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Ohio congressmen birding in Alaska. Not quite.

Below is a July 17, 2008 posting to the Ohio Birds e-mail listserv by northwest Ohio resident Kenn Kaufman who is an "author, artist, ornithologist, naturalist, and conservationist, known for his work on several popular field guides of birds and butterflies in North America."


First, from the Blade story :

[Latta] joins a fact-finding trip from Washington to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska with 10 other congressmen, all Republicans. He said he wants to see what ANWR looks like, but said he believes it is not as picturesque as some may envision. "ANWR is not what they see on the news. We're talking about tundra," Mr. Latta said.

The White House-sponsored delegation is traveling on Air Force aircraft and is being coordinated by the Department of the Interior. The trip will stop for a day at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory near Denver and then continue on Saturday to Fairbanks, Alaska.

On Sunday, the group will fly to Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay, the center of existing Alaskan oil drilling operations. The visit will also involve a flyover of the proposed exploration area and a stop in Kaktovik, a town of about 300 people, where the delegation plans to meet the mayor and city council.

This is obviously a rigged expedition by some ignorant congresspeople.


Kaufman's posting with my emphasis added :

Subject: Ohio reps birding in Alaska
From: Kenn Kaufman
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:36:42 -0400

This weekend, a delegation from the US House of Representatives will be making
a brief trip to Alaska, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The
eleven-person team is led by Ohio's Rep. John Boehner and also includes Reps.
Bob Latta of Bowling Green and Jim Jordan of Urbana, while the other eight
representatives are from eight other states, so the group has a very strong
Ohio contingent.

Birders who hear about this trip are likely to respond with envy -- thinking
about all the amazing species that the congresspersons will see, the abundance
of nesting sandpipers, plovers, phalaropes, jaegers, Arctic Terns, Snowy Owls,
Long-tailed Ducks, Steller's Eiders, Spectacled Eiders, and so many other
beautiful birds. We might quibble about the timing of the trip -- after all,
some of the Arctic-breeding shorebirds have already started to migrate south,
with Pectoral Sandpipers and others already appearing in Ohio on their way to
South America -- but still, most of us would jump at the chance to go along.
I've been to the North Slope about a dozen times as a leader of birding tours,
and it was always an amazing experience.

Unfortunately, our Ohio congressmen may not get the full benefit of the birding
experience, because they seem to be going with a negative mindset. In a July 15
press conference, Rep. Boehner said, "We're going to look at this barren,
Arctic desert where I'm hoping to see some wildlife. But I understand there's
none there. But I'm still going to look for it. If I find any, I'll let you
know." Likewise, Rep. Latta was quoted by the Toledo Blade as saying that he
believes the refuge is not as "picturesque" as some may envision -- that it's
"not what they see on the news. We're talking about tundra." Of course,
picturesque or not, coastal tundra is among the richest wildlife habitats
imaginable during the brief Arctic summer. But at least some members of the
congressional delegation seem to be going with the intention of proving that
the wildlife refuge is not worth protecting.

WIthout going into the pros and cons of drilling for oil in the Arctic Refuge
-- the Department of Energy estimates that it could save us as much as four
cents per gallon on gas, starting as early as 2018 -- I want to focus on the
misconception that there's anything "barren" about Arctic tundra. The truth is
that the Arctic Refuge supports huge numbers of migratory birds, including many
of the birds that we enjoy here in Ohio. I've put together some perspectives on
this issue at http://www.kknature.com/CurrentTopics.html

Feel free to pass this link along to anyone whom you think might benefit from
it.

Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio

created by jr on Jul 18, 2008 at 10:42:49 am     Comments: 1

source      versions

tags: environment   energy   oil   

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Comments ... #

"This is obviously a rigged expedition by some ignorant congresspeople."

July 24, 2008 Toledo Blade op-ed titled Fog over ANWR :

It was appropriate that the plane carrying Reps. Bob Latta, Jim Jordan, and eight of their Republican congressional colleagues never got to land at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Their minds were made up before they began their "American Energy Tour," so nothing they saw on the ground in Alaska would have mattered. In fact, they could just as easily have conducted their "fact-finding" junket from their Washington offices and saved us all a little money.

Speaking to the Toledo Rotary Club after his return, Mr. Jordan, who represents Ohio's 4th District, said he didn't see any caribou, polar bears, or even "Bambi," just "the most barren desolate place with 10.4 billion barrels of oil waiting to be brought to market." Mr. Latta, the 5th District representative, told Blade politics writer Tom Troy that the GOP delegation did see happy caribou co-existing contentedly at the airport in Deadhorse, Alaska, near the existing Prudhoe Bay oil fields.

An open and honest debate about drilling in ANWR is not possible when mentally infantile congressmen like jordan and latta make such silly statements.

More from the op-ed :

We are not surprised that these myopic lawmakers couldn't see wildlife from a plane, in the fog. They didn't want to see them in the first place. And the oil? Government studies indicate that it may - or may not - exist in the quantity they so optimistically claim. As Inupiat native Robert Thompson noted, politicians see and hear what they want to justify their desire to drill for oil.

But leave aside the predetermined and self-fulfilling nature of this latest waste of taxpayer dollars. Forget the insult to the intelligence of the American people inherent in Mr. Jordan's "Bambi" reference. Ignore the fact that even if drilling were to begin today, not one drop of ANWR oil would reach the market for many years and the impact of that oil on gasoline prices would be negligible at best. The other really big falsehood that's been floating around for years in connection with ANWR drilling proposals, repeated by Mr. Latta, Mr. Jordan, et al, is that drilling would impact only about 2,000 of the refuge's 1.9 million acres.

But what is meant by drilling's 2,000-acre "footprint" would actually be something quite different from the tiny red spot shown on maps of what Mr. Latta called ANWR's vast "tundra desert." What he didn't reveal is that those 2,000 acres wouldn't be all in one place. They would be made up collectively of the ground supports for dozens, maybe hundreds, of raised drilling platforms that would be scattered throughout ANWR's coastal plain. Unlike Prudhoe Bay's concentrated fields, ANWR crude is believed to be contained in many locales.

Neither does the miniscule 2,000-acre "footprint" hyped by the pro-drillers include the miles and miles of roads and pipelines that would have to be built to connect the wells to other oil facilities, nor the facilities themselves, nor the hundreds of square miles near the roads and pipelines that would be adversely affected by their presence and the traffic they carry.

Perpetuating misinformation to play off the fears of people hit hard by the rising price of fuel and other consumer goods is unseemly, even in an election year. In the end, drilling in ANWR isn't about inconveniencing a few caribou as these shills for the oil industry, masquerading as members of Congress, would have the public believe. It's about destroying one of this nation's most precious natural areas for little, if any, economic gain.

posted by jr on Jul 25, 2008 at 03:52:18 pm     #  

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