President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.
The designation would set aside an additional nearly 12.3 million acres as wilderness, including the coastal plain near Alaska's northeast corner, giving it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. More than 7 million acres of the refuge currently are managed as wilderness.
Do you think anybody will protest that decision?
Yep.
"They've decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage," said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and chair of the Senate energy committee.
Trust me Murkowski is not alone, EVERY SINGLE Alaskan politician is going to come out against this decision, and if Mark Begich were still in the Senate he would as well.
You simply cannot get elected up here unless you support drilling in ANWR. Period.
However as a citizen of this state, and of the world, I completely support this decision and recognize that it is really the only intelligent way to go.
Remember according to scientists we actually need to leave all of the untapped oil resources exactly where they are if we have any hope of saving ourselves and out planet.
Trust me as an Alaskan I know all too well that we are almost completely reliant on oil money for survival, but the future is all about change and in order to survive, and this is not hyperbole, we must change as well.
