Two senior Democratic congressmen have sent a list of questions to Andrew Lundquist, the top aide for Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, asking him about how private interests are influencing the group and why meetings are secret. Issue ads try to swing votes on drilling in refuge. Phillips Alaska Inc. has diked one section of a spill area in the Kuparuk oil field and is preparing to flush the ground with warm water to lift salt and crude oil off the tundra, state officials said. Crude and saltwater soak tundra in year's biggest spill. You're in a small airplane buzzing through the vast Arctic emptiness.
Clouds hang over the snow-crusted tundra.
Sea ice stretches out of sight to the north. The wind shivers across this expanse of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, chasing the snow before it in wafting white lace south toward the Brooks Range. Three U.S. senators, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and an entourage of about 20 huddled Saturday morning in a metal shack sitting atop an active oil well, one of more than 2,000 in the North Slope industrial complex. Outside it was 12 below with a 20 mph wind. Her infant sister died during the first winter Eve Ahlers lived in this village on the northern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.