Give Up Those Bridges and Help Make Our Home Planet a Better Place
Thursday, October 12, 2005
In news reports across the country, the state of Alaska is catching flak over Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young’s success at steering $231 million in taxpayers’ monies to build what’s been coined as a bridge to nowhere.
The Gravina Island bridge benefits about 50 Alaska residents on the island. Many of the rest of the country’s residents rightly believe that the federal handout should be rescinded.
While the Army Corps of Engineers requested $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year, the White House reduced that to about $40 million. Meanwhile, a wasteful $12.3 billion energy bill passed, aimed at increasing our dependence on oil.
Exacerbating this mistake, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has exploited the hurricane disaster to press for more oil drilling in Alaska’s wilderness. Drilling and destroying the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge is expected to have a microscopic impact on fuel prices — in 2025.
It’s high time to deal intelligently with global warming and industrial threats — to start behaving like we respect the environment, and the free-living wolves, bears, moose and other animals who keep the Earth alive. Instead of a land to be dominated, nature should be treated as the home we share, and on which the quality of life depends.
Tell your members of Congress to give up the prized bridge.
Priscilla Feral, president
Friends of Animals
Darien, Conn.
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4 Comments
On October 16, 2005, Hannah wrote:
What can we do?
On October 17, 2005, Priscilla Feral wrote:
Hannah — We can help defeat the Budget Reconciliation Bill that would allow oil exploration and drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Everyone should please now write a letter to their Representative in Congress to ask that they oppose any budget reconciliation bill that opens the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling. Many thanks.
Priscilla Feral
Friends of Animals
On February 11, 2006, Natalie wrote:
What was Senator Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young thinking when they introduced the bill. Did the cold weather freeze their brains or something?
On February 14, 2006, Kayleigh hoyt wrote:
There are 14,000 not fifty residents in Ketchikan where the “bridge to nowhere” is being built. still not a lot but a sustantial difference from fifty.
[Blog editors’ note: Gravina Island has 50 residents.] </strong]