Senate panel to OK ANWR drilling bill by mid-May

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 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.