ANWR Drilling Bill Rejected

By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press writer
Posted March 27, 2003

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Wednesday rejected oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge, handing the Bush administration a defeat on one of its top energy priorities.

Despite intense lobbying by pro-drilling senators and the White House in the hours leading up to the vote, Democrats mustered the support needed to remove a refuge drilling provision from a budget resolution expected to be approved later this week.

The vote on an amendment offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to strip away the provision passed 52-48.

Before the vote, senators on both sides predicted it would be extremely close.

Development of the millions of barrels of oil beneath the 100-mile coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska has been a key part of President Bush's energy plan. However, environmentalists contend drilling there would jeopardize a pristine area valued for its wildlife.

All but five Democrats voted against refuge drilling. There were eight Republicans who joined the Democrats in favor of barring oil companies from the refuge.

With one or two senators holding the balance, both sides stepped up their lobbying to try to sway anyone thinking of shifting their allegiance. The vote appeared to tighten when freshman Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., under intense pressure, signaled he might vote in favor of drilling. But in the end, Coleman, who succeed the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, an ardent opponent of drilling, sided with the Democrats.

And GOP leaders couldn't get the additional two votes they desperately needed.

Drilling supporters failed last year to open the refuge to the oil industry because they couldn't get 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, although the House approved oil development.

This year, Republicans made the measure part of a budget resolution, which is not subject to filibuster, forcing Democrats and a handful of anti-drilling GOP senators, to try to strip the provision from the budget document.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, argued that Congress in 1980 made a commitment that the oil beneath the coastal plain -- part of a 19 million-acre refuge -- eventually would be tapped.

Stevens and other drilling supporters also said that with government-imposed restrictions and the use of modern technology the oil could be pumped without harming the coastal plain's wildlife. "We're not using a lot of land," said Stevens, maintaining that the "footprint" left by the oil wells would be less than 2,000 acres.

But environmentalists countered that the footprint would be scattered over 1.5 million acres of coastal tundra, disturbing polar bears in their dens, affecting calving grounds for caribou and interfering with millions of migratory birds that swoop down on the plain each summer.

In the hours before the vote, the White House stepped up pressure on Republicans who might be wavering.

With war looming in Iraq, proponents of pumping the oil in the refuge have focused on energy security, arguing the ANWR oil would help America reduce its reliance on precarious foreign supplies. It's the largest untapped reserve of oil in North America, declared Stevens.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said lawmakers must not "throw away" the refuge's oil. "It's almost impossible to prove that ANWR will be damaged" by development he said.

Democrats disagreed, arguing the refuge's oil was not nearly enough to significantly impact imports.

"While endangering one of the most pristine areas in the world, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would do nothing to make our country more energy independent," said Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. He said none of the oil would flow out of the refuge for 10 years.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who offered an amendment that would remove the refuge drilling provision from the budget resolution, argued that the United States could save more oil than the refuge would produce "by just getting the SUVs to have the same fuel economy as autos."

"This is a national treasure," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., one of the Democrats who successfully blocked attempts to lift the drilling ban last year. "God only gave us 3 percent of the world's oil. The Middle East has about 65 percent ... and a 2 percent difference for the destruction of the wilderness does not solve America's problem."

How much oil is beneath the refuge's coastal plain is uncertain because only one exploratory well has been drilled and its results have not been made public. The Interior Department estimates that the plain could have anywhere from 5.7 billion barrels to 16 billion barrels.

Environmentalists argue that much less oil than that -- no more than about 3.2 billion barrels -- is likely to be useful for oil companies to pursue. Major oil companies, in fact, have begun to lose interest in the refuge.

The United States uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.

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