(no subject)
Dear Citizen,
We have only 24 to 48 hours to try and save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Republicans are trying to sneak legislation through the Senate approving oil drilling and they are incredibly close to winning. We have to stop them.
I am joining with Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) in offering a critical amendment to stop this sneak attack on our environment. We will fight on the floor of the Senate, but we need you by our side.
There are seven key Republican Senators whose votes will decide the future of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Before they vote, we need to make sure they know that their constituents are watching, and that they will not be able to support drilling without anybody noticing.
Here are two critical steps we can take together to support our amendment to protect this National Wildlife Refuge:
1. Join the Citizens' Roll Call
First of all, take part in a massive fast-moving display of citizen support for the Arctic Refuge. Sign our Cantwell-Kerry Citizens' Roll Call now.
http://www.johnkerry.com/RollCall
To make our Citizens' Roll Call impossible to ignore, we have alerted the media, environmental advocates and my fellow Senators to a scrolling display of the names and home towns of the roll call signers. It is posted on our johnkerry.com website, where we hope to soon add your name and a running tally of the number of citizens on our Citizens' Roll Call.
2. Bring the fight to the home states of the seven senators
We need to launch emergency online advertising campaigns in the home states of those seven critical senators: Senator Coleman (MN), Senator Smith (OR), Senator Specter (PA), Senator Martinez (FL), Senator Lugar (IN), and Senators Gregg and Sununu (NH).
We need your help to bring our Save the Arctic Refuge message home in these six states. Help us fund an emergency ad campaign to make sure they know how strongly the people they represent feel about protecting the Arctic. Please make an emergency donation right now.
http://contribute.johnkerry.com/
When Senator Cantwell, myself and other Senators stand up in support of the Cantwell-Kerry Amendment, we will have powerful arguments on our side. (I have recapped some of those arguments at the end of this email message)
But, to win, we need to be able to report directly to our Senate colleagues that massive numbers of citizens around the country - and in their own states - are rising up to demand that the Senate protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
That's why your immediate signature is so critical.
http://www.johnkerry.com/RollCall
The Bush Administration and its oil industry allies want to send a message that they can drill for oil wherever and whenever they want to - even if it means targeting a place as striking, pristine and irreplaceable as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
They don't care about putting America on a genuine path to energy independence. If they did, they'd support efforts to increase energy conservation and to create clean, renewable sources of energy that no terrorist can sabotage and no foreign government can seize.
Let me be very direct with you. It is going to take an immediate and impossible-to-ignore display of grassroots support to stop them. That's why your decision to sign our Cantwell-Kerry Amendment Citizens' Roll Call is so crucial.
Thank you for acting quickly on this vital request.
John Kerry
P.S. Senator Cantwell, who comes from a state in the heart of the Pacific Northwest, has - at considerable political risk - courageously stepped forward to join me in leading this fight. We need you to help us win it.
http://www.johnkerry.com/RollCall
HERE ARE YOUR SAVE THE ARCTIC REFUGE TALKING POINTS
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's 19 million acres comprise one of the last places on earth where an intact expanse of arctic and sub arctic lands remains protected.
Drilling in the Arctic Refuge can't make even a small dent in meeting America's energy needs. U.S. Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is very likely only enough oil to supply America's needs for six months. And oil companies admit that, even that, won't be available for at least 10 years.
An irreplaceable natural treasure, the Arctic Refuge is home to caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, golden eagles, snow geese and more. Millions of other birds use the Arctic Refuge to nest and as a critical staging area on their migratory journeys.
Of course, the Arctic Refuge supports more than wildlife. For a thousand generations, the Gwich'in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended on it and lived in harmony with it. To them, the Arctic Coastal Plain is sacred ground.
EDITORIAL
More Energy Follies
Published: March 15, 2005
What this country needs is an energy strategy worthy of the enormous energy-related problems it faces: global warming, soaring energy costs and dependency on Middle East oil among them. Opening up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drill for oil and gas is not such a strategy. Yet that is the road the Bush administration is headed down once again.
At the administration's request, Senate Republicans have put a drilling provision into a budget resolution that could be voted on this week. Since budget resolutions can't be filibustered, Republicans need only a simple majority, 51 votes, to open up a wilderness that has been off limits to commercial exploitation since the Carter administration.
That tactic has not worked in the past. The Republicans came close in 1995, passing a budget with a drilling provision in it that President Bill Clinton vetoed, precipitating a government shutdown. They think they have the votes again this year, and this time they have a president only too eager to sign it.
