Word: alaskas
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Sarah Palin doesn't really do compromise. Defiance is more her style. So when other Republicans began to go soft on their promises to "repeal and replace" Barack Obama's landmark health care reform, the former Alaska governor went reliably rogue. Wearing a trim black leather jacket and pencil skirt, Palin appeared at a rally for John McCain in Arizona and urged the GOP faithful not to quail now. "I see Fidel Castro likes Obamacare, and we don't," she taunted. "Doesn't that tell you something...
...proposal will open up much of the Eastern seaboard—from Delaware to central Florida—the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as more of Alaska, to drilling. This near-sighted plan endangers the environment while also doing little to advance the United States’ goal of energy independence. The research necessary to pinpoint tracts of oil and natural gas suitable for drilling is incredibly invasive; for example, the process often disrupts whale migration because of sonar equipment. Such research will likely drag on for 10 to15 years, while destroying precious ecosystems...
...have seen so far from President Obama - promises of change, a year of deliberation, and ultimately, adoption of flawed and outdated Bush policies," said Brendan Cummings, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the more radical green groups. "Short of sending Sarah Palin back to Alaska to personally club polar bear cubs to death, the Obama Administration could not have come up with a more efficient extinction plan for the polar bear...
Still, it's important to put Obama's decision in broader perspective. Any new drilling may not happen for years and is likely to face lengthy legal challenges from environmentalists - as is already the case in Alaska. (Drilling might happen faster off the coast of Virginia, where Republican Governor Bob McDonnell supports oil and gas exploration.) Leases in the vast Beaufort and Chukchi seas, north of Alaska, which had been up for sale under the Bush Administration, will be withdrawn for now while the Interior Department takes another look at the environmental risks of drilling in the delicate Arctic...
This is no argument for giving oil companies a license to drill wherever they want. Indeed, Alaska is a singular place, and the waters off its north coast are so cold and so rough that any spill might be irrecoverable. What the U.S. needs is alternatives - the only solution that would permanently protect the Arctic and any other vulnerable place cursed with oil. "For the sake of the planet and our energy independence, we need to begin the transition to cleaner fuels now," said Obama. But to make that happen, we need a climate bill - and to pass a climate...