to support a congressional effort to include a provision to authorize it in an upcoming energy bill. J. Zane Walley, executive director of the Alamogordo, N.M.-based Environmental Conservation Organization, a property-rights group, is warning energy prices could climb to astronomical levels if the U.S. continues to import most of its oil. Oil exploration rig in largely uninhabitable area of Alaska National Wildlife Refuge "In about a decade, almost 70 percent of our oil and...

Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Republican lawmakers trying to craft an energy bill have decided to include a provision for oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge as part of the initial draft of the compromise legislation, congressional sources said today. The GOP "discussion draft" will include a House-favored provision that would allow oil development of the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as long as the footprint of development is limited to 2,000 acres. The draft language, which is sure to be strongly opposed by Democrats involved in the energy talks, was to be formally unveiled...

The White House is easing away from insisting that Congress open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling after the president was told by lawmakers the issue could doom energy legislation. President Bush, after meeting with legislators involved in the energy talks, said Wednesday he wanted a bill "that will pass both bodies" — the House and Senate. He said the White House would work with those trying to resolve "contentious" issues such as drilling in the Alaska refuge. To the lawmakers present, it was a clear signal that the White House is willing to accept energy legislation without a...

As I write this, I'm huddled in a tent on the tundra of the wildest part of America, about 175 miles above the Arctic Circle in the last great wilderness virtually untouched by humans other than Eskimos and Indians. This fate of this wildlife refuge is to be decided by politicians in Washington in perhaps the most contentious debate about the environment today. Supporters of oil drilling make much of the fact that almost none of those who insist on protecting this refuge have ever seen it or ever will, and they sometimes argue that it is a frozen wasteland...

Was anybody watching "The Factor" last week as PO'd as I was at the guest O'Reilly picked to discuss gasoline prices? Let's make sure O'Reilly knows what the real problem is: liberals (paid off by tree-huggers) who won't drill in ANWR. Simply cut-and-paste the letter below and email it to O'Reilly@foxnews.com . It is even better if you modify it and make it your own - but keep it short. Don't forget to put your name and town at the bottom of the email: _______________________________________________________ Dear Bill, I was outraged at your guest who implied that the recent price gouging...

<p>Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday that the Bush administration's "quiet diplomacy" kept global oil prices from skyrocketing during the war with Iraq.</p> <p>"We have emerged from that period in really much more stable and strong condition than other energy crises in the last 30 years," Mr. Abraham said in an interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times.</p>

WASHINGTON (May 2, 2003 5:48 p.m. EDT) - A photo exhibit showing untouched wilderness in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge opened Friday at the Smithsonian Institution - but not exactly as earlier planned. Instead of the prime exhibit space slated off the spacious, main-floor rotunda of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the 48-photo exhibit is being displayed in a basement hallway, behind an escalator. And instead of expansive descriptions the photographer, Subhankar Banerjee, prepared for captions, the photos have just terse descriptions of each photo's subject and location. Banerjee, a Calcutta, India-born physicist and freelance photographer who now...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives Friday passed a broad energy bill, which includes the Bush administration's plan to allow oil drilling in an Alaskan refuge that may hold up to 16 billion barrels of crude.</p> <p>The bill updates U.S. energy policy for the first time in a decade, with the most controversial provision in the legislation endorsing the White House's goal of giving oil companies access to part of the sprawling Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON - The House on Thursday night endorsed oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge, setting up a likely confrontation with the Senate as Congress struggles to produce a comprehensive energy policy.</p> <p>An attempt to strip a House energy bill of a provision that would allow development of the refuge's oil was turned back by a 228-197 vote. Drilling opponents argued more oil could be saved with higher auto fuel economy requirements than the refuge could produce.</p>

WASHINGTON - The House on Thursday night endorsed oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge, setting up a likely confrontation with the Senate as Congress struggles to produce a comprehensive energy policy. An attempt to strip a House energy bill of a provision that would allow development of the refuge's oil was rejected 228-197. Drilling opponents argued more oil could be saved with higher auto fuel economy requirements than the refuge could produce. Earlier, the House turned back a proposal to require a 5 percent reduction in fuel used by motor vehicles, including SUVs and pickup trucks, within seven years....

<p>WASHINGTON - The House is moving swiftly to enact energy legislation, hoping to revive a proposal for oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge and, in a boon to farmers, expand the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive.</p> <p>Both provisions were included Wednesday as separate committees crafted key parts of the energy legislation. Lawmakers said they expected an energy bill to be voted on by the full House, possibly as early as next week.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) - Rebuffed by the Senate, the Bush administration will not give up the fight this year to open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Saturday. The White House is turning its attention to the House in hopes of salvaging a key part of the president's energy strategy. Republicans fell two votes shy in the Senate of passing the legislation that could lead to removal of a 43-year-old ban on developing millions of barrels of oil from the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "We continue to press about ANWR, because...

<p>The Senate has defeated the keystone of President Bush´s energy policy — exploration of a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and natural gas. A Republican-controlled Senate, no less.</p> <p>The term “limousine liberal” had been retired from our quiver of rhetorical disdain. Cynicism and stupidity herald its return.</p>

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Senate votes against arctic drilling MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS By a 52-to-48 vote, the Senate on Wednesday defeated an attempt to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. With war looming in Iraq, proponents of drilling, most of them Republicans, had focused on energy security as they tried to lift a congressional ban on drilling in the refuge. IN THE END, lobbying by White House officials was unable to persuade two key Republicans, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, to support drilling on in the coastal plain of the Arctic...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection, praised the Senate for voting today, 52-48, to remove budget resolution language that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. "We are pleased that a majority of senators stood firm for protecting the incomparable Arctic refuge, a one-of-a-kind wilderness landscape. As America celebrates the 100th anniversary of our National Wildlife Refuge System, we are gratified that the Senate voted to keep America's largest refuge free of the noise, pollution, and loss of wildness that inevitably accompany...

