The Keystone Bill's Most Hilarious Amendment - Protecting Chicken, Alaska

The new Senator from the Klondike is making sure that nobody—not even the Environmental Protection Agency—tries to bully Alaska's scrappiest town. Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-Alaska) first amendment as a lawmaker sent a clear message to the federal government: Nobody messes with Chicken, Alaska. Nobody. Sullivan's amendment to the Keystone XL Pipeline bill—expected to be voted as soon as today— bars officials from Environmental Protection Agency from carrying guns, a direct result of a "raid" conducted in a tiny gold mining town in 2013. A town called Chicken.Here's how the raid in Chicken went down, according to local press reports and a special counsel's report commissioned by then-Alaska Governor Sean Parnell (R): In August 2013, Chicken was inhabited by less than 80 miners (Sullivan’s statement says 17), eking out a hardscrabble living in the hopes of one day striking it rich. That was until the nine miners—or roughly 11 percent of the population—were visited by ten armed "criminal law enforcement officials"representing the EPA, the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Environmental Conservation, according to the report. The feds were there to investigate possible violations of the Clean Water Act and they meant business.In addition to the guns, they brought military helicopters, wore body armor and donned jackets with the word "police" on them, according to local report...more