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2001-03-29 - 9:35 p.m.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

I've never been there, but I imagine the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to be a beautifully cold, vast, pristine place where the wind bites at your skin and makes you feel alive. I picture it as a lush, white expanse where the only sound you hear is your own breath � that or the myriad wildlife on the land or in the air.

I may never go there, but I want it to stay that way. I cannot describe it in first-person detail, but I want to keep the image I have in my head.

I do not want the President and the other oil tycoons to destroy one of the last remaining untouched sections of land left on this earth.

Bush's election to the presidency immediately put the Arctic NWR and our environment as a whole in trouble. Appointing former NJ Governor Christie Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency did not help either � sure, she set aside a lot of land here, designating it off limits to further development, but the problem is that there just isn't much land nationwide to set aside. Already, fuel standard restrictions have been eased � all in the name of lower gas prices this summer � which will add to air pollution as the months grow warmer. With lower gas prices, more people will hit the road this summer; with dirtier fuel, the air will grow thicker.

The Bush Administration does not see global warming, the diminishing ozone layer or rising carbon dioxide levels as a problem.

A little ironic, isn't it, that a man with the name of a shrub has no interest in the environment?

But what can you expect from an oil man? He wants to let BP, Amoco, Exxon and the others head on up to the Arctic to drill for oil. The estimates show that only a six-to-eight month supply will be found there. And 80 percent of American oil is sold abroad, so that the oil magnates can take advantage of world prices. Then what? We're back where we started � only the land isn't. Nothing can reverse the effects of drilling on the land. At least not in any of our lifetimes.

So when I get up tomorrow, I'm going to call BP � one of the oil companies hoping to receive permission to drill into the tundra. Their customer service line has been getting calls on this subject, and I'll tell the operator my vote is "No, don't drill there." The number is 1(800)UTELLBP (1 800-883-5527). There is a menu. Press number two, then press three. Maybe we can win this election.

I may never visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But it's nice to know that it's there.

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