Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), named a Big Oil All-Star by NWF

You remember when House Energy & Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton infamously apologized to BP? Rep. Barton told since-ousted CEO Tony Hayward it was a government “shakedown” that led to the creation of the $20 billion dollar fund that pays economic damages to individuals & businesses affected by the Gulf oil disaster. The apology earned Rep. Barton a spot on NWF’s Big Oil All-Star Team.

Well, now Rep. Barton is telling Politico, “I don’t see any negative consequences from [the apology] at all.” So remorseless is Barton over his original remorse that he is now seeking a waiver from Republican Caucus rules that term-limit chairman or Ranking Members for six years. Yes, Rep. Barton is so emboldened by the House Republicans’ election prospects, he’s already making plans for an end run around the rules so he can become chairman again.

It might be amusing to see who else Rep. Barton might apologize to. Maybe Massey Energy for all the pesky government investigations into the coal mine tragedy that killed 29 miners?

But the prospect of Barton with the gavel in his hands calling the shots on energy & climate issues is downright frightening. Hopefully, the House Republican leadership will reject his request and Barton will apologize to, well, all of us for a Halloween scare.

Woolsey favors far greater investments in renewable energy and alternative fuels as a way to lessen our dependence on the OPEC cartel. He’s also made a point that has largely been absent from the public debate and that is, in the wake of 9/11, it would be unwise to become even more dependent on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which winds and weaves for 800 miles, through largely remote and unpopulated terrain, before arriving at the Port of Valdez in Prince William Sound. To be sure, even the Pentagon has acknowledged that the pipeline is largely indefensible. As perhaps evidence of this, a mentally disturbed drunken Alaska resident named Daniel Carson Lewis used his .338 caliber rifle to shoot a hole in the structure that caused more than 285.000 gallons of oil to spill and forcing the pipeline to be shutdown for several days in 2001. I’d hate to think what an actual terrorist could do.

Of course U.S. oil infrastructure is not just vulnerable to terrorists. Hurricane Katrina has brought oil operations in much of the Gulf of Mexico to a halt, causing further spikes in already crushing fuel prices. The Alaska pipeline, which crosses several major fault lines, could similarly fall victim to a major earthquake.

Woolsey argues that renewable energy sources like solar and wind and agri-based alternative fuels are easier to defend, less vulnerable to natural disasters and of course better for the environment. That’s not to say Alaska oil hasn’t made a vital contribution to our nation’s energy needs. But allowing drilling the Arctic Refuge – as Dr. Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute suggests – would be “a fool’s errand,” that would only exacerbate our dependence on oil, and as a result, make us more vulnerable to not only the OPEC cartel but potential acts of terrorism and natural disasters.

But, according to Dr. Richard Fineberg, a former oil and gas advisor to the State of Alaska, it’s unlikely even a fraction of this revenue would ever materialize. That’s because big oil corporations like BP and Exxon are bidding less than $100 an acre for leases on the North Slope. Similar bids for the Arctic Refuge coastal plain – assuming all 1.5 million acres are leased – would only generate $150 million. However, proponents plan initial leasing for between 400,000-600,000 acres. To arrive at the $2.4 billion figure then, oil industry bids would have to average 40 to 60 times the going rate on the North Slope.

Of course, drilling proponents will argue that the prospects for a big discovery in the refuge make these seemingly wildly inflated revenue projections realistic. Yet lease sales for areas immediately offshore and adjacent to it on-shore, have yielded either no revenue or sums well below the North Slope’s going rate.

With Congress inching ever closer to this fall’s budget debate, we’d hope that those who claim to be fiscal conservatives – no matter how they feel about the merits of Arctic drilling – would at least agree that the budget of the United States should be built on real, honest accounting and not a pipe-dream.

Well, I don’t know what “all the stops” means (send in the Mounties? Threaten to ban the export of hockey players?), but it’s sure nice to hear tough talk from a head of state on the environment. The fact is Canada has a lot at stake and a proud history here. Around the same time that President Dwight Eisenhower set aside the Arctic Refuge, Canada also agreed to establish conservation areas on its side of the border. Today these areas — Ivvavik and Vuntut National Parks in the Yukon – enjoy permanent protection from development. Taken together with the Arctic Refuge, this area represents the largest pristine protected landscape in North America.

More importantly for Canada, the Arctic Refuge and the adjacent Canadian parks protect the most critical habitat for the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which the Gwich’in people of the Yukon as well as Northeast Alaska depend upon. In some of the Gwich’in villages, up to 80% of their diet comes from caribou and other wild meat. The Gwich’in consider the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge “the sacred place where life begins,” and fear drilling the coastal plain would adversely affect the successful calving of the herd.

In part reacting to the concern of the Gwich’in people, the U.S. and Canada signed a treaty in 1987 specifically calling for the protection of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. You might ask what left wing President willfully risked U.S. sovereignty by signing, of all things, a treaty to protect caribou of things? That’s right, it was the “great communicator” himself, Ronald Reagan who made the commitment; a commitment that would, in Canada’s view, be violated if Congress allows drilling on the coastal plain.

