Posted on 01/31/2003 11:32:06 AM PST by areafiftyone
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling suffered a major blow on Friday, as six Republican senators said they opposed inserting language to give oil companies access to the refuge into a must-pass budget bill.
ANWR, which is home to polar bears, caribou and other wildlife, sprawls across 19 million acres of Alaska's northeast corner.
The Republican-led House of Representatives passed energy legislation last year that would have opened ANWR to drilling.
The White House contends that the refuge's potential 16 billion barrels of crude must be tapped to help reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports from unfriendly countries like Iraq.
Drilling is opposed by many Democrats and environmental groups, who say the administration should cut oil imports by boosting the mileage standards of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles.
Six of the Senate's 51 Republicans, including former presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona, on Friday announced they would not go along with a plan to tack ANWR drilling language onto a massive spending bill this spring that would enact the new 2004 budget for the federal government.
The senators said drilling in the Alaskan refuge is an important policy issue that should be openly debated, not slipped into an unrelated bill.
"Because the opening of the Arctic refuge to drilling raises a host of policy concerns, including serious environmental ramifications, we do not believe this issue should be injected in the budget process," the lawmakers said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles.
The letter is the latest twist in a two-year legislative battle over drilling in the Alaskan refuge.
The Democratic-led Senate last year soundly defeated efforts to open the refuge, when drilling supporters fell short of the 60 votes needed to end debate on the controversial proposal and allow a final vote on the measure.
To get around a filibuster this time around, supporters of opening the refuge want to attach drilling language to must-pass legislation to fund the 2004 budget for the federal government. They argue that such language is appropriate for budget legislation because of the fees the government would collect from leasing tracts in the refuge to oil companies.
Under Senate rules, budget legislation cannot be filibustered and only 50 votes would be needed to approve the bill and an attached ANWR drilling provision.
In addition to McCain, the letter was signed by Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois and Mike DeWine of Ohio.
In his State of the Union speech to Congress earlier this week, President Bush urged lawmakers to pass legislation enacting his national energy plan, which includes drilling in the refuge.
Two Democratic presidential hopefuls, Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, oppose ANWR drilling and have promised to filibuster any energy bill that would open the refuge.
YES, with Democrats. Most of them live in very heavy DEMOCRAT states. Comprende???
President Clinton took care of that problem. How do you say Grand Staircase-Escalante?
When the President signed the Executive Order designating 1.7 million acres of land in southwest Utah as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, his action placed the area off limits to mineral extraction and development.
The New York Times reported that the monument encloses the largest coal field in the nation, the Kaiparowitz Plateau, which contains at least 7 billion tons of coal worth over $1 TRILLION.
Kentucky-based company Andalux Resources, which holds leases on 3,400 acres in the area, was planning to open a huge operation (underground, not strip mining) that would have generated 1,000 jobs, $1 million in annual revenue for Kane County, and at least $10 million a year in state and federal taxes, according to the New York Times. Folks living in the area wore black arm bands the day o the signing - but Clinton didn't see them. He chose to make his announcement in a neighboring state.
I'm on the low end here and paying $1.30 a gallon to heat my house and $1.469 for regular gas.
The highest taxed state in the Union is proud to have one female senator with a mustache so thick and stiff you could plow my street with it and another who rushes to stand next to Mr. Bush at every opportunity to get on TV for us saps back here at home.
Just when is the future? How long do you think it will take to bring this oil online when YOU get ready?
The last gov. estimate of ANWR oil was 5-10 billion gallons, enough to buy ZERO oil from Saddam for 20 years. This was raised from previous estimates of 2-5 billion after further research.
I realize that .. I was just asking if there was ANY hope
Don't trust anyone that loves caribou more than their fellow Americans.
Well said. Very well said.
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