Issues
Environment Protecting Public Lands
The commitment to wilderness and
public lands runs deep in Wisconsin. Our state has produced
many great leaders in the wilderness movement including former
Senator Gaylord Nelson, Sierra Club founder John Muir, and
Sigurd Olson, one of the founders of the Wilderness Society.
Also notable is the writer and conservationist Aldo Leopold,
whose “A Sand County Almanac” helped galvanize
the environmental movement. On September 8, 1999, I announced
the formation of a Senate Wilderness and Public Lands Caucus.
I established this caucus to help promote and develop expertise
on wilderness issues in the Senate.
Apostle
Islands
Wisconsin's Apostle Island National Lakeshore
includes 21 forested islands and 12 miles of pristine shoreline,
which are among the Great Lakes' most spectacular scenery.
To protect the Apostles, I authored the Gaylord
Nelson Apostle Islands Stewardship Act to repair lighthouses
and conduct a study to make the Apostle Islands a federally
protected wilderness. I have worked to secure funds to repair
lighthouses on the Islands, and have joined with other members
of the state’s congressional delegation to make up to
80 percent of the Apostle Islands a federally protected wilderness.
A ceremony
dedicating the Gaylord
Nelson Wilderness at the Apostle Islands took place August
8, 2005.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
I strongly oppose drilling for oil in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and have been actively
engaged in efforts to defeat legislation that would open it
for oil exploration and drilling. Sacrificing one of America’s
greatest natural treasures is simply not the answer. According
to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, even if
we were to access this supply of oil, it may not last more
than a year and would not be available for many years to come.
We need to move past the divisive debate over drilling in
this refuge and further depleting our public lands, and develop
a new energy strategy for this country – one that will
protect our national security, our economy and our environment.
In 2006, I opposed S.
Con. Res. 83, a budget resolution for fiscal year 2007
that would direct the Energy Committee to pass legislation
opening the ANWR to drilling. Although drilling proponents
succeeded in passing this resolution in the Senate, I believe
the question of drilling in the Arctic Refuge is too important
to be considered through a backdoor budget maneuver.
To help protect the Arctic Refuge, I was an original cosponsor
of S.2316.
This bill would make the Refuge’s coastal plain a federally
designated wilderness area. Since oil drilling is not permitted
in federally designated wilderness areas, any future oil drilling
on this land would be prohibited.
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