Please sign petition to stop energy bill

[rppper]

I received this message in my e-mail today and urge anyone who does not want to see our nations parks endagered to sign the petition.

The House-Senate Energy conference committee has released a
draft energy bill "compromise" that will pave the way for
drilling and mining on our most special public lands, from the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to the Otero Mesa of
New Mexico and the Red Desert of Wyoming. Although still termed
a "draft" proposal, these provisions could very well end up in
the final bill.

It is a horrid bundle, written by a few members of Congress
working with corporate special interests in the back room,
dripping with bad ideas and taxpayer giveaways that will enrich
energy companies.

THE BILL IS TAKING SHAPE NOW
Although final action on the bill won't occur until later this
month, key decisions are being made right now. It is critical
that members hear from us as soon as possible. Phone calls would
be best, faxes second best. There is little in this legislative
package to boost alternative energy sources, still less to
foster conservation. Even solutions to the recent blackouts in
the eastern U.S. and Canada haven't yet been drafted, and have
taken a back seat to the bill's "drill America first" policy.

If its goal was to do damage to the largest number of special
places this draft achieves near-perfection. The bill relies on
production at any cost. And the cost will be huge, both
environmentally and fiscally: the measure could contain as much
as $20 billion in handouts to industry. Please take a few
minutes to tell your Members of Congress that this energy bill
is so bloated with destructive provisions and unnecessary
subsidies, so lacking in sound policy, that it must be scrapped
for the good of the country.

BACKGROUND:
We've enlisted your help regularly to protect the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge from energy drilling. That provision
is, once again, in the conference committee's package. But with
little fanfare, the conference committee (really only the
majority members since Democratic conferees have been all but
excluded from the process) has loaded the bill with draconian
provisions that threaten public lands across the west and all of
America's coastlines.

The conference leaders, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Billy
Tauzin (R-LA) released their draft on September 23. Its language
unabashedly paves the way for oil and gas development to be the
dominant use of America's public lands. Under these new rules,
oil and gas development on our National Forests and on the lands
the Bureau of Land Management oversees, would trump every other
use. All else would take a distant back seat: water quality,
wildlife and wildlife habitat protection, the preservation of
wild lands, the protection of cultural, historical and
recreational values and even the property rights of ranchers and
farmers.

In significant ways, this legislative proposal is nothing more
than a codification of much that the Administration has sought
to do by internal fiat. And both are a direct reflection of many
of the fevered dreams of Vice President Cheney's industry-only
energy task force.

The toll is already apparent. "The results of these actions,
billed as promoting national energy security, have begun to turn
vast tracts of the western United States into industrial
landscapes. The winners are the energy companies..." So reads a
special report in the October 2003 issue of Field and Stream
magazine.

This "drill first, wild places be damned" philosophy emerges in
a whole suite of provisions in the draft conference bill. It is
an approach fundamentally at odds with the careful balance that
the Congress has crafted and that has governed our public lands
for more than 50 years.

Americans have every right to expect that oil and gas companies
should have to obey common sense laws and reasonable regulations
to protect the environment and the public interest. Yet the
energy conferees are systematically sweeping aside
"inconvenient" rules in an effort to drill anywhere and
everywhere.

Specifically, the bill would:

* Prohibit drilling fluids (drill "muds") from being considered
"pollutants" of drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act
(Sec. 28);
* Require the United States Geological Survey to report on
"restrictions and impediments" to the development of federal oil
and gas deposits (Sec. 45). These inconvenient "restrictions and
impediments" would include policies and regulations designed to
protect fish and wildlife, wild lands, and cultural and
historical values on the public lands;
* Possibly allow the Interior Department to designate utility
and pipeline corridors across public lands without seeking
public comment through the land use planning process (Sec. 51);
* Establish an "Office of Federal Project Coordination" within
the White House intended to expedite the permitting and
completion of energy projects on federal lands, and override
environmental safeguards (Sec. 41);
* Put the Department of Energy in charge of implementing
Executive Order 13211, which requires federal land management
agencies to determine, before "taking any action," whether such
actions would have a "significant adverse effect on energy
development (Sec. 46).

Beyond these, there are other damaging provisions of the
proposal that neither the Senate nor the House has ever
approved. The conference chairs simply imposed them on the
draft. Here are some of them:

* Sec. 49 allows applicants for drilling permits on federal
lands to take up to two years to comply with application
requirements, but provides the Bureau of Land Management only a
few days to approve drilling permit applications.
* The measure would mandate an immediate survey of the oil and
gas resources in sensitive marine habitats of the Outer
Continental Shelf, including previously off-limits waters off
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and Alaska, using seismic and
other intrusive techniques (Sec. 14).
* The proposed bill greases the skids for the Administration's
plans to lease 100 percent of the National Petroleum Reserve in
Alaska (NPRA). It would expand the Interior Secretary's
authority to permit oil and gas development there without
consideration for wildlife habitat, native hunting and fishing,
water quality or other non-commercial values.
* The bill makes it far easier for the Interior Secretary to
quite literally give away public resources to private companies,
letting her waive all fees and royalties for almost any reason.

What's Missing from the Bill?

The short answer: Anything that doesn't directly benefit Big
Oil, either through subsidies or gutted environmental
safeguards!
America needs-deserves!-a responsible energy policy that
enhances our national security by promoting clean, renewable
energy sources and energy efficiency.

Such a policy must respect the private property rights of
western ranchers and landowners, protect our most
environmentally sensitive lands and wilderness-quality
landscapes from the impacts of energy development, and preserve
the entire spectrum of values and uses of our public lands, from
drinking water and wildlife habitat to clean air and recreation.


There is nothing of the sort in the draft energy conference
bill. Rather, it would actively undermine public-lands
protection, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and NPRA to
full-scale drilling, and hand out an estimated $20 billion in
subsidies and tax give-aways to oil, gas and coal companies.
That's not an energy plan for America's future. It is a lavish
payday for the energy industry, tough luck for taxpayers and
consumers, and a devastating blow to the public lands our
children will inherit.

You can take action on this alert via the web at:
http://ga1.org/campaign/enconf_tws/inuud7zh5j6n

"The Arctic has a call that is compelling. The distant mountains
(of the Brooks Range) make one want to go on and on over the
next ridge and the one beyond that... This wilderness must
remain sacrosanct."--William O. Douglas

Thank you

[benfranklin1776]

1. Thanks for the head's up! Just signed.

n/t