Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation Wednesday night that would open a portion of a pristine wildlife refuge in her state to oil and gas development, a move expected to bring in slightly more than $1 billion in federal revenue over the next decade.
The bill would open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), described by some as “America’s Serengeti,” which covers more than 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska. The region is home to polar bears, caribou, moose and hundreds of species of migratory birds. It’s considered one of the state’s crown jewels.
In a statement, Murkowski called it “a tremendous opportunity” for the country.
“The legislation ... will put Alaska and the entire nation on a path toward greater prosperity by creating jobs, keeping energy affordable for families and businesses, generating new wealth, and strengthening our security — while reducing the federal deficit not just by $1 billion over ten years, but tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades to come,” she said.
This is usually the point where somebody not from Alaska will chime in that Murkowski needs to be voted out of office.
The problem with saying that over and over is that it will essentially have the same effect as spitting into the ocean over and over again. In a word...none.
The problem is that instead of making Murkowski toxic in Alaska this will only prove to endear her to Alaskans most of who overwhelmingly support the opening of ANWR.
The hard truth is that the money is drying up faster than our glaciers are melting up here, and people in the state are starting to feel a little desperate.
I actually have very little confidence that this bill will pass, but even if it does not it still reinforces Murkowski's conservative credentials and signals to the voters that she is somebody who is working to make the state more prosperous.
I really do not think opening ANWR would accomplish that, but I am definitely in the minority.
dudes~IT~ would have been JOE YUKKY MILLER!
ReplyDeleteVOTE OUT carpetbagger Dan SellurVan &
limp dick donny NO longer Young tOO!
In bed with $ara>
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Miller_(Alaska_politician)
Have never voted for her and never will. Don't trust a thing she says! Alaskans - wise up!
ReplyDeleteHer Daddy is a prissy grabber.
DeleteBeing in the minority doesn't mean you're wrong.
ReplyDeleteDon’t forget. This also indicates she supports that toxic tax plan. The tax plan has to have offsets for all of the money that will be channeled to the wealthy and corporations in their juicy tax cuts. It has to come from somewhere. If ANWR is opened up, that’s a billion dollars that can be used to offset the tax cuts. Lisa is back to kissing up to Trump. This is a power plan. Like when she slapped Zinke upside the head as chair of her committee, delaying or tableing all his shit when he tried to bully her into supporting the deathcare bill. Now she’s showing that she still has the power to make or break the tax plan, which she obviously supports.
ReplyDeleteNo one is unseatable.
If you can’t get rid of her, then try Dan Sullivan, the schmuck.
Every Republican needs to be challenged by a Democrat. Every one in every state for every office from Congress on down to school board. Hopefully by women since the men seemed to be too chickenshit.
Mu nephew works for one of the O&G companies in Alaska, and they are putting a halt on drilling in Alaska for a while. Until the price of a barrel of oil goes up, this legislation is moot.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Oil and gas are going the way of coal. The smart money is on renewables, and always will be. Even our greedy power companies in the midwest are now supporting solar and wind farms. Murkowski better come up with a better way to save her state...raping the environment for a buck will NOT cut it.
DeleteSome areas are drilled only when the market value of oil, and the type of oil extracted from certain locations, make it worthwhile/profitable to do so. Oil is not going the way of coal anytime soon.
DeleteIt's the camel's nose.
DeleteOnce they have this, no place in ANY state will be safe.
Kiss the Grand Canyon goodbye. They'll drill, then empty their sludge down the cliff into the river.
12:00pm
DeleteWell, things have not slowed down so much that they aren't keeping the highly paid engineers and planners on payroll. There are still plenty of people up there on the slope, the hotels and man camps are 75% full, but the grunts are being laid off. The critical staff, maintenance, rig architects and engineers are too valuable to ditch just because of low oil prices, plus it went up quite a bit last week so there is hope that things might heat back up for the roughnecks.
Nothing ever really stops up there, but yes, the lowly paid grunts come and go, there's always a hundred guys for every roughneck position at any of the platforms.
Murkowski needs to be voted out of office.
ReplyDeleteYou mean she remembers the constitution that says all resources of Alaska are to be managed for sustainability and to the benefit of Alaska citizens not named Exxon Royal Dutch Shell, Pebble, etc?
OT?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/opinion/anger-women-weinstein-assault.html
ReplyDeleteWe Are Now One State Closer to Having a Corporate-Dominated Constitutional Convention
With the addition of Wisconsin, right-wingers promoting a Constitutional Convention have 28 states; they only need six more.
While Democrats on Wednesday were feeling encouraged and empowered by Tuesday’s coast-to-coast rejection of Trumpism, Republican legislators who control Wisconsin did what the GOP does best in elections: voted to rig the system to favor their agenda. Only this time the target wasn’t voter suppression; it was the U.S. Constitution.
On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Legislature voted to call for what’s known as an Article V constitutional convention, becoming the 28th state to do so in recent years. Thirty-four states are needed, according to the nation’s founding document, to launch a process that would open up the foundation of American’s rights and laws to revision.
“Sadly, this is not fake news,” said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn. “The specter of an Article V convention to rewrite the Constitution remains one of the most alarming threats to our democracy that nobody has ever heard of before.”
“The deep-pocketed special interest groups behind this effort to call a convention are not likely to stop with a single amendment when there are no rules to prevent opening up the Constitution to a full rewrite in a runaway convention,” Flynn explained. “The effort to call the convention is funded by wealthy special interest groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council that have long pushed for a broad legislative agenda in the states, and it is hard to imagine then not foisting that agenda on the Constitution itself through unelected and unaccountable delegates to the convention.”
