Excerpts from Assoc. Press.  Besides the Oil lobby and Coalition of 29
environmentalists, anyone can "lobby--contact" their own members of
Congress.  Just because the price of oil has dropped dramatically does
not mean Bush/drill,baby. drill, crowd is not working overtime to give
away America's best places.  You can write your members of Congress with
your own comments.  This is grass roots lobbying.  Phyllis Mains

Anchorage, Alaska--With President-elect Barack Obama soon to be sworn in,
lobbying is under way in the nation's capital on numerous Alaska issues,
including Arctic oil and gas exploration, funding for rural development
and the environment.

A coalition of 29 environmental groups has drawn up a 391-page set of
recommendations that gives Alaska issues top priority.

The groups want to cancel or postpone offshore oil lease sales scheduled
for the Arctic, toughen permitting for leases already sold, and provide
permanent protection for a region inside the National Petroleum Reserve
Alaska.

With any major political transition, lobbying for appointments is
intense--for Alaska, the biggest appointment is usually Secretary of the
Interior, whose department controls half of Alaska's lands, including
national parks and wildlife refuges, as well as oil and gas efforts of
the Minerals Management Service.

The environmentalists' wish list for Alaska includes undoing several Bush
administration land swaps that have not been completed, including
exchanges that would open the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge to oil
and gas development and allow construction of a road across Izembek
National Wildlife Refuge.

They also want to expand roadless-area protections for the Tongass
National Forest, referring to logging on federal lands there as a "global
warming subsidy."

Many of the environmentalist goals fit naturally with Obama's pledge to
address climate change and move America away from an oil-based economy,
said Earthjustice lawyer Eric Jorgenson, who traveled from Juneau to
Washington last week.

"Under Bush, there was a rush to lease really the entire Arctic,
"Jorgenson said, referring to future lease sales listed under the federal
five-year plan.
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