Poobah In Shock: House Comes Through!

I never actually thought I'd be reading this: the House of Representatives has DROPPED from the budget debate plans to allow environmentally catastrophic oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and also upheld the moratorium on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines.

For the past number of years, the Senate has actually been the less reactionary of the two houses of Congress, and when the ANWR clause was left in their budget, I thought hope was lost. But apparently a group of moderate Republican representatives decided to axe the the proposal altogether.

We're not out of the woods yet, naturally - the House GOP leadership/Oil Industry flunkies are going to push hard to have it included in the joint House/Senate final budget, but this is certainly promising. It narrowly passed in the Senate, and I think that we can get the votes to save the ANWR there (especially if the HOUSE can do it).

After that Kansas news, I needed a boost, and this was it.