To GOP, Arctic Oil Fight Worth the Energy

From the moment President Bush made it central to his energy plan last year, backers of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration knew they faced long odds in the Senate.

So why, with a vote looming in the Democratic-controlled chamber later this week, are Republicans so persistent in pursuing what appears to be a lost cause?

Chalk it up to energy politics.

Republicans are short of the 60 votes they need in the 100-member Senate to overcome a promised Democratic-led filibuster. But GOP leaders believe that if they can demonstrate majority support for the drilling proposal by getting 50 or more votes, they will be better positioned to include it in a final energy bill negotiated with the House.

And even if they lose that battle, Republicans hope to lay the groundwork to win the war, eventually.

“Although the Republicans don’t have the votes this time, they want to build support for the future,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College. He cited passage of the campaign finance reform bill last month after years of defeats as an example of an issue on which legislative persistence paid off.

‘Who’s in Charge . . . Does Matter’

Drilling supporters say the issue could resonate in this fall’s campaign--especially if energy prices spike--and improve Republican chances of retaking the Senate.

“If we’re close, I can go back home and say, ‘If we had control of this place, we’d be able to get this passed,’ ” said Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). “It’s a matter of showing that who’s in charge [of the Senate] does matter.”

As debate began Tuesday, drilling proponents scrambled for ways to entice more senators to support the measure, offering to limit production facilities to a 2,000-acre site in the 19-million-acre refuge while setting aside 1.5 million acres as wilderness and prohibiting Alaska oil exports except to Israel.

The proposal to limit “surface disturbance” to 2,000 acres was assailed by the Sierra Club’s executive director, Carl Pope, who argued that if development were to occur it would result in a vast spider web of industrial facilities, pipelines and roads.

The pro-drilling forces also continued their efforts to attract the support of senators from steel-producing states by touting their plan to steer government revenue from the drilling to aid for the steel industry.

And the drilling proponents staged a Capitol Hill rally with labor groups who back the production plan because of the jobs it would create. Democratic opposition to the proposal could cost the party support it traditionally enjoys from such groups, Pitney said.

Still, the Republican lobbying effort appeared to be gaining little ground. One previously undecided senator, Blanche Lambert Lincoln (D-Ark.), announced Tuesday she would oppose the drilling.

And Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), a leading drilling opponent, sarcastically dismissed the latest GOP inducements for backing the proposal. “The other side is so desperate to drill in the Arctic refuge, their arguments change based on the headlines of the day. First they said it was about gas prices, then it was about bringing peace to the Mideast. Next thing we know, they’ll say drilling will cut people’s taxes.”

Lieberman added: “No matter what the argument, they simply don’t have the votes” to overcome the Democratic opposition.

The debate over drilling in the Alaska refuge is the main event in the Senate’s effort to write the first comprehensive energy bill in a decade. Adhering to Bush’s wishes, the GOP-controlled House last year passed a bill that allows for the drilling. But it is not included in the Senate measure, which stresses conservation over production and has been pending on the floor for more than a month.

Drilling supporters say it would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. On the Senate floor Tuesday, they flashed photos of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, from whose country the United States imports oil, to underscore the country’s vulnerability to unstable Middle East supplies. “We take his oil, put it in our airplanes and go bomb him,” said Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Demonstrating the deep emotions sparked by the issue, Alaska’s other senator, Republican Ted Stevens, repeatedly assailed “radical” environmentalists for misrepresenting the tundra as a pristine place.

“It is hell in the wintertime,” he said.

Opponents, led by environmental groups, contend the drilling would produce far less oil and fewer jobs than proponents claim, while endangering one of the nation’s most precious and unspoiled wildlife habitats.

“Republicans can try all they want to disguise what they’re doing, but there’s no doubt among scientists . . . that drilling would forever damage one of our last national treasures,” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

“The Senate understands what’s happening here and understands that we don’t want to create another Prudhoe Bay of filthy air for a few drops of oil that do nothing to wean us from foreign oil when we have within our power legitimate, sustainable ways of meeting our energy needs.”

“I think Americans understand the difference between false promises of ANWR drilling and the real promise of energy security, and it’s the Republicans who ought to be on the defensive on this question.”

Key Procedural Vote Is Expected Thursday

Kerry is the leader of the filibuster threat against the GOP bid to include the Alaska drilling provision in the Senate’s energy bill. The key procedural vote on choking off a filibuster--which requires 60 votes--is expected Thursday.

Some moderate Republicans have joined a majority of Democrats in opposing the drilling, while a handful of Democrats from energy-producing states support it.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said that, based on his latest head count, Republicans “will be lucky to get 50 votes, much less 60,” on the procedural vote.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide also expressed skepticism about GOP hopes that the drilling proposal will be part of a House-Senate compromise bill.

Said the aide, who requested anonymity: “What [Republicans] are hoping for is that they can get it in the conference report, it comes back to the Senate and enough of our guys say, ‘I’m not willing to filibuster the whole energy bill over this issue.’ I think they’re wrong.”

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What’s at Stake

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been protected since 1960. In 1980, Congress earmarked 1.5 million acres on its coastal plain for potential drilling.

Oil

U.S. Geological Survey estimate: Six billion to 16 billion barrels can be recovered, though opponents argue that only about 3.2 billion barrels are economically recoverable. Production: About 1 million barrels a day are produced from oil fields west of ANWR. Some estimate that there is enough oil in ANWR to supply the U.S. for about six months.

Wildlife

Caribou: Drilling could disrupt the 123,000-member Porcupine herd, which migrates 400 miles to ANWR’s coastal plain to calve.

Other mammals: Musk oxen, grizzly and polar bears, wolves, moose.

Migratory birds: Millions of ducks, geese, jaegers, gulls and terns.

Economy

New jobs: Bush administration officials say oil drilling in ANWR would create 735,000 new jobs nationwide.

What Democrats say: The job-creation estimate is based on a decade-old study. They say a more realistic estimate is the creation of 65,000 jobs by 2020.

Sources: Staff reports; Reuters