Bush makes another pitch for ANWR drilling, refinery expansion

Washington (Platts)--5Dec2005

President Bush Monday made another pitch for drilling in Alaska's Artic
Wildlife Refuge and for building new or expanding existing refineries, two
issues that have become stalled in Congress.

     "Congress needs to pass legislation that will allow us to build and
expand refineries," Bush said during a speech on the economy in Kernersville,
North Carolina. "In order to take the pressure off your pocketbook, it seems
to make sense to me that we need to expand the amount of supply of gasoline.
The more gasoline there is available for our consumers, the less pressure
there will be." 

     Bush also said it was "important for people to understand the facts
involved: developing this tiny area [of ANWR] could yield up to a million
barrels of oil a day. That's a million barrels of oil a day less from a
foreign source of energy. I can't tell you how important I think it is for the
United States Congress to authorize a pro-growth, pro-job, pro-environment
exploration of ANWR."

     Congress, however, is having difficulty finding common ground on either
issue. On ANWR, the House of Representatives, which has voted several times
in the past few years to authorize drilling outright, has not included the
measure in a budget reconciliation bill because of fears that the provision
could undermine support for the underlying legislation. Meanwhile, the Senate,
which in recent years has been unable to get the 60 votes to stave of a
filibuster attempt over the issue, has included it in the budget
reconciliation bill, which requires only a simple majority of support for
passage. Many Democrats, and even some Republicans, oppose the move, calling
it a back-door attempt to open the refuge to drilling without going through
proper legislative channels.

     SENATE SHOWS NO INTEREST IN REFINING PUSH

     Bush has often touted ANWR drilling as a key to boosting domestic
production and lowering crude oil and products prices. He insists that new
technologies would limit any environmental impact of drilling, which would be
limited to 2,000 acres out of the 19-mil acre reserve.

     But anti-drilling forces say drilling could destroy sensitive lands and
suggest the administration should consider conservation measures, such as
improving fuel economy standards, to reduce US dependence on foreign oil,
rather than on new drilling.

     On the refinery issue, the House narrowly passed a refinery incentive
bill this autumn, but a similar measure did not even make it out of the
subcommittee level in the Senate. Several senators said the bill would
undermine the environment. 

     Bush, in his speech also urged greater use of LNG and domestic coal.
"We've got a lot of coal in the United States of America, and we need to
figure out how to use it cleanly," he said. "We need to do a better job of
making sure we can get natural gas from overseas -- liquefied natural gas into
the United States. We don't have enough liquefied natural gas portals to allow
that gas to come here, and we need to expand that in the United States." 

     He said the US needs to reduce its dependence on foreign sources of
energy if it wants the economy to remain vibrant. "High gasoline and heating
costs are a tax on the working people, and they're a tax on small businesses,
and they drain the budgets of people working hard; they make it expensive for
people to run their companies," he said, adding that high prices also "affect
our economic and national security."

				--Cathy Landry, cathy_landry@platts.com

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