The new legislation now gives oil companies access to the refuge's possible 10 billion barrels of crude oil. The drilling is one of the Bush Administration’s key aspects to its nation energy plan to cut America’s dependence on imported oil.

The initiative is expected to be debated by the Senate this WEDNESDAY, where it is likely to face stiff opposition from pro-environmental Democrats and possibly some moderate Republicans.

Republican leaders tweaked the language so it funnels billions of dollars of revenue from eventual oil drilling to states affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

Drilling in the refuge had appeared a non-issue but quickly became a hot topic last week with environmentalists and some in the government, when Republican leaders tried a new strategy: Having it piggyback along a must-pass $453 billion defense appropriations bill, which will pay for the war in Iraq and provide money for hurricane relief and avian flu preparations.

 
From the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 19, 2005

 

The Senate has in the past blocked efforts to open the Alaskan refuge to energy exploration. But because the proposal is now part of a bill funding troops in wartime, President Bush's long-sought goal of allowing drilling in the refuge will be politically tougher for senators to oppose.

"Obviously, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think I had the votes," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said Sunday as partisan tensions ran high over the maneuver to put one of the nation's most contentious environmental issues in a defense bill. The Senate is expected to vote on the drilling measure this week.

 

The decision to attach Arctic drilling to the $453-billion Pentagon spending bill led to a clash between Frist and his Democratic counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

A tired-looking Frist rejected Reid's contention that Republicans were seeking to change Senate rules in attaching the drilling to the defense bill, and Frist defended the move by saying that Arctic drilling has had the support of a majority of the Senate.

Minutes after Frist spoke with reporters, Reid said that attaching the drilling provision to a military spending bill showed "the absolute cynicism of the leadership in playing with the rules" of the Senate.

Several former high-ranking military officers — including former Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, a former chief of the U.S. Central Command, and retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East — expressed concern in a letter to lawmakers that attaching the long-debated issue to a defense bill could jeopardize funding for the troops.

Although Arctic drilling has been blocked in the Senate by filibusters before, a number of anti-drilling senators have said they would find it difficult to vote during wartime against a defense spending bill that includes the drilling provision.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a drilling opponent, said in an interview at the Capitol on Sunday that she believed drilling proponents were still short of the 60 votes to block a Senate filibuster.

"This is not to home base by a long shot," she said. "It's at third base right now."

Opening a portion of the Arctic refuge to energy exploration has been debated for decades. Drilling proponents seized on high gas prices to advance the initiative and have argued that the refuge offers the nation's single greatest prospect for onshore domestic oil production of an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil. The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day.

Environmentalists have argued that drilling would endanger one of the nation's natural treasures — a region so rich in wildlife that they call it America's Serengeti — and have a negligible effect on America's energy needs or prices.

Because Arctic drilling had been blocked in the Senate by Democrat-led filibusters, Senate GOP leaders earlier this year had attached a measure that would authorize the energy exploration to a budget-cutting bill that cannot be filibustered. But the drilling provision threatened to bring down the budget-cutting bill, a GOP priority.

So Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has long championed the drilling and heads the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, attached the drilling provision to the military spending bill.

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times. To read the whole article go to: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-congress19dec19,1,539153...

 

 

 

If you haven't already done so, call, fax, or e-mail your two U.S. Senators right now and tell them to get Arctic drilling out of the Defense bill, with a filibuster if necessary!


Note from Liora: I tried calling my Senators and was unable to get through or leave a message.