LA Weekly

I just got an email from my favorite spammer, Senator John Kerry, warning that in 24-48 hours the Senate might have to decide the fate of the last five percent of protected coast in Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That's because Senate Republicans (one Judd Gregg in particular, from New Hampshire) have slipped an ANWR drilling provision into the annual budget, which, unlike an ordinary bill, can't be filibustered. -- the Budget Act of 1974 limits debate to a mere 20 hours. So 51 votes does it. Sneaky.

Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington State, is offering an amendment to kill the ANWR provision, but in a Senate with 55 Republicans, it has very little chance of success.

Around the same time, I was reading EDIE's case study on Epson UK -- how they installed monitors so employees could see in real-time exactly how much energy the company was sinking.

Energy consumption in the country office declined by 21 percent.

If the 500 largest companies in the United States reduced their energy needs by 21 percent, would we still need the paltry supplies of oil under ANWR? What if a thousand did? What about just those 53 Fortune 500 companies in California (the most in any state)?

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