In recent weeks, the administration has mounted a full-court press. Gale Norton, the interior secretary, and Samuel Bodman, the new energy secretary, recently toured the refuge with newer members of Congress, whose votes could be decisive.
In addition to the familiar economic arguments - that the refuge is America's last great untapped source of domestic oil and is crucial to its competitiveness - Ms. Norton emphasized one other line of thought, which she spelled out yesterday in an Op-Ed article in The Times. It is that drilling technology has advanced to the point where we are capable of extracting billions of barrels of oil without harming the refuge's fragile ecology or abundant wildlife.
Environmentalists beg to disagree. Where Ms. Norton sees undisturbed tundra, they see hundreds of miles of pipelines, roads and drilling platforms, which would fragment wildlife habitats and corrupt a wilderness that, according to recent polls, a majority of Americans wish to leave undisturbed. We have expressed such reservations ourselves. But what troubles us most about President Bush's fixation on drilling is what it says about the shallowness of his energy policy.
The numbers tell the story. The United States Geological Survey's best guess is that even at today's record-high prices - in excess of $50 a barrel - just under 7 billion barrels could profitably be brought to market. That's less than the 7.3 billion barrels this country now consumes in a year. At peak production - about 1 million barrels a day in 2020 or 2025 - the refuge would supply less than 4 percent of the country's projected daily needs.
Any number of modest efficiencies could achieve the same result without threatening the refuge. Simply closing the so-called S.U.V. loophole - making light trucks as efficient over all as ordinary cars - would save a million barrels a day. Increasing fuel-economy standards for cars by about 50 percent, to 40 miles per gallon, a perfectly reasonable expectation, would save 2.5 million barrels a day. And bipartisan commissions have offered even bigger ideas: tax credits to help automakers produce a whole new generation of fuel-efficient cars, for instance, or an aggressive biofuels program that would seek to replace one-quarter of the gasoline we use for cars with substitutes from agricultural products.
These programs would yield benefits - less dependency on foreign sources, a decrease in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - long after the last drop of oil had been extracted from the refuge.
Mr. Bush mentioned some of these ideas in a speech last week, but only in passing. His main emphasis was not on reducing demand, but on increasing supply by opening the refuge. That is where this administration has been ever since Dick Cheney's energy report of 2001. It was the wrong place to be then, and it is the wrong place now.
We have only 24 to 48 hours to try and save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Republicans are trying to sneak legislation through the Senate approving oil drilling and they are incredibly close to winning. We have to stop them.
I am joining with Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) in offering a critical amendment to stop this sneak attack on our environment. We will fight on the floor of the Senate, but we need you by our side.
There are seven key Republican Senators whose votes will decide the future of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Before they vote, we need to make sure they know that their constituents are watching, and that they will not be able to support drilling without anybody noticing.
Here are two critical steps we can take together to support our amendment to protect this National Wildlife Refuge:
1. Join the Citizens' Roll Call
First of all, take part in a massive fast-moving display of citizen support for the Arctic Refuge. Sign our Cantwell-Kerry Citizens' Roll Call now.
http://www.johnkerry.com/RollCall
To make our Citizens' Roll Call impossible to ignore, we have alerted the media, environmental advocates and my fellow Senators to a scrolling display of the names and home towns of the roll call signers. It is posted on our johnkerry.com website, where we hope to soon add your name and a running tally of the number of citizens on our Citizens' Roll Call.
2. Bring the fight to the home states of the seven senators
We need to launch emergency online advertising campaigns in the home states of those seven critical senators: Senator Coleman (MN), Senator Smith (OR), Senator Specter (PA), Senator Martinez (FL), Senator Lugar (IN), and Senators Gregg and Sununu (NH).
We need your help to bring our Save the Arctic Refuge message home in these six states. Help us fund an emergency ad campaign to make sure they know how strongly the people they represent feel about protecting the Arctic. Please make an emergency donation right now.
http://contribute.johnkerry.com/
When Senator Cantwell, myself and other Senators stand up in support of the Cantwell-Kerry Amendment, we will have powerful arguments on our side. (I have recapped some of those arguments at the end of this email message)
But, to win, we need to be able to report directly to our Senate colleagues that massive numbers of citizens around the country - and in their own states - are rising up to demand that the Senate protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
That's why your immediate signature is so critical.
http://www.johnkerry.com/RollCall
The Bush Administration and its oil industry allies want to send a message that they can drill for oil wherever and whenever they want to - even if it means targeting a place as striking, pristine and irreplaceable as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
They don't care about putting America on a genuine path to energy independence. If they did, they'd support efforts to increase energy conservation and to create clean, renewable sources of energy that no terrorist can sabotage and no foreign government can seize.
