WATCHING WASHINGTON AWAITING THE DEBATE

With Patrick Crow Predebate sparring over the Senate's omnibus energy measure continued last week as senators for and against the bill angled to impress the public and other senators. The bill went to the Senate floor late last week but was expected to be stalled by a filibuster. Several senators are aligned with environmental groups that want to kill a chapter allowing exploration on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain. Those environmental groups have gathered 500,000

Nov. 4, 1991

3 min read

Predebate sparring over the Senate's omnibus energy measure continued last week as senators for and against the bill angled to impress the public and other senators.

The bill went to the Senate floor late last week but was expected to be stalled by a filibuster.

Several senators are aligned with environmental groups that want to kill a chapter allowing exploration on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain.

Those environmental groups have gathered 500,000 signatures on petitions protesting ANWR leasing and last week presented them to several senators.

ANWR ISSUE

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) responded that Americans don't want to drill in the Alaskan wilderness for a quick oil fix. "ANWR is a magnificent piece of earth, home to some rare and beautiful species of life."

Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) also complained the bill "would strip away environmental and public participation safeguards and promote new taxpayer subsidies for the energy production industries."

Meanwhile, Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), energy committee chairman and chief architect of the bill, released a congressional Office of Technology Assessment report warning the U.S. may import 66% of its oil in less than 20 years.

Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.), cosponsor of the energy bill, maintained the OTA report is "as good an argument for the bill as you will get" because the measure is designed so that ANWR revenues could be used to fund energy research the report recommends.

The OTA report was blandly neutral, avoiding hard recommendations and merely listing options for Congress.

For instance, it said the U.S. could rein its oil import vulnerability "only if we establish long term energy goals and stick to them through periods of crisis and calm and through high and low oil prices. Certainly a sensible, comprehensive energy policy must be responsive to sudden changes of events, but it must be fundamentally grounded in long term strategies."

It said possible goals by 2010 might be to limit oil imports to 50% of consumption, encourage production in countries outside the Middle East, increase U.S. energy efficiency 2%/year, reduce carbon fuel use 1%/year, improve light car fuel efficiency 2%/year, and cut oil's share of transportation energy 10%.

ATTRACTIVE OPPORTUNITIES

OTA's report conceded the long lead times needed for ANWR development mean drilling there would not reduce the jolt from an oil import disruption during the next 12 years.

It said, "Our technical review found the most attractive opportunities for maintaining domestic production over the near term were sustaining exploration, development drilling in known fields, accelerating enhanced oil recovery, bringing shut in or marginal oil fields back into production, and limiting the premature abandonment of wells."

In the House, the energy and power subcommittee was preparing to finish several bills, then combine all the energy legislation it has reported out in the past several months into an omnibus measure similar to the Senate's.

That bill then will advance to the energy and commerce committee. But it does not mention ANWR leasing, which falls under the jurisdiction of other House committees.