The Senate included ANWR in its package of spending cuts. But the House-passed budget bill dropped the ANWR drilling provision after a group of moderate Republicans threatened to vote against the measure if the drilling language was included.

The Bush administration stepped up its lobbying efforts to give oil companies access to the refuge.

"The reality is that this would be a significant energy contribution over many decades," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said on Monday at a Heritage Foundation session on ANWR drilling.

Speaking later at the National Press Club, Norton called the impending ANWR debate in the Congress "a watershed moment for Americans."

The Bush administration is looking to lure votes from Democrats who hail from Northeast US states where soaring heating costs this winter might spur them to support more oil drilling, Norton said.

Norton was scheduled to make another speech on the topic later in the day.

"We must expand domestic production of oil and natural gas in environmentally responsible ways, starting with ANWR," Energy Secretary Sam Bodman echoed in a statement.

The Bush administration believes ANWR oil production could eventually reach 1 million barrels a day, reducing America's reliance on oil imports. Drilling opponents want the refuge protected and say raising vehicle fuel standards would save the same amount of oil.

Republican leaders hope ANWR will survive in a House-Senate bargaining session expected this week. Both chambers' versions of the budget-cutting legislation must be combined into a compromise measure before it can be brought for a final vote and signed into law by President George W. Bush.

Negotiators still have not agreed on whether ANWR should be opened for oil drilling, according to a House aide close to the negotiations.

The aide, who asked not to be identified, said ANWR was one of a several major issues still to be decided in the spending cut bill.

Norton refused to say what would happen if ANWR does not make the cut. "At this point my plan is to get it done this week," she said.

ANWR sprawls across 19 million acres, about the size of South Carolina, and is home to caribou, polar bears, migratory birds and other wildlife. The congressional plan would open about 1.5 million acres of its coastal plain to drilling.

The two versions of the budget-cutting bills also include controversial items such as cutting federal food stamps and raising health care costs for the poor.