Democrats Encourage Funding Terror

Now that they have the control of both houses of Congress, Democrats have now stepped up their fight against energy independence.

According to an AP report, Dems have gone from "defense" to the offensive and plan to permanently put 1.2 million acres of snow and ice out of reach of those harmful oil rigs. It gets worse...

Legislation introduced in the House on Friday would make the oil-rich 1.2 million-acre coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a permanently protected wilderness and end repeated efforts to open the area east of the Prudhoe oil field to energy companies.

"The consensus is that there should not be drilling in the refuge, so the logical next step is to pass legislation which turns it into a wilderness," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chief sponsor of the legislation, said in an interview.

...Bush, who called for opening the refuge during his 2000 presidential campaign, repeatedly has said its environment can be protected alongside oil rigs. He views the refuge's oil as essential to lessening America's dependence on foreign energy sources.

Markey disagrees.

"Our addiction to oil is real (but) drilling in the refuge would amount to a declaration that we remain in denial about this addiction," he said.

I've worked next to oil rigs, done reclamation work on old rig sites, and observed the impact of old oil fields in Colorado and Utah, and let me tell you that nothing is touched outside of the rig sites, and the restrictions on roads are so severe that they are barely wide enough to fit a rig (in pieces) on, and that all of the very little oil waste is contained. After reclamation is done you wouldn't know a rig was even there. The environment is barely touched, and it's not like the mere sight of these rigs causes instant death to native animals. The environmentalist fears are seriously overblown.

Nevertheless, according to Democrats, keeping out unsightly rigs from no mans land merits more concern than sending boat loads of money to terror sponsoring Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, more concern than being potentially held hostage by OPEC, and more concern than arbitrarily rising oil prices.

I seriously question the mental rectitude of today's Democrats.