Posted on 11/09/2005 5:27:22 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Short of votes and running out of time, House GOP leaders may drop a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wilderness area to oil drilling as they try to secure passage of a sweeping budget bill Thursday.
Such a move would be a big setback for President Bush and other advocates of permitting oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which has repeatedly passed the House with bipartisan support when considered as part of broader energy legislation. It's always been dropped in the face of promised filibusters by Senate Democrats.
Now that the ANWR drilling proposal is part of a budget bill immune to Senate filibusters, it is the House that's having difficulty advancing the drilling plan. That's because Democrats oppose the overall budget bill, giving House GOP opponents of drilling in the Arctic great leverage to try and force it out of the bill.
Twenty-five Republicans, led by Rep. Charles Bass (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire, have signed a letter asking GOP leaders to strike the Alaskan drilling provision from the broader $54 billion budget cut bill.
"Rather then reversing decades of protection for this publicly held land, focusing greater attention on renewable energy sources, alternate fuels, and more efficient systems and appliances would yield more net energy savings than could come from ANWR and would have a higher benefit on the nation's long-term economic leadership and security," said the letter.
Republican leaders have yet to announce any decisions about changes to the $54 billion budget bill, but it's commonly assumed that the ANWR drilling provision will have to be dropped for GOP leaders to have any chance of passing the bill.
"(GOP leaders) understand that this isn't going anywhere with ANWR in it," Bass said.
"They're going to take ANWR out," added Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Ill.
Given the narrow margin of GOP control of the House, it only takes 14 Republican defections to scuttle a bill, assuming every Democrat opposes it.
Still, removing the Arctic oil drilling provision would incite a backlash from lawmakers who strongly favor it, which is a big majority of Republicans. House and Senate GOP leaders are likely to push hard for the final House-Senate version of the bill to include it.
Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., said that Domenici considers the ANWR provision, which the Senate approved, "one of the most critical components" in the budget package. "He is committed to coming back to the Senate from the conference with ANWR intact," she said.
The oil drilling provision is but one of several parts of the $54 billion budget cut bill under review as House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., negotiates with various Republican factions in an effort to pass the bill Thursday.
• A plan to allow states to waive a 24-year ban on drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and open a contested tract off the Florida Gulf coast to oil drilling. Several Florida Republicans strongly oppose the plan.
• Provisions tightening eligibility for food stamps, especially for legal immigrants. Cuban-American lawmakers from the Miami area are optimistic they will win concessions.
Rep. Don Young (news, bio, voting record), an Alaska Republican strongly supporting opening the refuge to drilling, said he is not optimistic that the ANWR drilling plan approved by the Resources Committee will be kept in the final bill. He said he was "hoping for a cold, cold winter."
The overall bill is a top Republican priority. The Senate passed a milder version of the bill last week that would curb the automatic growth of federal spending by $35 billion through the end of the decade. The House plan cuts more deeply across a broader range of social programs.
Republicans say the debate is an important moment for their party as it tries to burnish its record on the budget deficit and federal spending.
At a closed-door GOP meeting Wednesday, Republican leaders made a plea to lawmakers' sense of party loyalty.
Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., summarized the pitch made by Republican leaders: "It's critical. It's a defining vote. And it'll keep us in the majority."
"Gop voters stay home even when it comes to supporting a real conservative like Kilgore."
"Part of the blame is on the voters too. So many gop voters stayed home last november in that special louisiana election because the candidate was accused of getting the seat because of his father. Who cares? Was that worth losing the whole budget. Was electing Gilchrest worth losing the whole budget?"
Spot on. I'm not always pleased with some of the GOP candidates, but the suicide squads on the right who sit at home "to send a message" just keep voting for Dems by their actions. Just like what they are doing in PA to Santorum because he supported Specter.
Kilgore is as conservative as you can get. Conservatives ask for someone to put their neck on the line and take a strong anti illegal stance and Kilgore did that. Kilgore lost a lot of votes from suburban rino's because of his strong stance against illegals and in turn his base stabs him in the back by not showing up. Don't look for many conservatives to take a strong stance against illegals after this. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Republicans are going to not just lose in the next few cycles we are going to get a 50 seat dem majority house and in the future a harry reid fillabuster proof senate.
Conservatives like taking it out on their own instead of the real enemy the rino's and the dems. Kilgore should have been rewarded for his principled stand instead conservatives are nitpicky not voting for him because of a stupid commercial. Dems would never do that. They just care about winning with someone they agree with.
