re: "RINOs?" ah... Republicans In Name Only?
Gotta watch that tendency to reduce people to acronyms...
While raising concerns, the 24 GOP lawmakers who signed the letter did not all say they would vote against the budget if an ANWR provision were included.
H. Joseph Hebert, AP, as reproduced by Yahoo® News.
In other words, the justification given by the group for their letter to Hastert, quoted earlier in the article, appears to be tactical: trying to sneak it into the budget process is neither good for the budget, nor for eliciting support for ANWR exploration.