Talk Nation Radio for August 28, 2008
Pt 1. Emilie Surrusco of the Alaska Wilderness League responds to Congressional calls for more ANWR drilling. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio pushes hard to drill in the Arctic Wilderness. Surrusco responds to comments by Boehner on CNN’s Glenn Beck show.
Produced by Dori Smith at WHUS at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT
TRT: 29:41
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here Or try Archive.org and Radio4all.net
We discuss the dangers of oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and the negative impact it would have on both animals and people. Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network provides an overview of his platform on offshore drilling. Goldtooth is a nominee for Secretary of the Interior, running with the Backbone Campaign, and has the support of PBS legend Bill Moyer.
Part II Talk Nation Radio for August 28, 2008
TRT: 29:11
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here
Or use Archive.org or Radio4all.net
With his selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, Senator John McCain has in effect found a replacement for Dick Cheney. Bush’s choice in a Vice President troubled environmentalists and oil industry critics who saw Cheney as pro oil due to his work for oil services industry giant Halliburton. Cheney proved them right by empowering oil industry moguls to help draft the nation’s energy bill.
(Please note, I’m not claiming that Palin is as powerful as Cheney, but what I’m saying is that in terms of the political motivation to give the oil industry a voice in the White House, Palin fits that description pretty well. Thanks to those who offered me their constructive criticism.)
See Open Secrets on Oil companies and Bush administration plan to drill in ANWR
Alaska’s Republican Governor Sarah Palin has strong ties to the oil industry and some of those are through her support for Republican Senator Ted Stevens. Like Stevens Palin favors drilling in the ANWR, the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. Oil industries have been cultivating Alaskan natives for years in an effort to convince them to accept the oil industry as a kind of ‘jobs Walmart’. The media reports that Palin’s husband is of Eskimo descent and works in the oil industry and some have said he works in the fishing industry as well. He too could help a McCain administration and oil industry executives with making further inroads among native Alaskans. Though as we shall hear from today’s guest, Luci Beach of the Gwich’in Tribe in Alaska, native Alaskans are often short changed when it comes to receiving industry jobs:
“Alaska natives, we seem to be the last hired and the first fired,” Luci Beach, Alaskan and Gwich’in Tribe member
With his selection of a political newcomer who supports drilling in the ANWR, John McCain has given a boost to industry executives who have been trying to build political bridges with Alaskans who have come to view the oil industry negatively after the Exxon Valdez spill and a more recent serious spill on the North Slope.
Fishermen and others in Alaska have just won a fraction of what they were asking for in terms of a settlement with Exxon over the Exxon-Valdez oil spill of 1989. That spill was considered one of the most devastating man made environmental disasters in history. Recipients of the funds have said it is far too little and much too late to compensate them for losses in the fishing industry and other industries in Alaska and there are ongoing concerns about human and animal health in the region of the spill.
The US uses roughly six million barrels of oil per day. Drilling in the ANWR, the Alaska Wilderness Reserve is not expected to make a dent in our current need to import oil. Yet in 2006 Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and Governor Sarah Palin held a press conference to support giving the oil industry access to ANWR for drilling. (Thanks to Think Progress for staying on top of the Sarah Palin, Ted Stevens story and also for the audio clip they posted on their web page of the 2006 press conference with Stevens and Palin.) They argued that more Alaskan drilling would prevent US dependence on Saudi oil:
“What is stupid is having to send Secretary Bogman over to the Saudis to ask him to ramp up developments and ramp up an energy supply to be imported into our nation. Prior to that a few weeks prior we had to send our president over to ask him to ask them to ramp up development. He’s talking about manipulation within the market. I want to talk about the market in terms of more supply getting in there. I do want to see more domestic safe stable clean supplies of energy from our own country being able to feed hungry markets.” Gov. Sarah Palin, Alaska
America’s dependence on foreign oil and particularly MidEast oil has long been a problem. However, Stevens and Palin seem to be ignoring the fact that whether the drilling takes place in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or the Arctic, American consumers would still be relying on the same oil companies to deliver the oil to the pump and set prices.
In 2008 Philp Budzik of the US Energy Information Administration wrote an analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He did so at the request of Senator Ted Stevens but he found that ANWR drilling would not reduce US gas prices:
“If you open up ANWR you will not have a significant impact on world oil prices, either in the near term or the long term. In terms of per gallon the impacts are between 1 to 3 cents a gallon.– And that’s after ten years.” Philip Budzik, author of report commissioned by Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska for US Energy Information Administration.
Clip: CNN’s Glenn Beck, Ohio Sen. John Boehner.
BECK: Wow, look how pretty that is. It’s flat, it’s watery. Mosquito infested for your enjoyment during the summer months. It looks exactly like Prudhoe Bay which is just a couple hundred miles in the other direction. We have been drilling for oil there for years. And when all the cute caribou leave for the winter, ANWR looks even more like Prudhoe Bay; a snowy, barren wasteland that, I say, looks pretty good with that big oil well sticking out of it. Now, if you don’t want to drill in a desolate, frozen tundra we bought for its natural resources, that’s fine. I think you’re an idiot, but who am I to judge? But an important issue like this, shouldn’t we at least, have an honest debate? Shouldn’t we prevent — present the facts honestly to each other? Don’t we owe it to each other and our country?
BOEHNER: Yes, the whole area on the northern coast of Alaska, Prudhoe Bay, where we have been drilling for 30 years, where we’ve produced almost 12 billion barrels of oil, it’s right in the middle of that northern coast. And the National Petroleum Reserve is just west of it, and ANWR, the coastal area the 1002 area is just east of it.
It’s a broad, coastal plain. There’s nothing there. There is an Eskimo tribe that lives near this ANWR area; a group of 240 people who actually want us to drill because they know we can drill in a responsible way, but there’s nothing there.
We feature a detailed response from Gwich’in Tribe member Luci Beach who says the ANWR region is a treasure and also sacred to her people.
[...] Emilie Surrusco of the Alaska Wilderness League, Luci Beach of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, Gwich’in Tribe Alaska, and Clips of McCain, Palin, Government experts on ANWR and oil here [...]