Good Question. Bad ANWR.

From MoJo Blog, a question on the House floor asked during the debate over the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by Rep. Edward Markey:

So the choice comes down to this – do we raise $2.4 billion by prying open and forever destroying a national wildlife refuge, overturning forty years of established environmental policy, threatening the way of life of the Gwich’in peoples, and allowing the oil and gas industry to select any of our other 544 national wildlife refuges as their next target, or do we give the Secretary the discretion to raise by a tiny fraction the royalty rate paid by the wealthiest corporations in the world for producing oil on the public’s land? This is simply a question of whether we would rather protect public land or big oil companies.

From the LATimes today:

Oil Giant Does Well: Exxon Sales Top $1 Billion a Day
$100.7 billion in revenue is a record as profit hits $9.9 billion. Results draw outrage.