Washington -- The Teamsters are credited with pushing an energy bill through the U.S. House this summer that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. But drilling opponents also have friends in organized labor.
The president of one of the country's largest unions, the Service Employees International Union, stood with Senate Democrats in front of the Capitol on Wednesday and proclaimed his members' opposition to drilling in the refuge.
"We need a long-term, sustained effort for working families to solve our nation's energy policy, not quick, fly-by-night solutions," said SEIU president Andy Stern.
SEIU, which represents janitors, hospital workers, public employees and others, has 1.4 million members, making it the largest union in the AFL-CIO, he said. Stern cited opinion polls that show union households don't want to see drilling in ANWR.
Although the Teamsters have been very visible supporters of tapping the refuge, organized labor is clearly of two minds on the issue. The operating engineers, the laborers and the building trades unions stand with the Teamsters. Leaders of the United Auto Workers, Communications Workers of America, the National Writers Union and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America have spoken out against drilling, citing environmental reasons.
The AFL-CIO considered taking a position on ANWR this summer but did not, a spokeswoman said. Instead, because its members were split, the AFL-CIO decided to let stand its 1993 resolution that offered qualified support for oil exploration.
Sen. Frank Murkowski and his Republican colleagues, frustrated that energy policy is stalled in the Senate, have said they'll try to attach an "open ANWR" measure to virtually any bill that comes to the Senate floor this year.
Drilling in ANWR, Murkowski has said, would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, stimulate the economy and make America less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. After Sept. 11, it's more obvious than ever that energy independence is a national security matter, he and others say.
Senate Democrats, including Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts, countered those arguments Wednesday. Investing in alternative energy would create more jobs and better wean the country off imported oil, they said.
An effort is under way to wrap ANWR in a false cloak of patriotism and slip it past Congress, Kerry said.
"I'm here to say . . . we define our patriotism with equal fervor in a different way, and we're not going to let it happen," he said.
Reporters also heard from Denali National Park bus driver and Teamster member Bill Watkins. Watkins said he opposes drilling in the refuge, adding that an informal survey showed 78 of 80 Denali bus drivers felt the same way.
No other union representatives spoke against drilling, although a district director for the United Steelworkers of America submitted a written statement. Roger Herrera, lobbyist for the pro-drilling group Arctic Power, said he was unimpressed with Wednesday's show. The Democrats, Herrera said, "are feeling a little weak and insecure."
"You're sort of dredging the shallow end when you get out the few unions in America that, for whatever reason, oppose drilling in ANWR," he said.
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