Alaskans drill Williams

In response to Craig Williams' piece in the Aug 6 2008 News of Delaware County advocating drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Eleanor Huffines, the Alaska Regional Director of the Wilderness Society wrote to the paper this week. (The response is not online.)

In short, Huffines debunks not only Williams' conclusions, but his methods. In typical Republican fashion, it appears that Williams listened to all the "pro-drilling partisans" and "vociferous pro-drilling forces" while ignoring invitations from native groups and environmental groups (including the Wilderness Society) to meet with him. One of the groups that Williams met with was called Artic Power, whose website says "The organization is committed to securing congressional and presidential approval of legislation opening the Coastal Plain of ANWR to responsible oil development. " As Huffines notes, it's "a front group who sole purpose is to lobby Congress to drill..."

Williams went there in favor of drilling in ANWR, met a bunch of people who agreed with him, and came back with the same notion. Williams got "a skewed picture of what drilling would entail." Kinda like watching Fox News.

This is not the kind of work that would make him a good Congressman. But it does give the voters of PA-7 some idea of how he would operate - he'd fall right in line with the Bush - McSame - oil lobbyist clique that is screwing up our country right now.