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March 16, 2002 To:
Honorable
Mike DeWine, U.S. Senate
Honorable
George Voinovich, U.S. Senate
From: Participants
at the 44th Annual Ohio State Grange Legislative Conference
Currently the United
States Senate is debating comprehensive legislation to improve our nation's energy
security. The undersigned Grange members from the State of Ohio, assembled at
the 44th Annual Ohio State Grange Legislative Conference, strongly urge you to
support proposals to allow development of the oil and natural gas resources located
on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in an environmentally
sound manner as part of the final legislation adopted by the U.S. Senate this
year. We
senior citizens have watched this tangled political web develop over the years
since the oil embargo and Carter Administration. It's galling that some politicians
simply do not care about the American people. We seniors have been victims of
this appalling indifference since we were young working stiffs. Now, we are particularly
vulnerable to variations in supply and price of oil products. We are extra vulnerable
to higher vehicle prices driven by poorly conceived government mandates for vehicle
design. We are on fixed incomes. Every price rise reduces our spending power.
The
bill that passed the House (H. R 4) with strong bipartisan support is what we
need. It is a balanced measure that addresses all the right approaches to helping
solve our energy problems, keep prices steady and reduce our dependence on imports.
It includes conservation measures, investment into research and development of
renewable energy sources, investment in new technologies, such as vehicle technologies,
and development of domestic sources of petroleum. The
problem is that Democratic party leaders, playing to their radical environmental
constituencies, have thrown up barriers to any learned debate and an honest vote
on the issues. They have thrown up a straw man bill that was poorly crafted to
appeal to the special interests who do not want America to be energy secure. The
fact is that environmental groups and their political allies do not want the United
States to develop domestic resources of oil because they want Americans to stop
using oil altogether. They want U.S. citizens to pay more for energy to keep them
under pressure to use less oil because it advances their agendas to force smaller
cars on us and to restrict auto use overall. The
greens say they want to protect the environment in ANWR, which they say drilling
would destroy. They know their claims about environmental disasters in the tiny
patch of 2,000 acres that would be open for drilling in the 19 million-acre ANWR
are lies and distortions. They also know that the little 2,000-acre dot on the
coastal plain of ANWR is a desolate, lifeless wasteland, not a "pristine" wilderness
grazing ground for caribou. Even though they know they distort and lie, they don't
care because it advances their agendas and their political allies climb on the
bandwagon parroting the inane charges of killing "Arctic elk," (there is no such
animal), destroying caribou (which are thriving in nearby petroleum development
fields and along the pipeline), and threatening the way of life of native peoples
(none of which live anywhere near the coastal plain). The whole green campaign
is a fraud based on fabrication.
This debate is not about biology or ecology, it is about politics and power -
about who will control this nation's energy policy for the years to come. If
the small vocal band of radical greens and the Democratic obstructionists win,
our nation loses, big time! At
present count, there are more than enough Democrat and Republican votes in the
Senate to pass the House bill. But the Democratic leadership led by Majority Leader
Tom Daschle (D - S.D.), John Kerry (D - Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (D - Conn.) is
stifling the democratic process and blocking an honest vote on the floor by insisting
that 60 votes are needed to pass the bill. That's
why seniors across America are rising up and lending their voices to support the
President's sensible and honest energy plan. We will fight all the way with our
farmer friends, our union allies and all other thinking Americans who know that
opening ANWR will protect our seniors from devastating price gouging and will
help protect our beleaguered farmers who suffer enormous losses from fluctuations
in energy prices. Best of all, we march proudly with our union allies, knowing
that opening ANWR will create hundreds of thousands of good jobs and huge opportunities
for small businesses across this marvelous land. It's
time the interests of Americans came before the political interests of a few uncaring
obstructionists who are out of the mainstream of American thought and opinion.
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