ANWR Amendment does not pass...Vote 49 - 51 [View All]

[truthpusher]

Just seen live on CSPAN2 Senate rejects Cantwell Amendment.

http://www.cspan.org/watch/cspan2_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2


Yays 49 Nays 51

Story: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050316/ap_on_go_co/arctic_drilling_10

Senate Votes to Allow Arctic Drilling
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3 minutes ago Politics - U. S. Congress
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
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WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush (news - web sites).

The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said.

The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to get access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in the northern eastern corner of Alaska.

complete story: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050316/ap_on_go_co/arctic_drilling_10