Dedication
Welcome
Overview
Senate Votes &
Descriptions
Senate Chart
House Votes &
Descriptions
House Chart
Current
Wilderness Bills
Wilderness
Legislation in the 106th
(1999-2000) Congress
Sponsors and Champions
Grade List in Alphabetical Order
Senate |
House
Acknowledgements
Press Release
Download Printed Wild Card as Acrobat
PDF (2.6 MB)
AWC Home
| Wild Card |
2002 |
|
|
|
In the far northeast corner of Alaska lies one of America’s great natural treasures, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Its 19 million acres comprise what is considered the crown jewel of America’s National Wildlife Refuge System. Yet this truly undisturbed wilderness is in danger of being destroyed. This area is home to caribou, musk oxen, grizzly bears, wolves, wolverines, foxes, golden eagles, snowy owls, snow geese and millions of other birds, which earns it the nickname of "America’s Serengeti." For a thousand generations, the Gwich’in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended upon the Porcupine (River) caribou herd to sustain their culture. The herd is central to their way of life, providing food, clothing, and a critical link to their traditional ways. On April 6, 2000, Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Frank Murkowski (R-AK) attached a provision to the 2001 fiscal year budget resolution that would have assumed $1.2 billion in revenue from oil leasing in the Arctic Refuge. Although this provision was not binding, it would have provided the budgetary justification for additional legislation to drill in the Arctic. Senator William Roth (R-DE) brought a motion to the Senate floor to remove the drilling provision. Senator Murkowski offered a motion to end debate on the Roth amendment. The Murkowski motion passed 51 to 49. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 58, 106th Congress) The amendment was removed from the final budget document during the House-Senate Conference. According to the 2001 Green Scissors report released by a coalition of environmental, taxpayer and consumer groups, the U.S. Forest Service's timber program has "created a legacy of waste and abuse, both fiscally and environmentally." Between 1992 and 1998, the General Accounting Office (GAO) documents that the Forest Service lost more than $2 billion in taxpayer money. The Forest Service used this money to subsidize the timber industry’s logging and road building in our national forests that has destroyed natural habitats and polluted drinking water. On July 18, 2000, Senators Richard Bryan (D-NV) and Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) offered an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 4578) to cut $30 million from the timber sales budget. Half of the savings would have been used in preparation for fighting wildfires in national forests. The amendment failed 45 to 54. Yes is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 207, 106th Congress) 3. Development in National Monuments The Antiquities Act, created in 1906, gives the President the ability to proclaim federal lands as national monuments. These designations have occurred because areas were threatened or there were opportunities and interest to protect lands with unique qualities for future generations. The first National Monument was created by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect Devils Tower in Wyoming. Popular national parks that were first protected as national monuments include Joshua Tree in California, Grand Tetons in Wyoming, Grand Canyon in Arizona and Denali in Alaska. President Clinton proclaimed 19 new national monuments during his tenure, including Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante, the Sequoias of California and the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. On July 18, 2000, Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) offered an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 4578) to prohibit funds from being used to establish or expand a national monument, unless Congress also approved it. In effect, this would have removed the President’s ability to designate additional national monuments. The Senate rejected the amendment 49 to 50. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 208, 106th Congress) 4. Interior Secretary Nomination The Interior Department’s mission is to conserve, restore, and protect the country’s precious natural and cultural heritage for future generations. The Secretary of the Interior Department is the top ranking position in the agency. When Gale Norton was nominated by the President to be Interior Secretary, the conservation community unanimously opposed the nomination. Gale Norton has a long, clearly defined history regarding her work and positions on the environment. For example, Secretary Norton has a record of opposition to federal land and wildlife stewardship and instead favors logging, drilling, grazing and mining interests; she does not support a strong role for federal enforcement of environmental laws; she endorsed eliminating the Bureau of Land Management (an agency she now oversees), selling off fish and wildlife refuges and transferring public lands to private parties; and she believes taxpayers should pay the private sector to comply with environmental laws. Indeed, many of the concerns about Norton’s prior experience are now a reality. As Secretary, she advocates oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, supports weakening protections of national monuments, limits opportunities for public involvement, and is rolling back regulations to protect public land. Secretary Norton is not only advocating and defending positions shared by big business and the extractive industries, but she is filling her high level staff positions with representatives and lobbyists who formerly worked in these areas. Secretary Norton’s second in command, J. Steven Griles, is a former lobbyist for the coal and oil industries and Camden Toohey, special assistant for Alaska, was Executive Director of Arctic Power, the principal lobbyist for drilling in the Arctic Refuge. On January 30, 2001, the Senate voted to nominate Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior Department. The nomination passed the Senate 75 to 24. