Senators chary of Arctic drilling plan
WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Republicans are having trouble getting a majority to support drilling in an Arctic wildlife refuge, although the administration hopes Saddam Hussein’s call for an oil embargo may rally lawmakers to the pro-drilling side. “You know my opinion about Saddam; the world’s not going to follow him. But it just goes to show how important it is to diversify our supply away from places like Iraq,” Bush told Republican campaign contributors in Connecticut Tuesday.
If support doesn’t pick up, some Republican senators have considered abandoning a Senate vote on drilling in the refuge, arguing that a poor showing in the Senate could jeopardize getting the measure into a final energy bill during negotiations later this year with the House.
The House energy legislation, approved last summer, already includes opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil companies.
But Senate Democrats have promised to block an attempt to put a similar measure into the Senate bill and Republicans are far short of the 60 votes needed to overcome any filibuster.
A Senate vote on ANWR drilling had been expected as part of a broader energy bill this week, but now the prospects are uncertain, said several congressional sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, made clear through a spokesman Monday that he still intends to press the case in the Senate and is preparing an amendment to the energy bill that would open the refuge in northeastern Alaska to oil development.
Bush, meanwhile, has tried for two days to generate support for drilling in the refuge, telling audiences at the White House and at a Connecticut GOP fund-raiser that ANWR’s potential oil “is needed more than ever” in light of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s announcement that he will suspend oil exports for 30 days.
“He’s going to try to cut off energy supply to affect the United States. I mean, what more reason do we need than to have good energy policy in the United States to diversify away from somebody like him?” Bush told business and labor leaders Monday.
Bush’s energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, struck a similar tone, saying: “This week more than any other we have the proof that the need for legislation to permit the United States to produce more oil at home and reduce our dependence on foreign sources of supply.”
Senate opponents to drilling argue that oil would not flow from ANWR for a decade and even then do little to curb oil imports that are expected to continue to grow in the years ahead. A recent Energy Department study concluded imports would decline only slightly over what they would otherwise be if the refuge’s oil were made available.
At peak production, ANWR would supply about 1.9 million barrels a day, according to the Interior Department estimates.
The United States today uses 19 million barrels a day, 57 percent of that from imports.
Republican attempts to sway senators to support drilling have gotten nowhere close to the 60 votes needed to break a Democratic-led filibuster, according to sources on the pro-drilling side.
At least six Republicans have gone on record opposing drilling in the refuge and so far only four Democrats have publicly said they favor oil and gas development there. Some pro-drilling senators worry they won’t get a majority.
To try to get wider support, some Republican senators privately have suggested scaling back lease sales to only the northwestern third of the 1.5-million-acre ANWR coastal plain. Geologists believe 80 percent of the oil may be located in that one-third area.
On Monday, the Interior Department produced an analysis that concluded that if oil development were limited to the northwestern one-third of the plain, there would be minimal impact on the calving activities of Porcupine caribou, one of the issues most concerning to environmentalists.
The new analysis was ordered after a government study, examining 12 years of research, concluded that caribou and other wildlife on the coastal plain were at risk and might be adversely affected by oil development.
A senior Interior Department official suggested the new analysis would bolster the case for scaled-back development, although the administration remains on record as allowing oil lease sales in the entire 1.5 million acres.
Drilling opponents, including Democratic Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts, in the past have said such scaled back development still threatens the refuge and would be just as strongly opposed.