Posted on 03/10/2005 1:43:46 PM PST by John Lenin
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Democrats trying to head off the opening of an Alaskan wildlife refuge for oil exploration lost the year's first skirmish Thursday as the Senate Budget Committee voted to clear the way for drilling.
By a 12-10 vote, the Republican-led panel voted to forbid Senate filibusters against legislation later this year allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Filibusters, a procedural delay, require the votes of 60 of the 100 senators to end — a margin that drilling supporters would probably find difficult to achieve.
The vote kept intact language in the $2.56 trillion budget granting the procedural protection to the opening of the reserve, which has pitted economic and environmental interests against each other. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who led the effort to strip the provision, said putting it in the budget was "a backdoor maneuver."
But Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., said claims of potential environmental damage go "far beyond reality" and said the reserve would create jobs.
The fight came as Republicans pushed their 2006 spending plan toward committee passage. Like President Bush (news - web sites)'s budget and a similar plan the House Budget Committee approved Wednesday, the Senate fiscal outline would shrink record federal deficits over the next five years by trimming domestic spending while cutting taxes and buttressing defense and anti-terrorism efforts.
At both panel's meetings, Democrats criticized Republicans for budgets they said would hurt the poor, students and others. They said deficits would be worse than the GOP was projecting because their plans were omitting the costs of wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) beyond 2006, easing the alternative minimum tax's effect on middle-income earners, and Bush's goal of reshaping Social Security (news - web sites).
Overall, the Senate plan requires other Senate committees to write bills by June carving $32 billion in savings from Medicare, student loans, farm programs and other benefits over the next five years. Reflecting the House's more conservative tenor, its budget calls for $69 billion in such savings, nearly $20 billion more than Bush proposed.
The Senate budget also orders $70 billion in five-year tax cuts and gives them a procedural shield from filibusters. The House plan gives such protection to $45 billion in tax cuts, but House leaders say they plan to produce the full $106 billion Bush wants in tax cuts.
The full House and Senate plan to vote on their budgets next week. In April they will try to craft a compromise that eluded them last year because of a tax-cut fight that produced a stalemate.
Congress' budget sets overall spending and tax targets while leaving specific revenue and expenditure changes for later bills.
The House budget did not specify where the benefit reductions would come from. But based on the House committees assigned to find the savings, the Medicaid program for the poor and elderly could be targeted for up to $20 billion in five-year cuts — more than double Bush's plan — plus other reductions for student loans, welfare, farmers and veterans.
By law, benefit programs grow automatically to cover inflation and population growth. While overall spending for these programs would grow under the GOP budgets, growth would be slowed through lower benefits, lower payments to providers or smaller numbers of recipients served.
Both budgets would hold domestic programs except benefits to just less than last year, with decisions on specifics to be made later. They would push Pentagon (news - web sites) spending to $419 billion, growth of 4.8 percent, with a smaller increase for anti-terror programs at home.
Following last year's record $412 billion deficit, the House projects a 2006 shortfall of $376 billion and the Senate a $362 billion gap. Both chambers claim to meet Bush's goal of halving the deficit by 2009, though their starting point is Bush's overestimated 2004 shortfall of $521 billion.
The two chambers see deficits dipping close to $200 billion by 2010. That is the last year covered by both plans, just as the baby boom retirement is expected to start driving shortfalls higher again.
That's another problem that needs to be addressed, and addressed yesterday ... More Refineries!!
Oh good heavens yes, we have enough energy right here to keep us going for centuries. We've got oil reserves not only in Alaska but in the Appalachian basin. We've got capped wells scattered throught the country which COULD be producing. Restrictions were lowered on oil and natural gas exploration in 2001.
Gas drilling has increased, and they're actually beginning to PUMP out of some of these wells. rather than capping them off and leaving them, while plans are set to begin building new pipeines to supply the eastern half of the country. Oil exploration is slowly resuming, but envirowackos have more of a problem with oil drilling than they do with natural gas; regulations are still restrictive. (obviously I know more about the energy exploration/exploitation in the eastern half of the country)
Her's a fast fact: in 1996, the US was producing 7.5 million bbl per day. That amount has dropped to 5.1 million barrels, mostly due to restrictive regulation.
Excellent! Now why can't the judicial committee do the same procedural trick with judges???
You got it.
Drill all you want. Hopefully the new Liberals up here will see that Northern Pipeline Act through and TransCanada will soon have their pipe built for ya to entend Alaska to the 48 states.
Between Alaska, Texas, Alberta and soon Newfoundland and maybe even off BC(if the Tory's up here get into power soon enough) you wont have to rely so heavily on them ragheads and whining Venezulans oil for a while. Theres plenty of oil here in North America, I just wish China wasnt investing like hell in our oil companies like Husky dammit...
It would however be nice to get a big stake in other places and not use up our oil resources until later when everyone has nothing left...
There sure is. It might be okay to set up a supermajority/debate club rule for legislation and related squabbles, but those shenanigans are totally inappropriate when they undermine the power of a President to appoint judges as the Constitution prescribes.
No one can say because its never been explored. There is evidence of oil from seeps and from the shales in the area. We won't know until some holes are punched.
BTTT
The GOP needs to be selecting their targets very carefully for the next election. Sounds like this guy is a perfect example of the problems created by not uniting to get rid of a bad apple.
Actually, the Republicans have a few bad apples of their own it might be a good idea to ditch somehow in the primaries if it's at all possible (Specter, for instance).
Fantastic news! I heard about this plan a few days ago.I wondered when it would be voted upon. Just fantastic. Thanks.
Yes, very good news, sanity may be returning to our government.
see post #20 on the following thread for a graphic of the percentages of oil imports we are getting from other nations:
http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=1324049
(sorry I don't have a website to display the image, but it's clear that Canada is the leading exporter of oil to the USA = 17%
Most of the unions are opposed.
Several including AFL-CIO are actually leading the opposition with AARP.
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