By OGJ editors
WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 19 -- On a 52-48 vote, the Senate narrowly approved an amendment that effectively stripped an Arctic National Wildlife Refuge leasing drilling proposal from a pending budget resolution.
"It's a big victory," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who led the fight against the ANWR budget plan.
"I do not assume it is over," Boxer said. "The fight is not over." She said there was still a possibility that ANWR drilling supporters would try to reinsert a leasing revenue provision when House and Senate lawmakers meet in conference to reconcile differences between the two bills. The House is expected to include an ANWR leasing provision in its budget plan (OGJ Online, Mar. 17, 2003).
Next steps
If Republican leaders, who control both chambers, do opt to reintroduce ANWR during a conference on the budget resolution, Boxer warned that she would "use every means at my disposal to stop that." She acknowledged that under parliamentary rules she alone could not block a final conference report.
Nevertheless, she suggested, public opinion may discourage the White House and drilling supporters from inserting it back in.
"With the country poised to go to war, I hope they would accept the will of the Senate," Boxer said.
ANWR drilling supporters have vowed they will not give up. Immediately before the vote, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alas.) urged colleagues to vote with him.
"This is my most important vote in my career in the Senate," Stevens, chairman of the powerful Committee on Appropriations said. "People voting against this are voting against me. I won't forget it."
After the defeat, a spokesman for Stevens said the senator would not rule out an effort by drilling supporters to insert the ANWR language in a conference report. And if that effort fails, drilling proponents have vowed to continue pressing for the measure.
Drilling opponents meanwhile are pressing for legislation sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) that would declare ANWR and its coastal plain a permanent wilderness, protecting it from development.
The White House's energy blueprint calls for leasing a portion of the ANWR coastal plan.
Speaking before the House Committee on Resources on the eve of the Senate vote, a top Bush administration official reiterated the president's support for leasing in the 1002 area.
"ANWR is by far the largest untapped source of domestic petroleum and would equal nearly 60 years of imports from Iraq," Assistant Secretary of the Interior Rebecca Watson said.
