The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 10, 2004, Page 7, Image 7
> Bush looking for oil drilling sites in Alaska wildlife refuge
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Republican gains
in the Senate could give President Bush
his best chance yet to achieve his No. 1
energy priority _ opening an oil-rich but
environmentally sensitive Alaska wildlife
refuge to drilling.
If he is successful, it would be a
stinging defeat for environmentalists
and an energy triumph that eluded Bush
his first four years in the White House,
t A broader agenda that includes reviving
y nuclear power, preventing blackouts and
expanding oil and gas drilling in the
Rockies will be more difficult to enact.
Republicans in the House and Senate
said this week they plan to push for
Alaska refuge drilling legislation early
next year, and they predict success, given
the 55-44-1 GOP Senate majority in the
next Congress. Democrats and some
environmental activists say continued
protection of the refuge has never been
as much in doubt.
“It’s probably the best chance we’ve
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chairman of the House Resources
Committee and a vocal drilling
advocate, said in an interview.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.,
chairman of the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee, said he
will press to open the coastal plain of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
^ (ANWR) as part of the government’s
■ budget deliberations early in 2005. That
would enable drilling proponents to
skirt an otherwise certain Democratic
led filibuster that would be difficult to
overcome.
“With oil trading at nearly $50 a
barrel, the case for ANWR is more
compelling than ever,” said Domenici.
“We have the technology to develop oil
without harming the environment and
wildlife.”
Bush is also expected in his second
term to renew his call for action by
Congress on a broader, largely pro
production, energy agenda _ 'from
easing rules for oil and gas drilling on
federal land in the Rocky Mountains to
expanding dean-coal technology and
improving the reliability of the
electricity grid.
New tax incentives to spur
construction of next-generation nuclear
power plants also will be back on the
table after Democrats and some
moderate Republicans scuttled it last
year. Greater use of corn-based ethanol
in gasoline also has wide support at the
White House and in Congress.
Drilling in the Alaska refuge has been
all but dismissed as unachievable since
drilling opponents two years ago beat
back a pro-development measure by a
52-48 vote. Bush did not make an issue
of the refuge during the presidential
campaign.
But with four new GOP senators
expected to support ANWR drilling and
the loss of a Republican moderate who
opposed it, drilling advocates believe
they now have at least 52 votes in the
Senate, enough to get the measure
through Congress as part of the budget
process. By Senate rules, opponents of
drilling cannot filibuster a budget
measure. ANWR qualifies as a budget
measure because it will generate income
for'the government from oil companies.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton said
in an interview Tuesday with The
Associated Press that drilling in the
Arctic refuge remains a Bush priority,
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“I’ve seen the oil prices go up and
down over time, and people seem to
assume that when prices get high, they
always stay high,” she said. “But you
need to get the investments done at
that point so you’ve got the projects
that are continuing on when the prices
are low.”
Environmentalists already are gearing
up to wage an intense lobbying
campaign to keep oil rigs out of the
refuge’s coastal plain, a breeding ground
for caribou, home to polar bears and
musk oxen and site of an annual influx
of millions of migratory birds.
“This is as serious a threat to the
refuge as any that has come before,” said
Jim Waltman of the National Wildlife
Federation. “But the facts haven’t
changed. This is still a magnificent area
and it can still be damaged by oil
drilling.”
But geologists believe 11 billion
barrels of oil lie beneath the refuge’s
tundra and ice, and drilling supporters
contend they cin be tapped without
damage to the environment or wildlife.
Regardless the outcome in the Alaska
refuge dispute, the path to getting a
comprehensive energy bill is likely to be
full of potholes. Twice in the last four
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years lawmakers have
agreed on 85 percent or
more of an energy
package only to see final
action derailed over
narrow, although
intensely contentious,
issues.
Some lawmakers,
including Sen. Jeff
Bingaman of New
Mexico, senior
Democrat on the energy
committee that will
write the legislation,
argue that lawmakers
should focus instead on
passing separate bills on
the most urgent and
widely supported
measures.
Some of that already
has occurred, such as the
recently approved loan
guarantees for a
proposed $20 billion
natural gas pipeline
from Alaska to the lower
48 states.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A National Arctic Wildlife Refuge photo showing a caribou and calf running across a section of the National Arctic
Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, in this undated file photo. With a bigger Republican majority in the Senate, President Bush
is getting a new and better chance of achieving his No. 1 energy priority — opening an environmentally sensitive but
also oil-flush Alaska wildlife refuge to drilling. A broader agenda that includes reviving nuclear power, preventing
blackouts and expanding oil and gas drilling in the Rockies will be more difficult.
Despite the GOP’s new strength,
Senate Democrats can still put the
brakes on energy measures they strongly A
oppose through filibusters such as the
one that blocked an energy bill in 2003.
The issue then in dispute was liability
protection for makers of the MTBE
gasoline additives, which have been
found to contaminate water systems.
However, given the stronger GOP
majority, sustaining such filibusters may
be more difficult.
Associated Press writer John Heilprin j
in Washington contributed to this report.
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