In the recent televised debate with her opponent Michael Baumgartner, Sen. Maria Cantwell said she would oppose oil drilling in ANWR (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). Why? No explanation was given.
Is it because of environmental concerns? We have a 35 year history of environmental success at Prudhoe Bay, just 90 miles away on the same coastal plain. Is it because she is committed to eliminating our oil dependence and human caused global warming? We are going to be buying oil from someone for another 50 years. Shouldn’t it be from Americans? And produced by Americans? Please explain Maria!
ANWR is 30,000 square miles of land (43 percent the size of Washington state) on the North Alaska coastal plain and immediately adjacent to Prudoe Bay. The drilling site is less than five square miles, is desolate snow and ice seven months a year and 90 miles from the north terminus of the 800 mile long Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline.
The US Department of Energy says opening ANWR would create 50,000 jobs. (She said 10 times in the debate she was going to create jobs. How? With tax subsidized renewable energy?) Again, according to the Department of Energy, there are enough suspected reserves to produce 1.5-2.0 million barrels of oil per day which is around 7 percent of our daily use. To put that in prospective the other 93 percent comes from a 1000 different sites so to get 7 percent from one site is a tremendous resource.
The native Eskimos have voted overwhelmingly to open ANWR. We have a 35 year history of environmental success just 90 miles away. Why Maria? Why are you denying jobs to 50,000 Americans? Those jobs have all been exported to Canada, Mexico and the Middle East.
ANWR is equivalent to the output of Libya. Remember last summer the disruption in oil supplies caused by the Libyan revolution? Then imagine what adding 2 million barrels per day would do to pricing.
This state needs a senator with practical, common sense values. She is smart and well educated but has no common sense.
Even her own party recognizes this. The business of the Senate all begins in a committeed. There are twenty committees and sixty eight subcommittees. They are classified as A, B and C committees depending upon the importance of their work. The leaders of the party that has the most members in the Senate gets to assign the committee chairman.
The power in the Senate lies in the hands of those chairmen. They decide what their committee will discuss and if it will even be brought to a vote, which would then refer the matter on to the full Senate. Maria’s Democrat party has control of the Senate. After twelve years have they assigned her a committee chairmanship? No.
Years ago this state had two powerful Senators: Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson. They were chairmen of A committees and they got things done for America as well as Washington State. Furthermore, Patty Murray after twenty years has had her party assign her to be the Chairman of the Veteran Affairs Committee. This is a C assignment after twenty years. What does that say? Democrat members with far less time have been given significant assignments. Why? We can only speculate in the negative.
We need change. We need either a new Democrat or a Republican who can get something done. To vote for Maria is to vote against jobs, for higher gas and food prices and more energy dependence.
Jerry Forell, Kirkland