Live discussion of upcoming Senate vote on ANWR drilling.

Republicans Fail to Get Alaska Refuge Drilling Measure, by the Narrowest of Margins By H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate on Wednesday narrowly rejected oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge, rebuffing the Bush administration on a top energy goal it had hoped to win with a wartime security appeal. Despite intense lobbying by pro-drilling senators and the White House in the hours leading up to the vote, Democrats mustered the support needed to remove a drilling provision from a budget resolution expected to be approved later this week. An amendment offered by Sen. Barbara...

Breaking ...

<p>One vote. That's all it would take for the Senate to add to the health of the nation by opening a sliver of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to energy exploration. Forty-nine senators appear to be willing to vote for a pro-drilling provision in a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation measure, a part of the 2004 budget resolution that is scheduled for vote on the Senate floor today.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - The Bush administration was poised for a major defeat in its proposed national energy policy as congressional Democrats said on Tuesday they have enough Senate votes to block drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Tapping the refuge's potential 16 billion barrels of crude is a central part of the administration's energy plan to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil imports. Environmentalists and many Democrats contend the pristine wilderness should be left untouched in favor of stricter oil conservation measures. Democrats said they had...

March 18, 2003 Republicans Resigned to Defeat on Alaska Wildlife Refuge Drilling PlanBy DAVID FIRESTONE ASHINGTON, March 17 — Senate Republican officials said today that they had been unable to muster enough votes to begin oil drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge, probably dooming the signature energy plan of the Bush administration. A vote on the drilling plan will probably take place by Friday or early next week, and lobbying groups in favor of oil production in Alaska say they have not given up hope of achieving a slim Senate majority. But Republican officials say they are not counting on...

In recent weeks American consumers have experienced two-dollar-per-gallon gasoline prices, and predictably, many politicians and commentators blame the "greed" of U.S. oil and power companies. The truth, however, is that shortages occur when demand exceeds supply, and that the American supply of energy is being strangled by the policies of U.S. federal and state governments. This is why the Senate should take the opportunity next week to vote for lifting current environmental restrictions that prevent oil drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). If the Senate carries through on this, it will be a great boon to American consumers. Geologists...

WASHINGTON - A Senate committee took the first step late Thursday toward a showdown over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska. In approving a broad blueprint for government spending, the Senate Budget Committee included a provision that would open the door to development of the Alaska refuge's oil. Democrats have promised to try to remove the measure when the budget resolution comes up for full Senate debate, but will need 51 votes to do so. Opening the refuge to drilling is one of President Bush's domestic priorities. Drilling supporters believe they have 49 votes and...

March 14, 2003 Both Sides Confident as Senate Nears Vote on Alaska DrillingBy DAVID FIRESTONE ASHINGTON, March 13 — As the Senate neared a close vote on whether to allow oil drilling in the Alaska wilderness, each side in the debate expressed confidence that it would prevail. Oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is among the highest priorities of the Bush administration, and the Senate's switch to Republican control after the November elections has put the drilling plan in closer reach than last year, when the Senate rejected it, 54 to 46. Supporters are seeking to persuade wavering...

I have a story in Wednesday's Total Stack of Stuff saying that we're only one vote away from winning congressional support for drilling in that frozen, useless corner of ANWR. Ah, screw it. We'll just drill in Iraq. How about that? To hell with Congress and everybody trying to thwart human progress. I'm fed up with everybody trying to stand in the way of decent, good things happening. For instance, I'm deluged with these e-mails on this absurd Exxon-Mobil boycott to supposedly bring down costs at the pump. It's just too absurd for words. If your objective is to drive...

<p>WASHINGTON - Soaring energy prices and the precarious nature of Persian Gulf oil are boosting the chances Congress will approve oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge.</p> <p>A showdown is nearing in the Senate on whether to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the Bush administration's top domestic priorities, and both sides say the outcome could hinge on a single vote.</p>

<p>THROUGHOUT the debate over oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, those in favor of drilling have said that previous drilling on Alaska's North Slope has had little harmful effect on the environment. Republican supporters of drilling were so sure of this that they commissioned a report by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academies. To the Republicans' chagrin, the report says drilling has in fact harmed the area's environment.</p>

WASHINGTON - Soaring energy prices and the precarious nature of Persian Gulf oil are boosting the chances Congress will approve oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge. A showdown is nearing in the Senate on whether to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the Bush administration's top domestic priorities, and both sides say the outcome could hinge on a single vote. Senate Republicans said Tuesday they fully anticipate a provision on developing oil in the refuge, known as ANWR, to be included as part of a budget measure to be take up by the full Senate...

Senate Republicans say they have moved to within a single vote of guaranteeing President Bush one of his top domestic priorities - opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The issue could be decided as early as next week. An internal GOP memo that circulated Tuesday in the Senate expressed confidence that 49 senators now plan to vote for drilling in the refuge, starting a scramble in search of the remaining lawmaker who would be needed to get the provision through as part of a budget measure. "Dick Cheney has been working madly to secure the 50th (vote),"...