The Refuge can again be saved from drilling. What's interesting is that, in a desperate attempt to keep Refuge drilling in the bill, advocates are now offering to raise fuel standards (finally), in exchange for Refuge drilling.

1) Drilling in the Refuge would be a band-aid for a severed artery.   Fuel economy standards should be #1. Refuge drilling is worse than useless. As I said earlier, Bush knows full well no oil will ever come from the Refuge til long after he is a bad dream--he and his apologists just want to play budget games---and have included about $2.5 billion in oil leases in the Refuge in, I believe, the 2007 budget, (rather than touching the sacrosanct tax cuts).

2) #2 should be cancelling the planned tax cuts, which (yet again) benefit primarily the rich--Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, if I recall correctly, termed the robber barons and their ilk the "criminal rich".

3) Anybody who feels the Refuge should remain, as Robo described it in his first posting on this topic ( in the first thread), "pristine", should contact his or her Senators and Congressmen (or -women) and tell them so.

4) The choice is not between Refuge drilling now and Refuge drilling later. It is at least as likely that the "environmental lobby"--i.e. people who care about the environment--will be as strong or stronger later than now. To say otherwise is defeatist--"No, Mr. Lincoln, General McClellan is right--we'll never win this war. Let the South be independent".

I have the list of the moderate Republicans who signed the letter stripping the Refuge drilling provision from the bill. I will be glad to give their phone numbers or e-mails to anybody who wants to encourage them in standing up to the Republican "leadership" in this.   Just PM me.

Democratic Senators and Congressmen should also be contacted to enforce the necessity of resisting this needless and senseless Refuge drilling.