The ANWR fight continues across generations
Author: Michael Carey
Published January 27
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If celebrity means getting in the news and staying in the news, as wags have cracked, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge has achieved celebrity. ANWR has been in the news since the 1950s, when Alaska and stateside environmentalists began lobbying for a wildlife reserve extending from the Brooks Range north to arctic salt water.
The environmentalists’ lobbying was successful with the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Range in early 1960, the waning days of the Eisenhower administration. The range was about half the size of the 18-million-acre refuge the range became part of in 1980 during the Carter administration. In Dwight D. Eisenhower’s day, there actually were Republican environmentalists, some moneyed eastern sportsmen who, If 60 years old or more in 1960, might have met Teddy Roosevelt, the president who brought environmental stewardship to the Republican Party during two terms in the White House.