Even ANWR drilling proponents ridicule Bachmann's lack of energy knowledge

[Minnesota Raindog]

Michele Bachmann, fresh from her trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, had barely landed when she took a drubbing from an Alaskan newspaper that advocates drilling for oil in the ANWR:

From the Fairbanks (AK) Daily News-Miner:

One of the 11 members of Congress on the government-funded “American Energy Tour” believes she learned a lot during her weekend in Alaska.

If only she had learned a little more.

"Like I knew it would, the American Energy Tour unveiled the truth about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota wrote in a column posted Monday on the National Review Online.

She said the Democrats don’t want Americans to know the truth, which is that "this is a treasure trove of energy that will yield a lot with only minimal intrusion."

But truth be told, she was misinformed when she told her readers that "ANWR is a small part of the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska."

More here:

http://tinyurl.com/57krye

Even Bachmann's drilling allies write her off as a know-nothing. Way to embarrass us all the way up in Fairbanks, Alaska, Michele.

[dflprincess]

1. I listened to an interview with her on MPR while I was out for my evening walk

Per Michelle the area of ANWR that would be affected by this is "like the size of a postage stamp on a football field".

I'm sure that anyone who saw (or heard) me tonight wondered who I was swearing at as I trotted along.

[Minnesota Raindog]

2. Another howler: Bachmann supports renewable energy

http://minnesotaindependent.com/view/bachmanns-photo-ops

After visiting the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colo., last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann exclaimed, “My colleagues and I literally walked through America’s energy future.” Has Bachmann become a born-again believer in renewable energy? Hardly. Look behind Bachmann’s photo-ops and you’ll find one of the most deplorable voting records on renewable energy of any member of Congress.

[Avidor]

3. "Congresswoman Michele Bachmann Advocates Backyard Oil Rigs" (Spoof)

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i38716

[dflprincess]

4. The "Big Question" blog at the Strib has taken up this topic:

with a couple comments from me

http://ww3.startribune.com/bigquestionblog/?p=1107&location_refer=Homepage:PromoScroller:Blogs

WASHINGTON — They came, they saw, but they didn’t land.

It turns out that Sunday’s congressional tour of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), including Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann, ran into some typical North Slope weather. They had to circle around in the air instead of touching down.
The 11-member delegation, led by House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, made it to Prudhoe Bay, but had to be content with an aerial tour of ANWR’s foggy coastal plain.

The experience did not douse Bachmann’s enthusiasm for drilling for oil in ANWR, which she laid out in a conference call with Minnesota reporters on Tuesday.

“Oil production and the environmental concerns with the wildlife and keeping the tundra area pure and clean, those are not mutually exclusive, they are very compatible,” Bachmann said.

The group saw the most wildlife, Bachmann said, right at “Mile Marker Zero” in Prudhoe Bay. It was a herd of caribou clustered around a pipeline. (no doubt it was a "coffe klatch" of caribou) Of the subsequent “two hour visual” of the National Petroleum Reserve and ANWR, she said, “the tundra looks exactly the same. The terrain looks the same.”

Opponents of drilling decried the trip as a sham. “They saw nothing,” said longtime oil industry critic Chuck Hamel. “What a wasted trip.”

But Stephen Miller, Bachmann’s spokesman, said the rough weather conditions bolster the arguments for drilling: “These extreme conditions, present even in the best months of summer, are evidence of the core point members learned firsthand from tours and briefings during the trip: ANWR’s 10-02 (proposed drilling area) coastal region is a remote and desolate site.” (and God forbid we leave even an inch of the planet untouched)