WASHINGTON - The US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will approve legislation by mid-May to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, according to the panel's chairman.
The US Senate late on Thursday approved in a close 51-49 vote a $2.8 trillion budget bill that calls for the government to raise $6 billion over 10 years in leasing fees from allowing oil companies to drill in ANWR. The revenue would be split between the federal government and the state of Alaska.
The budget bill instructs the Senate's energy panel to draft legislation to open the refuge to drilling in order to raise the required $6 billion.
Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the energy committee, said he will send the ANWR-opening legislation to the Senate Budget Committee by mid-May.
Republican leaders, with White House support, used budget legislation to give oil companies access to the refuge, because budget bills can't be filibustered under Senate rules.
Opening ANWR is a key part of the Bush administration's national energy policy. The White House says tapping the refuge's potential 16 billion barrels of crude would boost domestic petroleum supplies and help reduce US reliance on foreign oil imports.
Senate Democrats abandoned their plan to offer an amendment to strip the ANWR leasing fees from the budget bill after it became clear they didn't have enough votes to succeed.
"Drilling in the Arctic Refuge will do nothing to bring gas prices down, but it provides special interests with a sweet deal at the cost of real energy independence," said Democratic Sen. John Kerry, a strong opponent to ANWR drilling.
Environmental groups also slammed the Senate vote.
"Orchestrating a federal budget plan to allow Arctic drilling ... only serves to pay back big energy companies that have been hauling in record profits," said Karen Wayland, legislation director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"The American public wants real solutions to our energy challenges, not more drilling that only perpetuates our nation's unsustainable dependence on oil," said League of Conservation Voters legislative director Tiernan Sittenfeld.
The House of Representatives has yet to vote on its budget legislation. But two dozen Republican House lawmakers have said they oppose putting ANWR drilling language in the budget bill.
"This fight is a long way from over," said William Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society.
Drilling supporters hope consumer anger over high gasoline prices and rising oil imports this election year will encourage more lawmakers to vote for drilling in the refuge.
ANWR stretches across 19 million acres (7.7 million hectares) in the northeast corner of Alaska. The White House wants to offer 1.5 million acres (607,000 hectares) in the refuge's coastal plain for energy exploration leases.
The Interior Department estimates the refuge could hold between 5.7 billion and 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
If the refuge were opened to drilling, it would take about eight years before the area reached full production of 800,000 to 1 million barrels per day, the Energy Department said.
Story by Tom Doggett
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
