Senate OKs Budget With Arctic Refuge Drilling Provision

Senate OKs Budget With Arctic Refuge Drilling Provision


By Zachary Coile
The San Francisco Chronicle

Friday 17 March 2006

Louisiana Democrat backs it after GOP adds hurricane aid.

Washington - The Senate narrowly passed a budget resolution Thursday that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, setting up another showdown in Congress this year over the most fought-over piece of land in America.

Republican leaders approved the measure 51-49 after securing the vote of Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, by offering up to $10 billion in projected revenues from drilling in the Alaskan refuge and in offshore waters to rebuild the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.

But the chances of opening the refuge to oil drilling are still uncertain. House Republican moderates who oppose drilling believe they have the votes again this year to block the provision from being included the House budget as they did in late 2005.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the drilling plan "keeps coming back like a recurring nightmare. But we've proven we can stop it, and we are going to continue to do all we can to ensure that this area is preserved for all time."

The Senate vote capped a day of rancorous debate over the budget resolution, a rough blueprint for the federal government's $2.9 trillion in spending for the 2006-2007 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Democrats complained the spending plan shortchanged education, health care, homeland security and environmental programs, and they offered a series of amendments to pay for those programs by closing corporate-tax loopholes.

But Republicans rejected the amendments, saying they would hurt efforts to limit the growth of federal spending. But after Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., threatened to vote against the bill because of cuts to health care and education programs, GOP leaders agreed to back his measure to restore $7 billion in federal aid.

The fight over drilling in the Arctic refuge was tame compared with similar battles in recent years. In fact, the plan to open the refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain to drilling was barely debated on the Senate floor.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a leading opponent of drilling, chose not to offer an amendment to strike drilling from the budget bill. Environmentalists conceded her amendment would probably lose by a vote or two and focused their efforts instead on trying to defeat the entire bill.

But GOP leaders spent much of the day negotiating behind the scenes with Landrieu. She had said publicly she opposed the broader cuts to social programs but might be willing to support the resolution if it contained more funding for her home state.

Two top drilling proponents, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and the Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., crafted a deal with Landrieu that would use revenues from drilling in the Arctic refuge, the sale of the broadcast spectrum currently used for analog TV and new lease revenues from offshore drilling to provide up to $10 billion for coastal restoration and for rebuilding levees in New Orleans.

After the vote, Landrieu acknowledged that her support for the bill angered some Democrats.

"I came here to represent the state of Louisiana. Period. The end," she told reporters. "It's not comfortable being by yourself sometimes, but sometimes it's necessary."

Landrieu was the only Democrat to back the bill. Five Republican senators voted against the measure: Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Mike DeWine of Ohio and John Ensign of Nevada. Vice President Dick Cheney was at the Capitol in the event of tie, but did not have to cast a vote.

Stevens, the Alaska lawmaker who has been on a decades-long crusade to open the refuge to drilling, said the deal with Landrieu was essential to passing a budget bill that included drilling.

"Other things may come up later," Stevens said late Thursday, "but right now things are looking pretty good."

The next major hurdle for drilling proponents will come in the House, which will consider its version of the budget resolution later this month.

A group of two dozen Republican moderates sent a letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, earlier this month opposing drilling and warning the contentious issue could split Republicans again and undermine the party's effort to pass a budget.

"Our group in the House is still united and strong in their opposition to drilling," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Main Street Republican Partnership, a moderate GOP group that has taken the lead in opposing drilling. "It's unfortunate, because we don't like to have this fight."

Environmental groups were disappointed by Thursday's Senate vote. They had tried to draw lawmakers' attention to a major oil spill in Alaska caused by a burst pipeline near Prudhoe Bay, which has dumped more than 250,000 gallons of oil onto the tundra in one of the worst recorded spills on the North Slope.

"The ultimate message here is that oil drilling is a messy business," said Peter Rafle of the Wilderness Society. "Major spills can and do happen. It underscores the fact that oil drilling has no business in the heart of a wildlife refuge."