Posted on 03/05/2005 2:04:27 AM PST by Jet Jaguar
WASHINGTON--The five U.S. senators and two Cabinet secretaries flying to Alaska's North Slope today already support oil drilling on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain, but they say their trip is worth the taxpayer expense to help verify the claims of drilling advocates and to improve the debate.
"I want to be actively engaged in the debate in the Senate ... because it's been the Senate where the wheels have come off in the past," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he wants to verify for himself the claims of drilling advocates, who say technological advances in North Slope drilling will reduce the environmental impact of developing ANWR when compared to earlier fields.
The director of the Alaska Wilderness League, though, wasn't buying it after listening to a news conference with the officials Thursday afternoon.
"What is the whole point of this trip?" asked Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League. "When is that debate going to happen?"
Senate leaders have said they expect to move ANWR-opening language through a budgetary process this year that will bypass a filibuster threat on the Senate floor. Critics have called it a sneaky, back-door approach that will avoid a debate.
Domenici called it simply fair. Opponents of drilling will get a vote on an amendment to strike the ANWR language from the annual budget resolution, he noted.
"To win the strike, they need a majority vote, so that's pretty fair," he said. "Fifty-one votes you win."
The budget resolution, which lays out how much the Congress expects to spend and where it expects to get the money, cannot be filibustered. Once language counting on ANWR leasing revenue is in the resolution, a second bill would "reconcile" the government's current ban on drilling with the budget language by doing away with the ban. Reconciliation bills can't be filibustered either.
It's all "legal" and according to the rules, Domenici said.
What opponents want instead, he said, is to force drilling advocates to put ANWR-opening language in a standard Senate bill and then find 60 votes to shut down the filibuster of that legislation.
So far, no one sees 60 ANWR drilling supporters in the Senate, but advocates do count a few over 50, making them optimistic that this is the year ANWR will be opened. The House is expected to pass drilling legislation again and President Bush supports it.
Domenici noted that no outside lobbying interests will pay for the trip to Alaska. Marnie Funk, spokesman for the Senate Energy Committee, did not have a cost estimate as of Thursday afternoon.
The senators and secretaries will fly today directly from Washington, D.C., to Barrow on a military aircraft. Then, using charters from Frontier Flying Service in Fairbanks, they will visit the Alpine oil field on Saturday and Kaktovik on Sunday.
Kaktovik sits on Barter Island, on ANWR's northern coastal border. Most residents support the drilling, according to past statements from elders and elected leaders from the village.
The group has no plans to meet with representatives of Gwich'in villages to the south of ANWR, who generally oppose drilling on the coastal plain because they view it as a threat to the Porcupine Caribou Herd.
Jonathan Solomon of Fort Yukon, chairman of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, sent a letter Feb. 22 requesting time with the senators while they are in Alaska. Luci Beach, the Fairbanks-based executive director, said he received no reply.
"We're kind of the forgotten people in this situation, which is really unfortunate," Beach said. "What we're praying is that common sense will prevail and people will have a heart not just for the Gwich'in people but also the land and the animals. To be able to have the largest migration in the world and to have people who are still able to live a subsistence lifestyle, this is something that needs to be treasured and not seen as stopping progress."
Murkowski, after the news conference, said the group is going to Kaktovik and not the Gwich'in villages because Kaktovik is closest to the oil drilling. While she understands that the Gwich'in are concerned about the caribou, she believes oil development will not create a "roadblock" to their migrations, she said.
Chuck Kleeschulte, Murkowski's ANWR strategist, said the group would visit with environmental groups in Anchorage on Sunday afternoon after the trip.
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, who will accompany the senators, said the federal government is committed to develop the area only if it can be done with "no significant impact" on the environment.
Norton, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and several senators emphasized the economic benefits of drilling.
Oil hit $55 a barrel Thursday, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., noted.
Solomon, chairman of the Gwich'in group, said in his letter that the winter visit was "less than optimal for seeing the refuge in its full glory."
Beach said visitors to ANWR in the summer get a better feel for "the flora and the migration of the birds from all 50 states and six continents, not to mention 40,000 to 50,000 caribou calves being born."
"Of course we love it year-'round," she said, "but that's the time of birth and the creation of new life."
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, visited last summer, she noted.
Norton said they are visiting in winter because that's when most of the development action would occur.
As a result, any media coverage of the trip will feature footage of a white, snow-covered expanse with no migratory birds and few if any large mammals. As of Thursday afternoon, media scheduled to tag along included a Fox News crew from Los Angeles, a Greenwire crew and a reporter from the Albuquerque Journal, according to Michael Musante of the pro-drilling group Arctic Power.
Arctic Power is handling the press plane because congressional rules no longer allow Senate staff to organize such trips, according to Kleeschulte.
The news crew will fly out of Fairbanks, also with Frontier.
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be reached at (202) 662-8721 or sbishop@newsminer.com .
I would not call it a junket. It is cold this time of year.
Our client, ConocoPhillips, talked to us about this yesterday. Construction has started for two new Drill Sites in the Alpine region. The gravel pads and pilings are going in now. Next year the real work begins when the modules, interconnecting piping and cables goes in and we will have two more producing fields on the North Slope.
WooHoo!!!
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