Daschle to force vote on oil drilling
Senator's move likely world imperil Bush's Arctic exploration bill
By Scott Shepard
WASTINGTON BUREAU
Friday, April 12, 2002
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle warned Republicans on Thursday that he is ready to force a vote on President Bush's apparently doomed plan to allow energy exploration in a protected Alaskan wildlife refuge.
Daschle issued the warning as Republicans scrambled to find any Democratic-backed proposal to which they could attach the president's measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration.
The GOP has even considered rewriting its amendment to devote a portion of oil revenues to health care or environmental programs or attaching the original Arctic refuge proposal to an unrelated proposal providing massive subsidies to the ailing U.S. steel industry.
"It shows how desperate they really are," Daschle said.
"We're going to give them a chance to vote on steel, . . . but it is a desperation move that shows that they don't have the votes on ANWR, and they're trying to do almost anything, even things they don't believe in, to get it done," he said.
For days, Daschle has expected Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, to bring the Arctic refuge proposal to the Senate floor.
But Senate Republicans so far have submitted no legislation. Instead, Murkowski has led a parade of Republican senators giving floor speeches warning that without the refuge's oil deposits, America will remain dependent on foreign oil imports from the likes of Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
"To find an ANWR amendment is as hard as finding Waldo," Daschle quipped, citing the popular children's books featuring a hard-to-find character. "After spending a month on this bill, they (Republicans) still can't find an amendment. So we have found one."
The Arctic refuge amendment Daschle "found" -- that is, the one Democrats are prepared to bring to the Senate floor -- is the one drafted by the Bush White House and included in the energy bill passed earlier by the Republican-controlled House.
Late Thursday afternoon, Daschle went to the Senate floor to inform the GOP that after dispensing with a pending border control measure, probably today, he will recognize Murkowski to introduce the refuge amendment. If Murkowski does not introduce it, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, will.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said the delay in the Republican amendment was "legitimate," largely involving determining any costs to taxpayers. But "hopefully we'll be ready to go back to this on Tuesday," Lott added.
With support waning, the Republican strategy in the Senate is to avoid a defeat of the refuge amendment and attempt to add it to the final version of the energy bill crafted by a conference committee of House and Senate negotiators.
A floor defeat would weaken the argument in the conference committee that the refuge should be a part of the final bill sent to the president.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said this week that the Arctic refuge "represents 46 years worth of imports of oil from Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
But estimates of the amount of economically recoverable oil in the refuge vary widely, and no expert is quite certain the impact the refuge will have on U.S. oil consumption.
The Senate has spent nearly a month on legislation establishing a national energy policy.
Earlier, it defeated an effort by conservationists to require auto manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency of cars and trucks.
And it appears it will also defeat the energy industry's attempt to open a portion of the refuge's protected land to oil and gas exploration. |
