Arctic oil drilling plan put on ice
House pulls it from budget
WASHINGTON — House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing that it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill today.
They also dropped from the budget document plans to allow states to authorize oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts — regions now under a drilling moratorium.
The actions were a stunning setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists, who have lobbied hard against the drilling provisions. President Bush has made drilling in the Alaska refuge his top energy priority.
The House Rules Committee formalized the change late Wednesday by issuing the terms of the debate when the House takes up the budget package today.
The decision to drop the Arctic drilling language came after GOP moderates said they would oppose the budget if it was kept in the bill. The offshore drilling provision was also viewed as too contentious and a threat to the bill, especially in the Senate.
Last week, the Senate included Arctic refuge drilling in its version of the budget, so the matter will have to be thrashed out in negotiations between the Senate and House if the budget is approved by the House.
Protection of the Alaskan refuge from oil companies has been championed by environmentalists for years. The House repeatedly has approved drilling in the refuge as part of broad energy legislation, only to see its effort blocked each time by the threat of a filibuster in the Senate.
The budget bill is immune from filibuster, but drilling proponents suddenly found it hard to get the measure accepted by a majority of the House. That’s because Democrats oppose the overall budget bill, giving House GOP opponents of drilling in the Arctic enough leverage to have the matter killed.
The move in the House was yet another setback for Bush, whose Social Security overhaul also has stalled in Congress. At the same time, his presidency has been troubled by mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq, the withdrawal of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers and the investigation over the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.
Twenty-five Republicans signed a letter asking GOP leaders to strike the Alaskan drilling provision from the broader $54 billion budget-cut bill.
“Rather than 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,” they said.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
Arctic oil drilling plan put on ice
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