Posted on 10/17/2004 12:48:28 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
FAIRBANKS--Interior Secretary Gale Norton looked out on a crowd of people hoisting political signs during a downtown rally at Veterans Memorial Park on Friday and saw many endorsing Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Others displayed the name of former Gov. Tony Knowles, Murkowski's challenger in the Nov. 2 election.
Regardless of the candidate they supported, several of the signs also displayed messages advocating the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development.
Norton, who was in Alaska to meet with leaders on natural resource issues and campaign for Murkowski and President Bush, acknowledged the ANWR-drilling support on both sides of the Senate race but said Alaskans were making a mistake if they think Knowles, a Democrat, is the best candidate for getting the refuge open.
"The question is who controls the levers in the U.S. Senate," Norton said. "If you vote for a Democrat to be senator for Alaska, then you vote for the Democrats to block ANWR."
Knowles has said that he supports oil development in ANWR and that he could be effective in working within his party to change the position of more Democrats, who have historically opposed drilling in the refuge.
But speaking at a "resource rally" in Fairbanks, Norton said politics in Washington, D.C., are about teamwork as much as they are about individual candidates and that voting for Knowles would transfer more power in Congress to the Democrats.
"When you choose someone who is a Democrat, you choose Tom Daschle to run for Senate, you're choosing Sen. (Jeff) Bingaman to chair the resource committee," she said, referring to the Democratic senators from South Dakota and New Mexico, respectively.
A Knowles campaign spokesman, told of Norton's comments, reiterated a recent line of attack: that Republicans have failed to open ANWR despite controlling one or both houses of Congress and the White House at various times over more than two decades.
President Clinton's veto of one ANWR-opening measure and the threatened filibuster of others by some Democratic senators occurred, said Knowles spokesman Bob King, only because Republicans failed to provide a comprehensive national energy plan that included sufficient conservation measures--such as increased automobile mileage standards--to attract enough congressional support to open ANWR in return.
"We need to get away from this partisan bickering and come up with an energy bill that addresses both sides of the equation," King said. He described Norton's comments as "just the type of partisan rhetoric that has failed to produce a solution for ANWR for 24 years."
At the Fairbanks rally, Norton said she has been impressed by Murkowski's work since the Alaska senator was appointed to the job in 2002. She mentioned Murkowski's efforts at expediting the transfer of federal lands to Native corporations as called for by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and said Murkowski has become an effective member of the Republican contingent in Washington, D.C.
Norton is one of several high-profile Republicans who have come to Alaska to support Murkowski's campaign. Several other Cabinet secretaries have traveled to the state, as has Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Interior secretary also used her appearance in Fairbanks Friday to campaign for Bush, arguing that the president's challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, stands on the wrong side of land issues such as opening ANWR to development, allowing snowmachines in wilderness areas and national parks and protecting access to federal lands for hunters and other users.
She also attacked what she called Kerry's history of opposition to hunting purely for sport. Reciting literature on the Bush campaign Web site, she pointed to Kerry receiving the highest rating on the "Humane Scorecard," a survey of Congress sponsored by the Humane Society and Fund for Animals.
"There are very significant differences in the candidates," she said.
When she wasn't talking politics, Norton met with oil and gas representatives, tourism officials and outdoor sporting advocates.
During a roundtable discussion in Fairbanks City Hall, she said the Department of the Interior is working on a number of initiatives that could expand access to federal lands in Alaska, including a new route into Denali National Park and Preserve, simplifying the National Environmental Policy Act permit process for North Slope oil development and transferring more federal lands into state ownership.
She also addressed the state's record wildfire season this summer, in which fire burned across about 6.5 million acres. Norton said agencies will review whether the fire management policy in place was the most effective, a review that could have implications for practices in other parts of the country.
Henri Bisson, director of the Bureau of Land Management's Alaska office, said his department is working with the state Department of Natural Resources on the review. Part of the process will involve explaining to the public the rationale for the current fire management policy, he said.
"We're going to go through a series of public workshops around the state, including Fairbanks," he said.
In Anchorage earlier in the day, Norton signed a renewed agreement Friday that officials say will increase oil pipeline employment opportunities for Alaska Natives.
The renewal of the Alaska Native Utilization agreement was signed in Anchorage in front of Native leaders and representatives of Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., an oil company consortium that operates and maintains the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
The renewal, the fourth since 1995, will ensure continued employment and better training programs for nearly 240 Alaska Natives currently working on the 800-mile line, Norton said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story. Reporter Daniel Rice can be reached at drice@newsminer.com or 459-7503.
Good thing somebody is doing something.
They should try talking to Barbara Boxer.
Laura Bush did an ad for Murkowski, heard it today. Pure class, both of them.
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