Over the din of beating tom-toms, surrounded by activists wearing antlers and dressed as polar and grizzly bears, Senator Clinton yesterday dismissed high gas prices and the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina as a "diversion," cautioning that proponents of arctic drilling were exploiting recent crises to make their case for a long-term anti-environment agenda.Mrs. Clinton's remarks were delivered to hundreds of demonstrators amassed on the West Lawn of the Capitol as part of Arctic Refuge Action Day, and her midday speech followed remarks by other congressional Democrats, including Senator Kerry of Massachusetts. The roster of participants included several environmentalists and left-leaning activists, among them the director of the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi David Saperstein, and a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mrs. Clinton told those opposed to drilling to be "absolutely firm in our opposition" to drawing petroleum from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "Some might say, 'Well, senator, we have gas prices going up - don't we need to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge?'" Mrs. Clinton said. "And of course the answer is that we do not. The answer is that that is a diversion. The answer is that we need to break our addiction to foreign oil."
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