Senate OKs Offshore Energy Survey

Jittery about political fallout from high gasoline prices, the Senate advanced a measure Tuesday that would allow a survey of offshore oil and gas resources, overriding the objections of coastal-state lawmakers.

The critics warned that the survey could prove the first step toward overturning the decades-old moratorium on new drilling in most U.S. coastal waters.

Today, the Senate is likely to reject an effort to establish a mandatory program to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. On Tuesday, the Senate backed a voluntary plan.

Both issues were intensely debated as the Senate worked toward passage of a sweeping energy bill that President Bush has sought since 2001.

Opponents of the survey of offshore oil and gas resources sought to strip it from the bill; their motion was defeated, 52 to 44.

It is uncertain whether it will survive negotiations with the House, which did not include a similar provision in the energy bill it approved in April. But Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Energy Committee, who will play a key role in writing a final energy bill, said he supported the inventory.

The Senate is expected to approve its energy bill before its July 4 recess. Both the House and Senate bills include measures aimed at boosting domestic production of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power, encouraging conservation and strengthening the nation’s electricity grids.

Supporters of the inventory of offshore oil and natural gas resources said it would help lawmakers make informed decisions about offshore drilling in the event of a national emergency.

“I believe the outer continental shelf is an asset that belongs to the nation,” Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) said. “And the people of the nation have a right to know how valuable that asset is and how much more energy independent we could be if we would tap it responsibly.”

Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America, a trade group that represents independent oil and natural gas producers, cheered the vote, saying it would help policymakers make “rational, informed decisions for America’s future energy needs.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers representing coastal states warned that the inventory could lead to undoing the moratorium on drilling and hurt tourism that is crucial to their states’ economies.

“We’ve been told not to worry, that all they’re talking about is an inventory,” said Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). “Why would we inventory an area we don’t plan to later drill?”

She was among 12 Republicans who voted against the inventory, along with 31 Democrats -- including California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein -- and one independent. Supporting the inventory were 42 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

The moratorium, first put in place in 1982 and extended by presidential directive until 2012, applies to most coastal waters except for a large part of the Gulf of Mexico.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) called the inventory “the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.”

Boxer brought to the Senate floor pictures of pristine coastline in California. “To me, it’s almost a moral issue that we protect the beauty that we’ve been given,” she said.

The proposal for a mandatory cap on industrial emissions of greenhouse gases was proposed by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). It faced opposition from the coal and oil industries, and a similar proposal failed two years ago.

“The generation to come will rightfully look back and ask why ... we left them a global environment in danger,” Lieberman said.

In a plea for support for the McCain-Lieberman proposal, Feinstein summarized scientific predictions that temperatures and sea levels would rise over the next century as a result of global warming, focusing on the potential effect in California.

Feinstein said experts had predicted that the state could lose enough mountain snowfall, a crucial source of water in the West, to sustain 16 million people -- about as many as now live in the greater Los Angeles region.

If left unchecked, global warming represents “Armageddon to California, Armageddon to the fifth-largest economy on Earth,” Feinstein said.

The Senate approved an amendment by Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) that would promote voluntary reductions in greenhouse gases and subsidize energy technologies low in carbon emissions. The vote was 66 to 29, with Feinstein supporting the provision and Boxer opposing it.

Environmental groups called it a toothless proposal that essentially continued the status quo under the Bush administration, which rejected the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases and had continued to oppose mandatory limits on emissions. The U.S. is the only major developed nation other than Australia not to sign the international pact, which would have required U.S. greenhouse gases to be reduced to 7% below 1990 levels by 2012.

Supporters defended the action as a responsible step, arguing that mandatory limits on greenhouse gases would raise energy prices, driving manufacturers to developing countries that do not have limits on emissions and costing thousands of Americans their jobs.

“We do not live in a cocoon. Companies are moving overseas,” said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio).

Simon reported from Washington and Bustillo from Los Angeles.