US House Suspends Push for Alaska Oil Drilling
Posted on: Wednesday, 9 November 2005, 21:55 CST
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives abandoned, at least temporarily, a drive to open Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling after concluding on Wednesday the initiative was threatening passage of a huge bill to cut spending.
"ANWR and OCS will be out" of the legislation, said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican.
Besides the Alaska oil drilling initiative, the House spending-reduction bill had also called for opening outer-continental shelf, or offshore areas, to oil and gas drilling.
The proposals had drawn opposition from Democrats and two dozen or so Republicans in the House.
The Senate approved the controversial ANWR proposal last week when it passed $35 billion in spending cuts over five years. That measure estimates the U.S. government would raise about $2.4 billion in leasing fees if industry was allowed to develop the refuge's 10.4 billion barrels of crude.
Environmentalists have opposed expanding oil drilling to the sensitive area in Alaska and some Florida congressmen have worked to kill the offshore oil and gas drilling plan. Both projects have been a high priority of U.S. oil companies.
With a more ambitious, $54 billion spending-reduction bill getting bogged down in the House, Republican leaders jettisoned the oil drilling plans for now.
Negotiations on the budget bill were continuing in the House.
Even without those two energy initiatives, the fate of the budget bill was uncertain, as no House Democrats were expected to vote for it and several moderate Republicans might defy their leaders.
The oil and gas drilling legislation is not dead as supporters are hoping for one more chance this year to win passage.
If the spending-reduction bill passes the House, possibly as early as Thursday, the two chambers of Congress would appoint negotiators to work out differences between the bills.
Senate Republicans could insist the ANWR drilling proposal be reinserted into the House bill, forcing a vote by the full House of Representatives.
Source: REUTERS
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