Barbara Boxer: “They say: Because the opening of the Arctic refuge to drilling raises a host of policy concerns including serious…”

“They say: Because the opening of the Arctic refuge to drilling raises a host of policy concerns including serious environmental ramifications, we do not believe the issue should be injected into the budget process. I have to applaud my Republican friends who wrote this letter. Such an important issue about such a place involving such beauty should not be the subject of a little amendment here dealing with reconciliation. We need to have much more serious debate. In 1960, when President Eisenhower set aside 8.9 million acres to form the original Arctic Range, his Secretary of the Interior noted that the area was: one of the most magnificent wildlife and wilderness areas in North America, a wilderness experience not duplicated elsewhere. As you can see, nothing has changed about that description. It remains a special place, richer in wildlife than perhaps any other part of the country. I say to my Republican friends, it was a Republican President who said let's preserve this place forever. It seems sad that the Republican President now is saying let's simply turn our back on this legacy.”