Bush Energy Plan Stresses Oil, A-Power : Environment: His proposal would open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to exploration and speed the licensing of new nuclear plants.

After 18 months of debate and deliberation, the Bush Administration will send to Congress within the next few days a national energy strategy proposing to expedite the exploration for oil and resuscitate the moribund nuclear power industry.

The massive plan, a draft of which was obtained 10 days before its scheduled unveiling by President Bush, appears certain to trigger major battles among environmentalists, conservationists, exploration advocates and other groups affected by its key provisions.

The plan includes a widely anticipated proposal to open 1.5 million acres of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and calls for commercial development of the Naval Petroleum Reserve in California’s Elk Hills field. It would expedite the licensing of new nuclear power plants and seek a solution to the vexing problem of nuclear waste disposal.

Besides drawing fire for some of its more controversial proposals, the plan is expected to encounter considerable criticism for provisions it does not contain. The Administration strategy does not propose stiffer standards for automobile fuel efficiency or call for new taxes to encourage conservation, as advocated by some interest groups.

In a draft letter to congressional leaders, Energy Secretary James D. Watkins says the plan addresses four major themes developed in the course of numerous hearings and studies since 1989: increased energy and economic efficiency, security of energy supplies, protection of the environment and strengthened science, engineering and research.

The Energy Department submitted a huge package of strategy options to the White House last December after conducting 18 field hearings, listening to testimony from 400 witnesses and soliciting 22,000 pages of written comments.

Despite the sense of urgency created by the Persian Gulf War and increased awareness of U.S. dependence on imported oil, the package is more a compendium of proposals advocated by the Administration over the last two years than a new strategy developed from the ground up.

When the undertaking was announced, environmental groups seized upon it as an opportunity to move away from reliance on oil toward encouragement of renewable energy sources and aggressive conservation measures.

Their first reaction upon disclosure of the plan’s details was one of disappointment.

“The only balance I can find in the strategy is the balance between the oil industry and the nuclear industry,” said Brooks Yeager, a vice president of the National Audubon Society. “The oil industry gets the nation’s premier wildlife refuge and the nuclear industry gets quick one-stop licensing for reactors that no one can afford.

“There is nothing to do with automobile fuel economy, no gas guzzler tax, no oil import fee, nothing to move us away from oil reliance in the long term,” he said.

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Fisher was similarly unimpressed. The strategy, he said, “is nothing more than an answer to the prayers of the oil, nuclear and auto industries. Eighteen months of work by the Department of Energy have been wasted.”

The proposal to explore the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge--while bitterly opposed by environmentalists who fear that it will damage the country’s preeminent wildlife refuge--represents America’s “most significant prospect” for a major oil discovery, Watkins said.

“I think Congress will authorize it soon,” Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told reporters Friday. “In the interest of national security and the national economy, we have to have ANWR oil if it’s there.” Stevens said Interior Department officials estimate there is a 46% chance of hitting reserves of about 4 billion barrels in the refuge.

Although Alaska officials appear to support development of the refuge, an Administration proposal to funnel 100% of the royalties into the U.S. Treasury is expected to encounter furious opposition within the state.

While other states get 50% of the payments from oil developed in their territorial waters, Alaska historically has claimed 90%. A bill introduced by Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) earlier this week would reduce Alaska’s share to 37.5% and designate the remaining revenues collected by the federal government for energy development.

The Administration plan seeks congressional authority to open the Naval Petroleum Reserve in California’s Elk Hills field to commercial development. The Energy Department has said that there is reasonable certainty of recovering 335 million barrels of oil and 1.4 trillion cubic feet of gas from the reserve, with vastly greater amounts potentially recoverable.

The plan will urge continued development of the outer continental shelf, although details of federal lease sale plans will not be known until the Interior Department releases its new five-year leasing strategy after presentation of the overall energy package to Congress.

There was no indication, however, of any retreat from President Bush’s announcement last year that virtually all of the outer continental shelf off California will be withheld from development through the 1990s.

In addition to streamlining the federal licensing process necessary to get approval for construction of a nuclear power plant, the Administration will seek to invigorate the moribund industry through new federal authority to deal with the problem of radioactive waste disposal.

A plan to permanently dispose of spent fuel rods from civilian power reactors by entombing them in Nevada’s Yucca mountain has fallen years behind schedule. The state of Nevada has taken the Energy Department to court in two separate lawsuits to prevent further exploration and development of the proposed storage site. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether to hear one of them.

In its energy package, the Administration will propose language making it unnecessary for the federal government to obtain a state or local permit to conduct studies of the site.

“To meet expected growth in electricity demand, we must revitalize the nuclear power option in this country,” Watkins said in the draft letter. “While there are many reasons for the current state of the nuclear industry, it is clear that the country needs this clean source of power.”