maybe there really *is* a spine of sorts forming in the democratic party.
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Democrats to Fight ANWR Drilling in Defense Bill

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats said Thursday said they will fight an effort by Republicans to use a must-pass Defense Department budget bill to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Tapping into the refuge's potential 10 billion barrels of crude oil is a key part of the Bush administration's national energy plan to boost domestic petroleum supplies and reduce America's addiction to foreign oil imports.

Drilling supporters see attaching the ANWR provision to the defense spending measure as their last-ditch effort to finally give oil companies access to the refuge after a group of House Republicans threatened to kill a separate budget deficit reduction bill if that legislation contained the drilling language.

Most Democrats are against drilling in the refuge and argue the Defense Department budget bill should not be used to settle the issue.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said if the ANWR drilling language is in the defense spending legislation Democrats would argue it violates Senate rules because the provision is not related to defense issues. "The (Senate) parliamentarian will rule in our favor," Reid told reporters.

"It's appalling that the United States Senate is willing to hold our troops and hurricane victims hostage to their desperate attempts to satisfy big oil and drill in the Arctic Refuge," said Democrat John Kerry.

"Debate about the future of the Arctic Refuge is a debate about our failed energy policy and our environmental legacy, not about the funding of our men and women and uniform, and it would be grossly irresponsible to include the drilling provision in the final Defense Appropriations bill," said Democrat Russ Feingold.

However, the defense spending measure is the only major legislation moving through Congress that ANWR could hitch a ride on, according to Republican Pete Domenici, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and a major supporter of drilling in the refuge.

"It's clear (ANWR drilling is) not going in the budget ... If anything it's going in the appropriations bill on defense," Domenici told reporters.

When Jeff Bingaman, the top Democrat on the Senate's energy panel, was asked if his fellow Democrats would filibuster such a move, he responded: "I would be surprised if some did not."
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complete article here

John Kerry and Russ Feingold!

and hopefully they will do it.

>>When Jeff Bingaman, the top Democrat on the Senate's energy panel, was asked if his fellow Democrats would filibuster such a move, he responded: "I would be surprised if some did not." <<

SOME? It had better be ALL of them......