Pombo-backed efforts in limbo

Contra Costa Times ^ | 11/25/5 | Mike Taugher

[SmithL]

Drilling for oil in the Arctic and off the nation's coasts, along with legislation that would allow development in some national forests and other public lands, are hanging in the balance until Congress makes final decisions on pending budget revisions.

The three initiatives pushed by influential Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, will be on the table when congressional negotiators meet as early as next month to finalize budget-cutting legislation passed last week by the House of Representatives.

At the top of the list is whether to permit oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling there appeared assured until last week, when moderate Republicans concerned about environmental damage staged a surprise revolt and succeeded in removing it from legislation.

The other measures would make it easier to drill for oil off the nation's coasts and for developers to force the government to sell them federal land under a 19th-century mining law.

Pombo, from his post as chairman of the House Resources Committee, supported all three provisions and made sure they were included in legislation that passed out of his committee earlier this month.

But when it came time for the full House to vote on the $50 billion deficit-cutting package, moderate Republicans forced GOP leaders to drop the two oil drilling provisions.

Potentially controversial legislation is sometimes tucked into larger spending bills as a means of getting it passed. Pombo's office said the three measures -- especially Arctic drilling -- would reduce the deficit by increasing revenues to the government.

Pombo spokesman Brian Kennedy said the Tracy Republican would attempt to get the oil-drilling provisions restored when House and Senate negotiators meet, possibly in early December.

"It's reasonable to expect that the conference report will include (the Arctic refuge), yes. (Offshore drilling) is a different matter," Kennedy said. "It's a tougher row to hoe. We still have a chance."

Together, the three provisions are among the most significant pieces of legislation from Pombo's committee this year and have drawn fire from critics concerned about their long-term impact on natural resources.

Environmentalists say they would destroy important and sensitive habitat in the Arctic, jeopardize the nation's coasts and allow environmental destruction on public lands.

• Arctic drilling: The House previously passed legislation several times to allow drilling in the refuge. And so when the Senate, which had blocked drilling in the past, included the refuge in its filibuster-proof budget bill, the issue appeared all but decided. Then moderate Republicans joined with Democrats to force the refuge drilling out of the House version of the budget bill. Some of those moderates have said they will vote against any final bill that includes the drilling, while key senators say they will push to include it. Each side has expressed optimism that it will prevail.

• Offshore drilling: Pombo-backed legislation to relax moratoria on offshore oil drilling is no longer included in either the House or Senate versions of the budget bill, so it appears unlikely that it will pass. However, Kennedy said Pombo would try to restore the provision. The proposal would not have an immediate impact on California.

• Mining patents: A provision in the House budget bill would lift a moratorium on new mining "patents" imposed in 1994 after the federal government was forced to sell federal land to a mining company at prices set in 1872. The legislation, which largely escaped notice until recently, would make it easier for companies to force the government to sell public lands. National forests in the Sierra Nevada foothills would be particularly vulnerable to development under that change, according to one expert.

The fate of those three provisions appears to hinge in part on the ability of Republican leaders to enforce party discipline at a time when the GOP is facing a number of problems.

Among them: the indictment of former Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, which forced him to step aside from his leadership position; declining support for President Bush; and 2006 elections for all 435 members of the House.

"With the president's weakened position, and with Tom DeLay being indicted, there's less muscle to get behind the right-wing agenda," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, a liberal who previously held the House Resources Committee chairmanship Pombo now holds.

"People are taking a second look at that right-wing environmental agenda," Miller added. "You see this agenda being jettisoned."

An oil-industry lobbyist said he expected Arctic drilling would survive House and Senate negotiations and would be included in the final budget revisions.

"There's a good chance still," said Bob Moran, a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. "There's a good case to be made, and through Mr. Pombo's leadership, I think that issue can be resolved when Congress returns."

That return is scheduled Dec. 5, although how quickly congressional negotiators will act on the budget package is anybody's guess.

Moran said Arctic oil could have helped offset rising gasoline prices after Hurricane Katrina, and that argument could sway the public and elected representatives. The same logic could be used to support offshore oil drilling.

The language being proposed would have made it easier for oil companies to drill off the coasts of states that want it. The language was unlikely to affect California, which has consistently turned back drilling.

More recently, controversy has grown over the little-noticed mining provisions that would under specific circumstances force the government to sell public land to private developers. The disagreement pits critics who fear the loss of public lands against Pombo's office and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who wrote the legislation.

Kennedy, Pombo's spokesman, said the change would result in no more than 360,000 acres of federal land going into private hands.

But John Leshy, the Interior Department's top lawyer during the Clinton administration and author of a book on the 1872 mining law, said the legislation could result in development of millions of acres now administered by the U.S. Forest Service or the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Gibbons said in a news release that the purpose of the proposed change is to provide opportunities for residents of rural communities that would disappear when minerals are mined out.

Leshy countered that regardless of the intent of the legislation, the way it is written would open the door to real estate development on what are now public lands.

"What they have adopted is a gaping real estate development transfer," said Leshy, a law professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. "Everything in the Sierra Nevada foothills would probably qualify because it's all been disturbed (by mining activity) at some point in the past."

At issue is how individuals or companies obtain ownership of public land through the "patent" process outlined in the 1872 General Mining Law. In essence, the 19th-century law said that when a miner established an economically viable mineral discovery, he could buy the land for no more than $5 per acre.

Gibbons' legislation no longer requires mineral discovery and raises the price to fair market value or $1,000 per acre.

[SmithL]

I like Pombo. I wish he was my Congresscritter instead of my Blue Dog.

[SierraWasp]

He'd make a better FReeper than most FReepers, these days!!!