Stevens: I'm Here All Month, And Don't Forget To Tip The Waitresses
Senator Ted Stevens has raised the temperature in the Senate by attaching ANWR drilling to the defense appropriations bill that needed to get signed to keep the troops funded in the field. Senate Democrats howled at the supposed breach of rules, and Harry Reid has promised to block all sorts of Senate business as a result. Now Stevens has raised the ante on Reid, threatening to Grinch the Senate into working right through the holiday season and forcing them to give up their Christmas:
[...]
[...]
The ANWR Lightswitch: On-Off-On....
The history of the attempt to allow drilling in a tiny sliver of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge boggles the mind: over and over, one side of Capitol Hill passes the legislation, only to see the other side shoot it down. Most recently, the Senate enacted a budget resolution that included drilling in ANWR (the budget is not subject to filibuster)... but the idiots in the House cut it out of their budget res, and in was not restored in conference.
Now, as a direct result of heavy-handed pressure from Alaska Senator-for-Life Ted Stevens, the representatives and senators on the Joint Conference Committee have once again restored drilling in ANWR... as I suspected they would. It took some arm-twisting and horse-trading, but I think it's far more important than anything they had to give up (mostly more government help for heating-oil costs).
But this time, Stevens shoehorned it into the Defense Appropriations Bill in both House and Senate, a must-pass piece of legislation that funds the troops:
[...]
