ANWR AMENDMENT GOOD FOR ENERGY BILL

How dare he? Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) this month threatened to upset the whole energy legislation apple cart by proposing an amendment to allow oil and gas leasing of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain. The nerve of some people!

If Murkowski proposes his amendment, senators might have to vote on ANWR leasing-in an election year, no less. What a mess that would be.

Senators neatly skirted the problem last year by failing to stop a filibuster by friends of stop-work environmentalists. Nobody had to cast a direct vote on ANWR leasing. Nobody had to face up to environmentalists' certain scorn in the interest of a measure crucial to U.S. energy health. So the nation has energy legislation that mostly ignores the two fuels that satisfy two thirds of U.S. energy demand-except when it discusses the pleasures of not using them. Politicians in an election year have a chance to pass an energy bill that doesn't agitate environmentalists too much. And along comes Murkowski with his threat to spoil everything.

GRANDSTANDING?

Somebody will probably call his mischief home state grandstanding. Partly, it is. As the special report beginning on p. 35 shows, Alaska faces a difficult future. Revenues from oil and gas production account for 85% of the money spent on state government. But those revenues have fallen with oil prices and seem destined to keep falling unless something props up production.

The problem is venerable Prudhoe Bay field. The old giant has been in decline since 1988. Subsequent discoveries are taking up the slack but aren't nearly big enough to do so indefinitely. The state needs more exploration, more major discoveries, more production, more revenues. The government recognizes the need and proposes several reasonable measures to encourage exploration, including tax credits and the use of concession agreements covering large tracts in the state's risky interior basins.

Nothing, however, would help Alaska's prospects the way ANWR leasing would. The Coastal Plain holds the largest onshore prospects in the U.S., let alone Alaska. A discovery on the scale considered possible there certainly would help Alaska. Murkowski's maverick stance on the Senate energy bill becomes especially understandable in that context. Congress seems willing to deny his state a choice economic opportunity, so he seems willing to deny Congress its hollow election year energy trophy.

A NATIONAL CONCERN

In fact, the importance of ANWR leasing goes far beyond the economic concerns of a single state. Prudhoe Bay and its North Slope neighbors account for a quarter of the nation's production. Prospects for decline in so important an area create problems for the economy of the whole country. ANWR leasing represents the best hope for a timely solution-not just for Alaska but for the U.S. as well.

Such concerns clash with misguided popular guilt over energy consumption in general and oil consumption in particular. Politicians fantasize about petroleum "addictions" and ignore the roles oil and gas play in helping people work. They fret about jobs yet snuff petroleum industry activity-and by association the hope for secure oil and gas supplies-with land lockups, excessive taxes, and overwrought environmental laws and regulations. They feign concern about energy yet pass legislation hostile to the country's most important, most efficient, and least costly energy sources.

The Senate's energy apple cart doesn't carry anywhere near a full load. It deserves to be upset. The oil industry should help Murkowski push it over.