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Lay of the Land

See our icy stare

Those ads that romanticize sport-utility vehicles careening across deserts and through tropical rainforests are bad enough, but egads, Detroit, do you have to take on the Arctic–even fictionally? While GM’s Saturn line touts its new Vue SUV as "at home in almost any environment," one place it would not be welcome is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a site that looks surprisingly like (and is as chock-full of wildlife as) Saturn’s representation of "the polar regions." Though the Senate recently defeated a proposal to drill in the refuge, oil lobbyists will make a determined effort to include drilling in the energy bill that’s eventually sent to President Bush.