Energy and Natural Resources Committee leaders basked in the glow last week following passage by a vote of 85-12 by the full Senate of their bipartisan energy bill. One reason they were able to celebrate was that they did not make legislation to authorize oil and gas leasing on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain part of the bill.
The situation will change when the Senate takes its bill to conference this month with the House, which made ANWR leasing authorization part of its energy bill.
Opponents may find it harder to kill than in previous years because it’s already part of the fiscal 2006 budget.
In late April, the Senate kept ANWR language in its budget package. As a part of that resolution, it could not be filibustered. A motion to strike it failed 51-49, and it stayed in.
Seeking instructions
ANWR language also was part of the budget bill that emerged from a conference with the House soon after. The conferees instructed both bodies to go back and create definitive legislation about money that would be raised.
In the House, that means the Resources Committee. In the Senate, the task falls to the Energy and Natural Resources panel, which finally would have to discuss removing the statute that bans drilling anywhere in the refuge.
Those committees have until Sept. 16 to report their instructions to the budget conference. At that time, conferees will try to assemble a reconciliation bill incorporating all the House and Senate committees’ language.
Even then, ANWR drilling authorization could still be stopped because the budget bill contains spending for Medicare and Medicaid that is more than the White House says it’s willing to support.
‘No guarantee’
“There’s no guarantee we’ll get to a final budget reconciliation,” one committee staff member said. “We haven’t done it for several sessions. If we do, and it’s too expensive, President Bush could veto it.”
Under the most optimistic scenario, Congress would pass a budget reconciliation bill in October that the White House would act on in November or December. It was that late in the year that then-President Bill Clinton received the last budget containing ANWR legislation in 1996, which he vetoed. The question this year is whether $60/bbl oil prices will pressure his successor to sign a bill to win ANWR leasing that he otherwise dislikes for unrelated fiscal reasons.
ANWR drilling proponents, of course, hope that he does. “We hope that this process will be concluded by the end of the year and the president has signed it and we can start the bidding and exploration process shortly thereafter,” said Jerry Hood, Washington coordinator for Arctic Power, which supports oil and gas leasing of the refuge’s coastal plain. ✦
