UPDATE - Senate Republicans unveil Alaska oil drilling plan
Date: 17-Apr-02
Country: USA
Author: Tom Doggett
The Senate's debate on whether to tap ANWR's potential billions of barrels of oil comes amid a rapid rise in U.S. gasoline prices and disruptions in shipments from key American suppliers Iraq and Venezuela.
In an overture to some Democrats, Republicans offered to ban exports of oil eventually produced from ANWR except for shipments to Israel. The drilling plan faces an uphill fight, lacking the 60 votes needed under Senate rules to end debate.
Senate Democrats, led by presidential hopefuls John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, want to keep the refuge closed to protect caribou and other wildlife that call the isolated northern coast of Alaska home. Instead of drilling in the untouched Arctic refuge, they favor more alternative energy sources and conservation.
Republicans say those are lofty goals, but not realistic policy because oil will be the prevalent source of energy for the foreseeable future.
"The world and the United States move on oil," said Republican Frank Murkowksi of Alaska, the leader of pro-ANWR drilling forces in the Senate. "You're not going to be able to move troops on wind power or solar power."
OIL WOULD OFFSET IMPORTS
Murkowski offered an amendment to the Senate's pending energy that nearly matches ANWR drilling language in energy legislation passed by the Republican-led House last year.
It proposed limiting the total area in the refuge that would be affected by drilling and exploration activity at any one time to just 2,000 acres (800 hectares). The wilderness area sprawls across 19 million acres (7.7 million hectares).
Seeking Democratic votes for ANWR drilling, Murkowski proposed keeping all the oil extracted in the U.S. market, with the exception of some exports to Israel. He also proposed extending for another 10 years the current U.S. arrangement to supply Israel with oil, a commitment due to expire in 2004.
The Alaskan Republican also sought to frame ANWR drilling as a human rights issue. He held up a large color photograph of a toilet, saying the small number of natives living in the wildlife refuge needed the jobs created by drilling and had "a fundamental human right to economic self-determination."
Fellow Alaskan Sen. Ted Stevens insisted that ANWR was not the beautiful place that environmentalists claim.
"It's hell in the wintertime," said Stevens. "This is not some pristine place that needs to be protected in the winter."
The Bush administration says new drilling technology won't harm the refuge and ANWR's potential 16 billion barrels of oil is needed to reduce U.S. imports.
Iraq, which last week halted its exports to protest Israeli-Palestinian violence, is the sixth largest oil supplier to the U.S. market and provides about 800,000 barrels per day.
"We are at the mercy of events that are often beyond our control around the world," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
DEMOCRATIC FILIBUSTER
By most vote counts, the drilling plan is not likely to succeed in the Senate.
Lieberman and Kerry have vowed to filibuster any attempt to drill in the refuge. Both contend that the remote wilderness does not hold enough oil to justify harming wildlife or linking it to the Middle East.
"The Middle East crisis is far too complicated to be calmed by drilling in the Arctic," Lieberman has said. "The fact remains that drilling in the refuge would not produce a drop of oil for a decade, far beyond the time of the current crisis."
A recent Reuters survey found only 40 senators would support opening the refuge. Another 50 lawmakers said they would vote against such a proposal and 10 were undecided.
The Senate's Democratic leadership wants to finish work on the energy bill this week, a goal which may prove difficult given that are about 40 amendments pending on the legislation.
In addition to the ANWR proposal, lawmakers must yet consider amendments that deal with climate change and a multibillion dollar package of energy tax