Dear Friends of the Arctic Natl Wildlife Refuge,
 
Bush is AGAIN! including drilling revenues in his budget! Join the National Call-In Day, please call your representative and senator AND in particular need as many calls as possible, NOW, to Representative Nussle, Chairman to the House Budget Committee.
 
His DC office number is 202-225-2911 and a District office number is 563-326-1841.
See more on Mr. Nussle below, and specific points to make with his office.
 
Help Protect the Arctic by making your calls! Thanks
 
Please take action to prevent another year of attacks to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge!
 
National Call in Day February 15th - Call your Senator and Representative.
(If you cannot call on Wednesday - please still call this week).

Despite President Bush's announcement in last week's State of the Union address that “America is addicted to oil,” he is once again turning to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in hopes of a quick fix to our energy challenges.  As we begin a new year, the Bush administration should  remember the lessons we learned last year: that bending the rules to attach controversial issues, like Arctic drilling, to unrelated budget bills is unacceptable and unethical.  This lesson was clearly illustrated when  a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats in the House forced powerful congressional leaders to remove Arctic drilling from the budget. 

On February 15th, the House and Senate will meet in committee to discuss the budget for the first time. They will have an opportunity to incorporate last year's lesson by disregarding Bush's proposal and creating a budget that DOES NOT include Arctic drilling provisions.  However, the only way to ensure that Congress does the right thing is to let them know between now and then that we are counting on them to keep Arctic out of the budget.

Please take action today to prevent another year of pointless debate and an endless number of Arctic budget votes.  Tell your members it is time to put the Arctic debate behind us and move on to real, clean energy solutions.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION USING OUR CALL ALERT-- here you will find more talking points and local phone numbers for your members. (here is the link to the call alert: http://capwiz.com/awc/callalert/index.tt?alertid=8458941&type=CO)

In order for us to be successful, we need to receive as much feedback from the members as possible. So once you've made your call please be sure to fill out the report form at the end of the action alert and let us know what  the member or their staff said.

Thank you for your continued support in protecting wild Alaska!

Nussle

Since becoming Budget Chairman, Jim Nussle has said publicly that he does not believe that Arctic Refuge drilling belongs in the federal budget process.  Despite his support for drilling, he has indicated that he feels this way because Arctic drilling is a policy initiative rather than an existing program that is currently making money, and therefore it should not be part of a deficit reduction effort.

 

("Oil interests wanted to attach the wilderness drilling language to the budget bill because it can't be filibustered. But the Manchester Republican refused, saying that policy language, without corresponding actual revenue, should not be part of the budget."   Cedar Rapids Gazette, Nussle explains oil drilling decision, Budget chairman rejected bill language, Monday, March 14, 2005)
 

Last year when the annual House Budget resolution was released, Nussle made a number of public statements saying that, as in years past, he had not included Arctic Refuge drilling in his budget plan.  However, Nussle HAD included a spending cut directive to the House Resources Committee, knowing that this Committee would use this spending cut directive to push an Arctic drilling program.  The ultimate inclusion of Arctic drilling in the budget reconciliation bill later in the year nearly sabotaged the entire budget reconciliation process -- arguably Nussle's top legislative priority for 2005.   

 

Proponents of drilling have threatened, once again, to include Arctic in the reconciliation process.  This year they would ideally like to see a reconciliation bill that includes ONLY Arctic drilling.  If this were to move forward as a single issue bill, it would be an incredible violation of the spirit of the reconciliation process, which, because of its special rules against filibuster, is meant ONLY as a deficit reduction vehicle, and is explicitly NOT to be used to promote controversial policy decisions. 

 

The Arctic campaign would like to put pressure on Chairman Nussle from all across Iowa to stay true to his beliefs and ensure that his federal budget is not overtaken, once again, by this controversial policy provision which does not have the support to pass and does not provide real deficit relief.   

 

Here are two talking points/questions to help guide what you may say at events with Chairman Nussle:

 

·          Last year when talking at various town hall meetings you said that you didn't think an Arctic drilling proposal belonged in the federal budget and that you were not going to include such a provision.  Yet, Arctic drilling was ultimately included in, and nearly brought down, the entire reconciliation process until it was removed.  Will you make sure that this controversial policy proposal in not part of the budget this year?  

·          In the President's State of the Union he said that our nation needs to end its addiction to oil -and last year efforts to pass Arctic drilling failed in both the House and the Senate.  If the President and Congress are serious about forward-looking energy policy, we need to put aside this shortsighted fixation on drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  We shouldn't be forced to stomach another year of drilling proponents trying to sneak through this oil company giveaway that would do nothing to help consumers, when we could be growing clean energy solutions like ethanol and biodiesel, right now. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp