House GOP Leader: "[Alaskan Wildlife] Couldn't Care Less Whether...The Pipeline Was There"

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared on Glenn Beck's CNN Headline News show tonight to opine that a pipeline through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge probably would not affect the wildlife. He and Beck were of the same opinion --which seemed to be based largely on their interpretations of photographs of the refuge-- throughout the rest of the conversation. ThinkProgress has the story.

Watch the video below.

Comments

[NL207]

And in what way is Boehner wrong? According to everything I have ever seen on the topic, the caribou have actually benefitted from the pipeline.


"When oil exploration began in Alaska"s Prudhoe Bay 30 years ago, environmentalists claimed it would yield only a few months" supply of oil, that the pipeline would devastate caribou breeding grounds, and the inevitable pollution and spills would wreck the ecosystem. In reality, Prudhoe Bay turned out to be the largest deposit of oil ever discovered in North America, the caribou population has skyrocketed from 3,000 to 27,000, and the ecosystem remains intact"

source: http://www.awb.org/articles/presidentscolumn2002/alaska_pipeline_story_gets_short_shrift.htm

[SirReal1]

A simple analogy:

An infant mammal feeds off the teat of an adult female mammal that has an infection that has caused the milk to be toxic to the infant.

Would the intelligent choice be to move the infant to another of her teats?

Or

Should the infant find a healthy female with non-toxic nourishment?

Drilling for more oil is simply finding another toxic teat to feed from.

[LeftLeanWing]

Take the kid to a Hooters, for the buffet.

[LCRover001]

Strange how during times of record breaking profits the pipe lines are falling apart due to lack of maintenance.

The only reason they begin fixing the lines is because they are almost to the point of complete failure and the state of Alaska sued them because they are leaking like sieves.

[KillTheMessenger]

It's called "Made in USA".

[fleaba]

Yeah, well now they won't have to because thanks to the Supreme Court, oil companies like Exxon are not responsible for punitive damages. If Exxon can make a case stay in court 2 decades a fat lot of good it will be for the state of AK to sue them.

[MajorKong]

We consume 25% of the world's oil production and have roughly 2% of the world's proven oil reserves. Do the math.

[NL207]

try this math: "up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western United States"
source: http://www.doi.gov/news/08_News_Releases/080722.html

How far out is this resource?

"An alternative but currently experimental process referred to as in situ retorting involves heating the oil shale while it is still underground, and then pumping the resulting liquid to the surface" "Shell Oil is currently developing an in situ conversion process (ICP). "
source: http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/oilshale/index.cfm

Not far at all.

[swooge]

- + toadicux See Profile I'm a Fan of toadicux
The second a huge move to domestic production would occur the price would collapse just like in the seventies. It sure as hell didn't take ten years either.

How can we possibly seek alternatives when the oil companies have ALL of our money?
__________________________________________________________________________

Oh, I don't know, maybe stopping an idiotic war and using some of that money for R&D?

[TheRealMacDaddy]

The thing about drilling in ANWR is that the GOP members of Congress voted to allow the Oil Companies to sell the Oil on the open world market for the highest price they could get, rather than targeting the production from that area for only American use.

[TheRealMacDaddy]

I wonder why John McCain isn't raising a bigger stink about the GOP in the House of Representatives blocked a measure that would have forced Pres. Bush to release 70 Million Barrels of Oil from the Strategic Reserve. That would drop the price of gas a heck of alot faster than additional off shore oil drilling.

I also wonder why this didn't get more play on the MSMs? I think Americans would like to know that the Dems are trying to bring down gas prices but it is being blocked by Boehner and Co.

[swooge]

+ Ramirez See Profile I'm a Fan of Ramirez
So after vetoing ANWR we did the same dumb thing for the next ten years, which was buy oil from overseas.

Using American workers to drill for domestic oil IS doing something new.
__________________________________________________________________________

With ANWAR producing full out we'd still be importing oil from overseas. And actually ANWAR would probably be slowing down right now on production depending on how much was being pumped and would probably be used up in a few years.

It's not the answer. Once again, drilling is not the way out of this problem. Oil is a finite resource and even by wildly optimistic guesses peak oil will be reached in a few years if it hasn't already, which many say has happened.

I'll say it again. Conservation and recycling would save more oil than can possibly be produced by drilling ANWAR and it can be done NOW instead of ten years from now.

[missviv]

Carl Sagan openly lamented that so few politicians knew anything about science, and even worse, went out of their way to not know anything about science. You can't disrupt part of an ecosystem and not see any manifestations or repercussions for what you do. That isn't open to debate, that is FACT.

[Ramirez]

Yes. And you cannot keep an ecosystem from changing, either. And if you try there will be repercussions for that as well.

In fact, the world changes all the time and we're part of it.

[missviv]

I'm missing your point... but if you're suggesting that drilling for more fossil fuel is somehow going along with a changing ecosystem.. I think you need to rethink your whole argument entirely, or at least be far more thorough.

[KillTheMessenger]

Since when are "change" and "willful destruction" the same entry in the dictionary? Since the repubs issued the GOPSpeak version?

[Tommygun264]

What would a reptile know about the arctic?

[Ramirez]

Here's an idea. ANWR is the size of South Carolina. Whaddya say we take an area inside it the size of Dulles Airport and drill for some US oil?

[swooge]

Why? when it's futile gesture that won't solve our problem.

[Ramirez]

There is nothing on earth that will "solve" our problem. But reducing our dependence on foreign oil is an idea whose time has come.

[Thinkingclearly]

I promise you - if you've spent a few years around wildlife - not just a trip through a park - you'd understand. Unfortunately, most wildlife majors at UM came from back east. When I asked my roommate who was getting her masters in it, if there were any native Montanans in the masters program, she said no. She got her masters trying to figure out what predators took duck eggs from a nest. Anyone raised in the country could have answered that questions - foxes, coyotes, racoons, skunks, snakes, etc - but after a summer of trying to figure out what happened to her wax filled eggs - she got her masters. (Even though she told me that she couldn't see toothmarks on the eggs because animals that bite into a ball of wax, mess them up pretty good trying to get the wax out of their mouth). Her boyfriend got his masters after spending an enjoyable fall and winter trapping a grand total of 6 ferrets from MN and outfitting them with radio collars and turning them loose in the Yaak. In 2 months they were all dead or the radio collars slipped off. So, he spent a lot of time enjoying the large cabin and skiing. And yes - he got a masters degree. So - that's the kind of intelligence that giving us the spin that the caribou would somehow stop procreating at the sight of a white man in ANWR.

Nope - I'll trust my

[Viper]

That would be more benefical to the environment than the HOG farms their and pools of animal waste that the field would replace and South Carolinians would make more money.

Lets cut off all the oil we get from within the Continetal U.S. and Gulf and see if anyone has a job six months from now in the U.S?. Or how many freeze this winter...

Regards

[SuiginTou7]

Let's see, we'll have to wait ten years for the first drops to get here By that time I could have solar panels, a wind tirbine and geothermal lines for my house and a hybred car. I won;t need that oil at all. Stop thinking short term.

[Thinkingclearly]

For those who have never been lucky enough to live on a ranch in Montana or to see Alaska, here's a bit of insight. The presence of man doesn't eliminate wildlife. Honestly, living close to nature - you appreciate the whole cycle of birth, death, and birth of nature. You take care of them, and they take care of you. Antelope will walk right through a herd of cows, racoons will come up to your cat dish, and deer and pheasants have it a lot easier when a place is being ranched and the alfalfa fields and hay keep them going. As for Alaska - if moose and bears can make it in Anchorage - how can you think that a 2000 acre footprint is going to disturb them significantly?

Google a map to get a picture of it.

Anyway, I asked a professor of wildlife from Alaska what he thought the impact would be on that herd. He said that it wouldn't be that much - perhaps a 5%-10% change in their reproduction. But - he said that animals usually settle on a place for calving on historical basis - but they change and shift too - so after a couple of years, they'd settle on another. As for crossing over pipelines - they don't have problems making it over roads and with some accesses built over or under a pipeline, they'd figure that out.

I

[akryan]

I've worked on the slope. the caribou wander around there in huge herds. I've seen thm grazing directly under the pipeline. the debate really needs to get away from the bambi arguments. if you want to produce up there you'll not only have to allow it, but you'll also have to give oil companies tax breaks to develop it. the companies that develop it aren't necessarily american companies. the big player up here is british petroleum. royal dutch shell is trying to get in. then you have to deal with the fact that the oil will still be sold internationally at competitive prices. the big plus for us is that we live on oil royalties. it supplies 80% of our state budget. there's sort of a draw on jobs up here. most slope jobs go to imported Texans who end up moving up here. that's why the state has become so red. that and the huge military presence. so the jobs will go to alaskans, just not alaskans that are here now. so I personally have mixed feelings, but on the whole it would be good for alaskans. I'm not convinced it will help the nation as a whole though.

[KillTheMessenger]

How about stopping the addiction first before we whitewash the drug?

[Chbronze]

For all of you who think oil is so bad don't use it. Most of this is a desire to tell others how to behave.

[jvarga]

Hey Ramirez how much oil is in ANWR? How much oil does the US import every day? Why bother.

[LiberalForever]

Does anyone even know or care that the Alaska Pipeline oil is shipped to JAPAN?

Big oil has 68 million acres to drill on, and does nothing about that. They would rather drill off the coast of Florida. But don't worry, nothing will happen... LIke today on the Mississippi River, nothing happened, just 420,000 barrels dumped in the river. No biggie. We can be sure nothing would happen in the coastal waters off Florida and California. Why? Because they say so.

By the way, would "they" mind having an agreement if they did drill offshore that ALL of the OIL would go directly to US refineries for use by American consumers? Would they mind agreeing that ALL of the employees along that product chain would be American Citizens? After all, this is an American problem, and American property.

Exxon Mobil has not yet paid ONE CENT for the Prince William Sound tanker spill. Even though the settlement reached has been reduced drastically by courts. Exxon has decided paying lawyers for years is better than cleaning up the mess. These are LOVELY companies. This pressure to drill is nothing but crap. Lies and more lies. That's the way the right wing works it. Lies and more lies.

[swooge]

Drilling for oil is a last ditch effort by people who haven't a clue as to what we are facing environmentally or energy wise.

You cannot drill your way out of $4 gas prices or make us less dependent on foreign oil. It ain't gonna happen. Wise up and start backing the move to alternatives and renewables before the rest of the world does it first and we have to go begging them for the technology.

[Viper]

You can be pro drilling and Pro switching to wind and solar as fast as possible. It does not have to be either or... black and white. Chaos is what happens if oil becomes tight before the change over is ready.

77% percent of Americans are pro drilling and Pro solar and wind... This is costing the elections.

50% of the oil is not used as feul. Plastics, fertilzer, insulation synthetic fibers, drugs, asphualt, PVC pipe and etc. Try to live w/o that stuff... It does not come from solar or wind.

Of course lets use more dirty coal instead which is what is happening all over the world..


Regards

[lazywhiteamerican]

Agreed. IMO the debate is too polarized. No pun intended.

I am way on the side of environmentalism but I think a little more thoughtful framing of the issue would be nice on both sides.

[swooge]

They're pro-drilling out of ignorance. Chaos is what's happening right now. The chang-over has to happen ASAP. Drilling is a pipedream that delays that.

New techs can and will create plastics and other cpmpounds from biomass. The money for drilling should be put into them now.

[swooge]

The way you wean the world from coal is to offer them new techs. That takes a committment to funding them and that won't happen with people clambering for drilling.

[KillTheMessenger]

Your numbers about oil use are wrong.

And just because we don't drill does not mean we have to use more coal. We can reduce our dependence on both.

[gevan]

Alaskan wildlife is indifferent to whether we drive cars or ride bicyles in New Jersey. The nerve of some animals. Don't they watch TV?

[helonias]

Not the road pizza run over by the cars but the turkey vultures have a lot to eat.

[Davwbaird]

Yipes where are the men in Black. That Gop dude is from off planet