Now here’s a thought: what if we renamed coastal plain after the 40th President of the United States; a president who, after all, had the foresight to negotiate this important international treaty (arguably make more sense than the renaming of National Airport given the late president’s summary dismissal of air traffic controllers)? Most enticingly, this would allow all of us – liberals, moderates and conservatives alike to join together and say “let’s win this one for the Gipper – no drilling in the Reagan Refuge!”

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on several occasions, the first of which was a trip with several members of Congress in 1998. To their credit, these Representatives opted for a tour of the Refuge that involved three nights of pitching tents, braving mosquitoes, pumping water, taking long hikes and foregoing conveniences as simple as, well, bathrooms.

Among those on the trip were Rep. Gregory Meeks from Queens, NY, who had never been camping, let alone camping in the most remote and wildest place in America and Representative Jim Greenwood (R-PA), an avid bird watcher and conservationist who has since retired from Congress.

Upon arriving in Alaska, Greenwood kidded with us about a pamphlet we sent preparing trip participants for possible Grizzly encounters, one line of which instructed “first stopping and identifying yourself” upon seeing a bear. “Shall I tell them I am Chairman of a Commerce Subcommittee,” Greenwood joked. We didn’t see any bears on that trip, though we did see their tracks. We also saw scores of caribou, a rough-legged hawk’s nest and a myriad of other plant and animal life.

For Meeks, an African-American who represents a largely minority district, one of the most memorable parts of the trip was a visit to Arctic Village on the southern boundary of the refuge. There the Gwich’in people still live a largely subsistence life style, depending heavily on the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which migrates through or near their community each year.

Unfortunately, only a handful of members of Congress have taken the time to truly see the Arctic Refuge up close let alone visit the Gwich’in people. Those who have, including Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), Mark Dayton (D-MN) and Jay Inslee (D-WA) have gone one to become some of its most vocal champions and defenders. Of course, many other members of Congress claim to have visited the refuge, but their trips have largely involved an industry guided tour of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, a high altitude fly-over of the refuge and a stop in Kaktovic, a barrier island offshore the refuge where many of the native residents support drilling.

Why do proponents of development deliberately organize trips that seek to minimize actual contact with the refuge? Do they fear having to stop and identify themselves to its grizzly bear inhabitants as pro-drilling lobbyists? Well, probably not. But they do apparently fear a full, fair and honest presentation of the facts, just as they seem determined to avoid a fair debate by tacking a drilling provision onto the federal budget bill.

Take the Arctic Refuge as an example. More than a dozen GOP House members who say they oppose drilling, supported the congressional budget resolution (which included a drilling provision). Had just a few of these lawmakers decided to oppose the budget, the resolution would have been defeated on the House floor and the drilling debate would be over — at least for this year.

Two different staffers told me that their bosses voted for the initial budget blueprint because they did not want to negatively affect the amount of federal highway dollars that would go to their districts. Who controls those dollars? House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), one of the chief advocates of Arctic drilling. Young has cut road allocations for members who have gone against him on the Arctic and other Alaska issues, but you’d be hard pressed to find reports about such instances in the media or talked about publicly.

Who would dare admit they cast their vote, not on the basis of principle but politics? Who would acknowledge publicly they were willing to trade the wildest place left in America for their own piece of personal pork?

Well, the highway bill has since passed Congress and President Bush signed it into law two weeks ago. You’d think that would ease the pressure on lawmakers who oppose Arctic drilling to actually vote their conscience when the final budget bill comes back to the House floor this fall.

Sadly, though, there is always more pork — some other quiet deal to cut for politicians willing to name their price. But we’re doing something to stop that. By shining a bright spotlight on everything they do and say about the Arctic, we can keep Congress honest about their decisions. Together, we are thousands of eyes and ears that can catch everything they have said — on the campaign trail, in interviews, or in our calls to their offices.

So tell me what you know — I’ll tell you if it jibes with what we’re hearing “inside the Beltway.”

Washington can be kept honest by the weight of citizen involvement. So, the next time you talk to your lawmaker’s office let them know you want them to oppose any final budget bill that includes Arctic drilling.

Excuse us?!

Let me be clear: drilling in the Arctic Refuge would be a huge mistake. But in any case, the place to debate the issue, if anywhere, is in the energy bill — so why drop that from there, where dealing with that question makes the most sense?

The answer’s easy: because the politicians never gave up on the idea, and found a clever way to ram it through. By sliding their Arctic drilling scheme into the budget reconciliation bill — usually meant to deal with spending cuts and revenue issues — drilling advocates are attempting to get around their inability to get their invasion of the Refuge approved through normal means.

Congress can’t filibuster a reconciliation bill. That creates a loophole large enough to drive a fleet of Exxon’s seismic vehicles through. Even our environmentally enlightened politicians have kept quiet about what’s really going on here: a blatant effort to avoid a full, fair and open debate about the fate of the wildest place left in America.

The facts are clear: this is a place that has been protected for nearly a half century, and a place that at best may meet two percent of U.S. oil demand — maybe — in 20 years. So if Congress wants to talk about drilling in the Refuge, it should at least put the debate back where it belongs — in the energy bill — and have an honest discussion about Arctic drilling and the energy choices we need to make as a country.