Fellow nature lovers,

The time has come. Washington is just days from voting whether to allow the rape and pillage of Alaska's last remaining off-limits lands, so that Cheney's buddies can afford to buy another yacht. Even if the optimistic predictions are true, there's not enough oil there to risk these precious lands. This is about profit and politics, not about a sensible energy plan. The vote is going to be SUPER close!

Our own Senator Coleman is going to be one of the last deciding votes, he may actually be the tie-breaker according to the story I read. He has said he does not support drilling, but he is being lobbied HARD by oilman Bush. We need to remind him to have a backbone. Now is the time to speak up.

PLEASE contact Colemans office and say you oppose drilling Alaska for what will amount to about 10 minutes worth of oil for America. Call, write and email (do all 3!, it will matter). Tell your nature lover friends. Phone calls and snail-mail letters are the most effective.
To make it easy, here's his contact info:

Senator Norm Coleman
SD-B40, Suite 3, Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5641
e-mail: opinion@coleman.senate.gov

And contact your own Senator as well!

More on the story: http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/arctic.refuge.drill.ap/index.html

If anyone here made your voice heard on this issue, I thank you profusely. WE actually fucking WON one!!!!! For the time being, the Alaskan Wildlife refuge is safe from roads and oil spills, and we can have a brief happy dance in this time of horrendous environmental/energy policy.

We won by only two votes, so our voices were very important. We gave a huge middle-finger salute to Bush and his oil cronies, and we won WITH the help of some key Republicans, whose offices I have already contacted to thank.

It was pretty amazing. My only regret is that Bush was probably too busy with the war to be as pissed off as he would likely have been normally. I'm sure he thought he was going to win that one, too.

lcj, Thank you! A very good point. I was taught to send my thank-you's, but sometimes the context obscures the basic need to do that. Will do, pronto, tomorrow.

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