Revising the U.S. Constitution is not the only big idea that has surfaced following 2017’s Election Day.
https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/wisconsin-latest-red-run-state-call-rewriting-constitution
aka
DeleteJe$u$ Bull$hitters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society
They should be careful what they wish for. There's no telling where the power will be once they get 34 states.
DeleteCould be women's equal rights. could be the removal and eternal blocking of any Citizen's United legislation, could be the electoral college will be replaced with the popular vote, could add a recall provision to all Federal offices including president, could require all those running for public office release 5 years worth of tax returns.
There is a whole bigass can of worms this could open up.
Following child molester allegations, Roy Moore suddenly in dead heat race with Dem opponent
ReplyDeleteAs soon as the Washington Post published allegations that Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually preyed on four teenage girls 40 years ago, Alabama Republican officials began defiantly circling the wagons, blaming the victims, insisting there is nothing wrong with pedophilia, and even comparing Moore’s advances on a 14-year-old girl to Joseph and the Virgin Mary.
But according to a new poll, voters in Alabama have far more mixed feelings, to the point that some of them are considering the heretofore unthinkable — throwing their support to Democratic candidate Doug Jones.
https://shareblue.com/following-child-molester-allegations-roy-moore-suddenly-in-dead-heat-race-with-dem-opponent/
Doug Jones needs to court those Luther Strange supporters. I'm sure it wouldn't take much to get them to either support anyone, even Jones, rather than Moore or to simply stay home and not vote at all. That could be enough to turn the tide.
DeleteEven launching a write in campaign for Luther Strange would take enough votes away from Moore that Jones might win.
Republicans rape and molest children with no remorse and they will do the same to the Earth and her furry and winged creatures...in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteDamn straight.
DeleteThey care about their money and power at this moment in time and will do anything to get and increase it. Absolutely nothing else matters. Nothing. Even billions of dollars doesn't satisfy their greed. Ayn Randian sociopaths.
DeleteThe price of oil is in the toilet. No one even knows if there is oil there. No one is going to spend the money to explore ANWR. TBH, this is symbolic more than anything.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, renewable energy gains ground.
This isn't just about ANWR. It sets a precedent. They can go after oil in protected places where they KNOW it's there. Also natural gas. And they can frack to their heart's content with no consequences.
Deletehttps://www.thedailybeast.com/senate-gop-campaign-arm-severs-financial-ties-to-roy-moore
ReplyDelete"A joint fundraising committee benefitting Moore and a handful of Republican Party organs filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Friday removing the National Republican Senatorial Committee as one of its beneficiaries. Going forward, the committee’s fundraising will benefit Moore’s Senate campaign, the Alabama Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee but not the NRSC."
"The NRSC’s removal from the account is the most concrete step taken to date to create distance between the national Republican Party and the Moore campaign"
Lip service. This won't impact Moore's war chest in the least.
And the responses from the Republicans in Alabama are beyond Deplorable. Disgusting. Evil even.
It's no secret that most Alaskans are happy to dig it the fuck up and sell it, whatever it is.
ReplyDeleteThey're always calling themselves "hard workers" but in reality every one of them has their hand out permanently for any free buck. Taking a tax deduction for giving your unwanted junk to the Goodwill when you're pulling in a governor's salary and your husband is making a handsome living as a pimp is a perfect example.
Many of us couldn't be happier that PFD has been cut in half and we are waiting for it to actually just disappear all together.
DeleteIt's nothing but a tax burden and many of us donate the max, 50% to the Pick-Click-and-Give charitable program, because we do not want to pay taxes on that shit. We also don't want to turn it down because well, if a non-profit can get 500 bucks then that is good, but it still leaves another 500 that one needs to get rid of so no tax burden. We always tuck that additional 500 into our annual IRA contributions but some people don't think ahead and either give it away or invest it and then they are stuck paying tax on it.
It also attracts a lot of shiftless freeloaders so if we ever get the chance to vote on it again I hope we ALL realize that it's a no good handout and should be abolished.
Did she mention that the funding is coming from China? Where are the materials coming from? China?
ReplyDeleteI am sure not only will they destroy the habit, but there will only a few jobs and the majority of the money to made will go to foreigners, just like the Keystone pipeline.
Boy, republicans sure like to beat a dead horse, they will never be happy until they destroy what little wild habitat is left in the USA.
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn’t AK try to diversify their economy? How about setting up some nice call centers, everyone is inside 9 months of the year anyway. Instead of India, we could get telemarketing calls from AK.
I heard they are trying to get tourism going again with tours of the melting glaciers.
Tourism IS our only money maker these days. Over two million visitors each summer and over half a million from Oct-March. We need to grow it even more and add some more taxes on beds, food and gas during the summer travel months in order to capitalize the major influx during the warm months.
DeleteThere is even major growth in the winter tour industry with Aurora and trekking tours.
Renewables are moving at such a fast pace that this is just Murkowski "pipe dream", a move to pay back all the oil bucks she gets.
ReplyDeleteJust like Walker's gas line, this thing is 10-20 years in the making, there aren't any firm commitments towards development and way before they even begin construction the entire energy sector will be on a different page
When the inevitable happens we can call it the Murkowski Spill. Make her own it.
ReplyDelete