For Sen. Ted Stevens, drilling in Alaska is personal payback

[Thom Little]

The Incredible Hulk appeared Tuesday on the Senate floor, adorning the necktie of Sen. Ted Stevens - a familiar sign that the veteran from Alaska is pumped for the fight to open part of an arctic wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

But to hear his colleagues tell it, Stevens is more like the Grinch who would steal Christmas - and New Year's, if need be - to collect on his end of a vote-swapping deal he struck with two Democrats 25 years ago.

"A promise made is a debt unpaid," Stevens, 82, is fond of repeating. "This is a debt unpaid to this Senate, to the country, to Alaska."

Back in 1980, the deal went like this: Vote yes on setting aside 19 million acres of wilderness, said Sens. Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington and Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, and Congress will support permission to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Stevens agreed. Tsongas and Jackson, meanwhile, died before Congress could grant permission to drill. Their debt survives, Stevens insists. And he's playing procedural hardball to make the Senate pay up.

"We're going to have to face up to ANWR either now or Christmas Day or New Year's Eve or sometime," Stevens thundered from the Senate floor Tuesday, bucking criticism from drilling opponents furious that he succeeded in attaching the drilling permission to a must-pass bill to fund the military.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/STEVENS_HURRAH_AKOL-?SITE=VARIT&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-20-18-20-53

[xchrom]

1. elction theft 00 calls off all bets.

[FloridaPat]

2. The citizens of Alaska got a ton of money from all that oil at Prudhoe

Bay. I can see where they would want some more. Well, if a promise is a debt unpaid, I'd like the government to fullfill all those promises they've made over the centuries. And why is this a must-pass military bill. Don't pass the bill. Bring the troops home.

[Sydnie]

3. It's not a supplemental budget that would just cover Iraq

It covers all salaries and dependants stipends. It is must pass legislation for so many families. Stevens knows that. That's why he is pulling this crap!

[OneTwentyoNine]

4. Stevens is an asswipe from way back,ties drilling to a Defense bill..

"The extreme environmentalists think it's their playground, that they should set the policies for Alaska," said Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican. He was returning fire from his most persistent critics in a long campaign to open ANWR for oil exploration.

How many ways is there to say FUCK YOU STEVENS?!?!?!?!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/20/congress.roundup.ap/index.html

[Vickers]

5. Boy, there must be some BIG under-the-table money in it for him

if he's acting this pissy and irrational.

[Toots]

6. If Stevens really stood up for alaska he would be fighting for the rights

of the State granted under the Statehood act and taken away by Bush1. The Statehood act is very plain in how natural resources including mineral rights are to be divided between the State and Federal government. The Statehood Act says the split will be 90-10 with the 90% going to the state. Bush1 came along and got Congress to readjust that figure to 50-50 and not one peep out of any of Alaska's Representatives....He certainly is not doing this for his state....