NMPIRG Gears Up To Save Refuge

The fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge intensified in the Congress this summer and into the fall. NMPIRG and state PIRGs across the country are working harder than ever to secure the votes needed to preserve the Refuge.

According to the PIRGs Arctic Campaign Director Athan Manuel: “The pro-drilling lobby has been forced to bundle Arctic drilling language into the budget instead of airing the measure for an up-or-down vote, primarily because they know it would fail.”

But even under the pro-drilling lobby’s new strategy, the budget barely passed Congress this spring—by a margin of just three votes in the House, and four in the Senate.

NMPIRG is focused on persuading a handful of moderate senators and representatives to vote to protect the Arctic. Manuel held meetings with the senators over the months of June and July. Outside the beltway, organizers spoke with citizens and collected thousands of public comments in favor of preserving the Refuge. Our traveling oil derricks and report releases made headlines wherever they went, and got the word out about the Refuge.

Shareholders Tell Oil Companies To Save Arctic

This spring, shareholders at two of the world’s largest oil companies, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, voted to push their companies to stay out of the Arctic Refuge and recognize the risk from drilling in other environmentally sensitive areas.

The resolutions, organized and filed by an NMPIRG-led coalition including Sierra Club and Green Century Capital Management, were supported by more than 9 percent of ChevronTexaco shareholders and more than 8 percent of ExxonMobil shareholders.

NMPIRG’s Campaign Finance Fears Prove True

“The Role of Hard Money,” a new report by NMPIRG national Democracy Advocates Gary Kalman and Adam Lioz, takes a critical look at the impact of the McCain-Feingold Reform Act of 2002. After the first full election cycle, NMPIRG found that candidates and political parties raised more money than ever before, topping $2.5 billion; big money still determined the outcome of 97 percent of races; and competition for seats dropped even further as fewer candidates than ever chose to run for Congress.

The bill, initially supported by NMPIRG and other state PIRGs, was crippled in an eleventh hour compromise that traded a ban on unregulated ‘soft’ money for doubling the limits on regulated ‘hard’ money contributions.

Voicing strong opposition to the compromise, NMPIRG made controversial predictions on how higher contribution limits would undermine the long sought-after goals of reform—and these predictions have now come to fruition.

ADVOCATING DRUG SAFETY—Lindsey Johnson, consumer advocate for NMPIRG’s Washington, D.C. office. The consumer team called on Congress to pass more sensible drug safety laws. While on the market, Vioxx is estimated to have caused over 140,000 cases of heart disease in the U.S.—and 40 percent of those cases resulted in death.

NMPIRG Backs Drug-Safety Bill

Despite years of warnings from its own drug reviewers, the FDA took no significant action to protect consumers from Vioxx. The Vioxx scandal and other problems have led state NMPIRG national Consumer Advocate Lindsey Johnson to lobby Congress to reform the FDA. Introduced by Sens. Grassley (Iowa) and Dodd (Conn.), the Food and Drug Administration Safety Act would give the FDA the authority it needs to protect consumers from dangerous drugs and inform doctors of new drug safety concerns.

Experts estimated that in less than five years on the market, Vioxx accounted for more than 140,000 cases of heart disease in the U.S.—and up to 40 percent of those cases resulted in death.