Let me be very direct with you. It is going to take an immediate and impossible-to-ignore display of grassroots support to stop them. That's why your decision to sign our Cantwell-Kerry Amendment Citizens' Roll Call is so crucial.
Thank you for acting quickly on this vital request.
John Kerry
P.S. Senator Cantwell, who comes from a state in the heart of the Pacific Northwest, has - at considerable political risk - courageously stepped forward to join me in leading this fight. We need you to help us win it.
http://www.johnkerry.com/RollCall
HERE ARE YOUR SAVE THE ARCTIC REFUGE TALKING POINTS
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's 19 million acres comprise one of the last places on earth where an intact expanse of arctic and sub arctic lands remains protected.
Drilling in the Arctic Refuge can't make even a small dent in meeting America's energy needs. U.S. Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is very likely only enough oil to supply America's needs for six months. And oil companies admit that, even that, won't be available for at least 10 years.
An irreplaceable natural treasure, the Arctic Refuge is home to caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, golden eagles, snow geese and more. Millions of other birds use the Arctic Refuge to nest and as a critical staging area on their migratory journeys.
Of course, the Arctic Refuge supports more than wildlife. For a thousand generations, the Gwich'in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended on it and lived in harmony with it. To them, the Arctic Coastal Plain is sacred ground.
EDITORIAL
More Energy Follies
Published: March 15, 2005
What this country needs is an energy strategy worthy of the enormous energy-related problems it faces: global warming, soaring energy costs and dependency on Middle East oil among them. Opening up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drill for oil and gas is not such a strategy. Yet that is the road the Bush administration is headed down once again.
At the administration's request, Senate Republicans have put a drilling provision into a budget resolution that could be voted on this week. Since budget resolutions can't be filibustered, Republicans need only a simple majority, 51 votes, to open up a wilderness that has been off limits to commercial exploitation since the Carter administration.
That tactic has not worked in the past. The Republicans came close in 1995, passing a budget with a drilling provision in it that President Bill Clinton vetoed, precipitating a government shutdown. They think they have the votes again this year, and this time they have a president only too eager to sign it.
In recent weeks, the administration has mounted a full-court press. Gale Norton, the interior secretary, and Samuel Bodman, the new energy secretary, recently toured the refuge with newer members of Congress, whose votes could be decisive.
In addition to the familiar economic arguments - that the refuge is America's last great untapped source of domestic oil and is crucial to its competitiveness - Ms. Norton emphasized one other line of thought, which she spelled out yesterday in an Op-Ed article in The Times. It is that drilling technology has advanced to the point where we are capable of extracting billions of barrels of oil without harming the refuge's fragile ecology or abundant wildlife.
Environmentalists beg to disagree. Where Ms. Norton sees undisturbed tundra, they see hundreds of miles of pipelines, roads and drilling platforms, which would fragment wildlife habitats and corrupt a wilderness that, according to recent polls, a majority of Americans wish to leave undisturbed. We have expressed such reservations ourselves. But what troubles us most about President Bush's fixation on drilling is what it says about the shallowness of his energy policy.
The numbers tell the story. The United States Geological Survey's best guess is that even at today's record-high prices - in excess of $50 a barrel - just under 7 billion barrels could profitably be brought to market. That's less than the 7.3 billion barrels this country now consumes in a year. At peak production - about 1 million barrels a day in 2020 or 2025 - the refuge would supply less than 4 percent of the country's projected daily needs.
Any number of modest efficiencies could achieve the same result without threatening the refuge. Simply closing the so-called S.U.V. loophole - making light trucks as efficient over all as ordinary cars - would save a million barrels a day. Increasing fuel-economy standards for cars by about 50 percent, to 40 miles per gallon, a perfectly reasonable expectation, would save 2.5 million barrels a day. And bipartisan commissions have offered even bigger ideas: tax credits to help automakers produce a whole new generation of fuel-efficient cars, for instance, or an aggressive biofuels program that would seek to replace one-quarter of the gasoline we use for cars with substitutes from agricultural products.
These programs would yield benefits - less dependency on foreign sources, a decrease in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - long after the last drop of oil had been extracted from the refuge.
Mr. Bush mentioned some of these ideas in a speech last week, but only in passing. His main emphasis was not on reducing demand, but on increasing supply by opening the refuge. That is where this administration has been ever since Dick Cheney's energy report of 2001. It was the wrong place to be then, and it is the wrong place now.