Drilling in ANWR

By the barest margin, the Senate yesterday made it easier for Congress to approve oil exploration in an Alaskan wildlife refuge, marking a turning point in a decades-long fight between environmentalists and the petroleum industry.

Voting 51-49, the Republican-controlled Senate rejected efforts by Democrats and moderates to strip a provision from the Senate budget resolution that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The vote gave a big victory to President Bush and helped clear the way for broader energy legislation he seeks.

The budget provision would permit any refuge-drilling legislation later this year to be approved by a simple 51-vote Senate majority. It would prevent opponents from using Senate rules, as they have in the past, to require a 60-vote super-majority on the question.

Still, several legislative obstacles remain, and even if they are overcome, oil production is not expected to begin for perhaps 10 years.

At issue is the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain region of the 19-million-acre refuge that the U.S. Geological Survey says could contain 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels of crude oil. The area lies in the path of migrating caribou herds.

Its environmentally sensitive location and vast oil reserves have made it ground zero for years in a broader struggle between environmentalists and advocates of expanded commercial use of federal land.

"I'm trying to smile again," said Sen. Ted Stevens (R., Alaska), who has fought hard for decades to open the refuge, commonly known as ANWR, to drilling.

Moments earlier, sporting the Incredible Hulk tie he often wears for legislative confrontations, Stevens declared that a vote to strip the drilling provision from the budget "is a vote for increasing home-heating bills and transportation costs. It's a vote to diminish our national security by relying on rogue nations, foreign nations, unstable regimes."

Advocates cited rising gasoline prices and foreign oil dependence as evidence that greater domestic oil production was essential. But their arguments were less decisive than the Republicans' strengthened Senate majority; they gained four seats in November and now hold 55 of 100 seats.

Seven Republicans voted to remove the drilling measure from the budget: Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Mike DeWine of Ohio, John McCain of Arizona, and Gordon Smith of Oregon. Three Democrats broke ranks to vote for the drilling provision - Daniel K. Akaka and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana.

Opposition to ANWR drilling was led by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.).

Republican leaders put the Arctic provision in the budget resolution because, under Senate rules, budget bills may not be filibustered, as the Democrats had threatened to do against any measure that allowed ANWR drilling. The budget resolution requires only a simple majority to pass, instead of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster on other bills.

"I am concerned about the price of energy," he said at a news conference. "I'm concerned about what it means to the average American family when they see the price of gasoline going up. I think if you look at all the statistics, demand is outracing supply and supplies are getting tight. And that's why you're seeing the price reflected."

The debate yesterday came as a new Gallup poll of 1,004 adults showed that although Americans were more concerned about the availability of energy, they preferred conservation and environmental protection to higher fuel production - yet they also drove fuel-guzzling SUVs. Bush's approval rating on energy policy - 32 percent - was the lowest of his presidency.

Environmentalists and a lobbying consortium of oil companies called Arctic Power have spent millions of dollars fighting over ANWR drilling. Advocates of drilling cite the potential for up to a million barrels of oil a day flowing from the refuge to ease U.S. dependence on oil from the Mideast. But critics say drilling would damage the fragile ecology of the refuge and disrupt its caribou.

"It's not a big environmental hit, and it's not a big energy hit," said Henry Lee, an environment and energy expert at Harvard University. "What's at stake is much less than what either side is willing to tell you."

Lee said oil prices would hardly be affected by the projected refuge oil production. And technological improvements that allow horizontal drilling below the surface would limit environmental damage, he said.

The drilling provision's fate is tied to the success of the budget resolution, which may yet fail. Internal disputes among Republicans over spending and deficits threaten to derail it. What's more, the House did not include ANWR language in its version, so the differences would have to be reconciled in a House-Senate conference...

• Senators from the Philadelphia area voting to clear the way for approval this year of drilling in the Arctic refuge were Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

• Voting to remove the refuge-drilling provision from next year's budget were Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Jon Corzine (D., N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.).

• The oil industry has sought for more than two decades to gain access to what is believed to be billions of barrels of oil beneath the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The rest of the 19-million-acre refuge is off-limits to development.

• Drilling proponents cite the potential for jobs and a need to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. They also argue that any oil exploration would affect only a small fraction of the refuge.

a web of pipelines and drilling platforms would harm wildlife and damage one of the continent's last unspoiled wilderness areas, while potentially yielding only limited amounts of oil.

I am disgusted with Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter, who sided with corporate interest over the environment, a God-given gift, by voting in support of drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As members of the Republican Party, a party that prides itself on "moral" leadership and values, they should be ashamed of themselves!

The U.S. Senate has taken a step toward turning part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into an oil field ("Senate Blesses Drilling in Refuge," March 17). At its peak in 2025, oil extracted from ANWR will supply only 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption.

Alternatively, including our sport utility vehicles in the corporate average fuel economy standards would save a comparable amount of oil while reducing pollution and global warming, advancing alternative fuel technology and saving consumers a little money.

Raising CAFE standards would go much further in reducing our dependence on Persian Gulf oil sources (the motivation behind two Gulf wars) without adversely affecting our environment. Only the oil companies and their stockholders will benefit from ANWR drilling.

Once again, this administration proves its concern is more for the health of its corporate sponsors than for the health of our citizens, our wildlife or our planet.

I was very disappointed to read that both of our senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling for oil.

Actually, I was not surprised that Santorum voted to defile the last pristine area of the United States in an attempt to satiate the gluttonous appetite of the modern American for oil.

I was surprised that Sen. Specter voted for drilling. I am saddened that our society is so selfish that we have to use everything for ourselves and that we leave nothing for our children and the future.

Sens. Arlen Specter's and Rick Santorum's votes in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are another indicator of their shortsighted devotion to special interests, the profitable and the short term. Pennsylvania is represented by two men who, like their party, appear indifferent to the true long-term interests of our country: certainly not a few months' worth of oil. Ultimately, it's not about the wilderness -- it's about the attitude.