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[lynati]

By a 52-48 vote, the Senate rejected an attempt to change the law to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Big Oil's allies in Congress tried to use war with Iraq as an excuse for drilling, and Interior Secretary Gale Norton pressured high-powered special-interest groups to lobby fence-sitting senators. But Defenders of Wildlife helped make the case that drilling would destroy America's greatest wildlife preserve while doing little to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The best scientific estimate is that the refuge holds only six months of oil, and even that won't become available for 10 years.

To read Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen's statement on the vote, click here: http://www.defenders.org/releases/pr2003/pr031903b.html .