Vote against drilling was right thing to do

May 19, 2005

We are fortunate to be represented in the U.S. Congress by someone who is dedicated to protection of the environment and will act on that conviction even when under great pressure from his party's leaders.

U.S Rep. Tim Johnson voted for an amendment to the energy bill to remove the provision for drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. More recently, he voted against the budget resolution that passed in the House by only a three-vote margin, citing numerous flaws in addition to the fact that it included a provision that will lead to oil drilling in ANWR.

Since a budget resolution is not subject to a filibuster in the Senate, this inclusion was an underhanded method of avoiding the stricter scrutiny such a controversial proposal deserves.

Instead of squandering irreplaceable fossil fuel resources and wreaking havoc on pristine wild areas, Johnson favors truly conservative measures such as raising the efficiency standard for automobiles. Those who watched the "Nature" program on May 1 saw the remains of two civilizations, in Angkor, Southeast Asia, and the Maya region in Central America, where apparently the overuse of surrounding resources lead to the collapse into starvation, civil war, chaos, and eventual reclamation of the abandoned cities by the rain forest.

The current civilization is global. If we do not pay attention to the environmental values advocated by Johnson and move to sustainable technology and conservative use of exhaustible resources, we are headed for disasters that will make those examples look like playground fights. But we do not have the excuse of lack of knowledge, only a failure to install political leaders who will use that knowledge.

RICHARD L. BISHOP
Urbana