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll Call vote 6, 107th Congress) The Antiquities Act of 1906 acts as an important insurance policy that gives the president the power to grant national monument status to areas possessing significant historic, scenic, and / or scientific values. The Act has been used by 17 U.S. Presidents to protect many of our nation’s treasured places. President Clinton continued to build on this bipartisan tradition by establishing 19 national monuments. The Antiquities Act maintains appropriate roles for both the president and Congress in the protection of important federal land resources. It allows the president to act quickly, and it also maintains Congress' ability to also designate national monuments, change monument boundaries, direct resources for monument management, re-designate monuments as national parks, and even to abolish monuments. On July 11, 2001, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) introduced an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 2217) that would protect America’s national monuments. The amendment prohibits federal land management agencies from spending any money on activities related to oil and gas drilling and coal mining in monuments for the next fiscal year, except where such activities are already allowed. The amendment passed the Senate by a voice vote after an attempt to table the amendment failed 42 to 57. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll Call vote 229, 107th Congress) On April 16, 2002, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK) offered an amendment to the Senate Energy bill (S. 517) to open the 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Allowing oil drilling in the Refuge would create a spider web of roads, pipelines, drill pads and other industrial scale development in this pristine wilderness. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is only a six month supply of oil in the Arctic Refuge and that would not be available for ten years. A motion to end debate (known as a cloture motion) was filed on the Murkowski amendment. Pro-drilling Senators needed to garner 60 votes in order to end debate and pass the Murkowski amendment. Pro-wilderness Senators opposed the procedural motion. The Murkowski amendment included the House language (see Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 1 on page 16) and ancillary positions designed to attract votes. On April 18th, 2002, the Senate defeated the cloture motion by a vote of 46-54, 14 votes short of the 60 required. The final Energy bill passed in the Senate did not include drilling in the Arctic Refuge. No is the pro-wilderness vote. (Roll call vote 71, 107th Congress) 7. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) is the sponsor of legislation to protect a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, S.411. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain area to be the "biological heart" of the entire 19-million acre refuge. This area -- where the oil industry wants to drill -- is the center of wildlife activity in the Arctic Refuge and its most productive area. Most years, it is the place where greater than 100,000 caribou gather to give birth and raise their young. The Coastal Plain is a critical part of our nation's preeminent wilderness. Nestled between the jagged peaks of the Brooks Range and the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the Coastal Plain -- just five percent of Alaska’s North Slope -- is the only fragment of America’s arctic coastline not already opened to oil exploration or drilling. The United States Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is only enough oil under the Arctic Refuge to supply America’s energy needs for six months. And the oil companies themselves admit that the oil would not be available for at least ten years. Co-sponsoring legislation to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the pro-wilderness position. 8. America’s Red Rock Wilderness Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) is the
sponsor of America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2001, S. 786. This
bill would protect more than nine million acres of federal public
lands in Utah. The publicly owned wild places of Utah, managed by
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), are world-renowned for their
spectacular beauty, with deep, narrow red rock canyons, fantastic
sandstone arches, tremendous open vistas, and wild rivers. Utah’s
BLM wildlands provide homes to at least two dozen endangered or
sensitive wildlife species, including the desert bighorn sheep,
cougar, peregrine falcon, and the endangered desert tortoise and
Bonneville cutthroat trout. They also protect some of the richest
concentrations of prehistoric ruins in the world – left by America’s
ancient Anasazi and other cultures. Co-sponsoring legislation to
protect America’s Red Rock Wilderness is the pro-wilderness
position.
|