We always hear it is about issues just not winning. Well Kilgore was right on the issues. Kilgore is far better than Kaine on gun rights. Too many times with conservatives you have to be perfect or else. Hopefully conservatives will rue the day they picked Kaine.
The biggest example of conservatives shooting themselves in the foot is with Clinton. They didn't vote or voted for Perot because of that stupid no tax pledge. So because of conservative voters ego we got stuck with ruth bader ginsberg and breyer. If bush had those two picks he would have chosen one conservative and one liberal and one moderate and the laws of our land would be drastically more conservative. But the egos got in our way.
The people blocking Anwr in the house would still block it even if we had no oil left.
They care about their sacred enviornment it has nothing to do with national security with them.
Their whole agenda is to raise mileage standards and get rid of hummers and have hybrids.
These same rino's like Chafee are blocking the construction of new refineries because of the enviornment. Construction of new refineries should be about national security. They put the enviornment first.
We wouldn't be hurting the enviornment with the new technology we have.
These rino's are radical enviornmentalists that belong more in the Sierra Club than our party. What an absolute disgrace. I wish we had people with a lot of money willing to bankroll the opponents of these traitors.
What makes them think NOT drilling will keep them in the majority? Did it ever occur to them that if we found oil, built a refinery, immediately oil prices would drop. Just passing the bill alone might do it
I agree with you on all points. It's as if all of the RINOs want to take the contrary side just to spite the president. Energy policy in this country is just repulsive, but anytime that anyone tries to do anything to fix it (or at least make it better) national security and sovereignty takes a back seat to sanity. A new refinery is needed now; especially after all of the hurricanes and accidents at BP in Texas City.
The worst mistake made by the founders was neglecting to include a mechanism in the Constitution by which states could be expelled from the USA. If the entire NE could literally be kicked out into the cold, the rest of the country would be far better off. They are the pox on the body politic.
What is wrong with those people??? It's not like they are outright killing the caribou with clubs! We need to do this...God this aggravates me...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Norm - would you ping me if you get a list together? Thanks.
More important, the Senate negotiators on a House-Senate conference committee will include Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who have made it clear to House and Senate leaders they will not agree to any final measure that does not include Arctic drilling. One senior GOP aide in the Senate said Domenici and Stevens are willing to bottle up the budget package well into next year if the House does not relent on Arctic drilling.
This ain't over by a long shot.
I wrote a scathing e-mail to my congressman, Tom Davis.
I even mentioned that he should get his staff to find him a copy of the WEST WING debate on Sunday, and watch Alan Alda's defense of drilling in ANWR.
I think we should all push this, because a lot of people watch that show and I think Alan made a great argument for opening ANWR to drilling.
I only wish we had elected representatives that could make this argument. Why don't we see commercials on TV on this subject?
I'm guessing that the RINOS want it out, so they can say they fought it. Maybe a deal can be worked out, where it is out now, then put back in in conference, and then they vote for the conference report because it's all they've got (since if you amend a conference report it has to go back to conference).
I would rather them just approve the budget as the senate did, so the conference would be moot. But since there will be a conference anyway to reconcile the different spending cuts, it might be OK.
Norm Coleman in the Senate votes against ANWR whenever it is a specific vote, but votes for budgets with ANWR because he says you shouldn't focus on a single issue when doing budgets.
Thank God for Pete. He has been a rock in the senate all these years. On both the budget and natural resources. Some have called him too "moderate" but if anyone can pull this together, he can in spite of opposition from Senator Bingaman (D-NM) and King Bill (Richardson, D-NM gov) who is bashing the proposal at home to curry national favor for '08.
Because they are really Democrats only they were unable to run as Democrats because that spot was already taken. Specter is a perfect example. Used to be a Democrat. Somewhere along the line, he had to switch to Republican because the Democrat spot was already taken. He has not changed one bit, is just a Democrat in Republican clothing.
You do realize that Republican Main Street Partnership is all the RINO's who get money from Soros, don't you? All bought and paid for just like the Democrats to push his agenda of crippling this country so he can move forward with his "one world" garbage.
I do. And bear in mind that there is a closely affiliated Main Street Fund or some such. The presence of two organizations was what permitted Specter to mislead the public in his on-air interview with Rush Limbaugh a few (couple? one?) years ago, about having taken money from a group that accepts donations from Soros.
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