Welcome and a great first link...

Welcome to ANWR News, a blog dedicated to independent, broad-based information about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. With the Senate's vote last week to include ANWR oil drilling in the federal budget bill, I thought it was past time for a quality source of information on all things ANWR.

The Senate's move puts the reality of ANWR drilling closer, perhaps, than it has ever been. We also live in a time when sorting fact from fiction has become more difficult. I hope this becomes your go-to blog for all the latest and most interesting ANWR developments. You will hear from industry, environmentlists, scientists, residents and government, not just one or the other. The link field on your right will grow as we move along, hopefully becoming a dependable working library for background on the refuge.

In that spirit, here's a great piece to kick things off. It's a rich and unbiased online backgrounder on ANWR from the folks at Learners Online, a service of the wonderful Newspapers in Education program. It is intended for middle- and high-school-age readers, but it's a great introduction to the conflict filled with useful links.