Washington Post: A Stinging Repudiation Engineered by 3 Democrats
By Eric Pianin
Friday, April 19, 2002; Page A09
President Bush suffered a double-edged loss in the Senate yesterday
over drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Lawmakers
for the first time delivered a stinging rebuke to a core item in his
domestic agenda, and his defeat was engineered by three of his
potential Democratic challengers in 2004.
Drilling was at the heart of Bush's energy policies from the moment
he took office, and the Republican-controlled House obliged him last
summer by adopting it as part of its huge energy package. Yet, even
after declaring the drilling essential to the nation's long-term
security and energy independence after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, the president could not overcome potent Democratic opposition
in the Senate and an unusually intense lobbying effort by
environmentalists who declared the vote the ultimate litmus test for
lawmakers.
The 54 to 46 vote was humbling to an administration accustomed to
getting its way most of the time because it denied the president even
a rhetorical victory. Although Bush and his allies never had a chance
of achieving the 60-vote supermajority necessary to overcome the
Democrats' vow to filibuster, the White House had hoped to be able to
brag that at least a majority of lawmakers backed his drilling plan.
But desperate gambits by Alaska Republican Sens. Frank H. Murkowski
and Ted Stevens, the main advocates of drilling, backfired on the
Republicans and a president who -- faced with a losing cause and other
pressing business -- never engaged in the type of personal lobbying
that might have won over some wavering Republicans and Democrats. An
effort by Murkowski and Stevens to link the vote for drilling to
health care subsidies for retired steelworkers offended a large number
of Republicans, who voted against their own party in a preliminary vote.
On the final vote, eight Republicans joined with 45 Democrats and Sen.
James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) to torpedo the drilling plan, while five
Democrats voted in favor of drilling. Although the outcome seemed
preordained, several key votes against drilling in the Arctic refuge
didn't fall into place until the last several days, according to
environmental activists, including those of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
and Democrats Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), Thomas R. Carper (Del.) and
Blanche Lincoln (Ark.)
Key to the presidential setback was the work of three possible
Democratic presidential contenders: Senate Majority Leader Thomas A.
Daschle (S.D.) and Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman
(Conn.).
It was Daschle who took the steam out of the drilling initiative in
October by abruptly halting Energy and Natural Resources Committee
deliberations over an energy bill when it appeared there were probably
enough votes on the panel to approve drilling. He then presented the
Republicans with the impossible task of garnering 60 votes to get
drilling put back in the bill on the floor while revving up opposition
within his caucus.
The outcome of the vote denied the president the simple majority he
sought for a campaign issue that he could use against the Democrats.
With Republicans such as McCain and Sens. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) and
Mike DeWine (Ohio) opposing drilling, it will be hard for the
administration to portray the Democrats as obstructionists in drafting
a national energy policy.
The White House and senior Senate Republicans played down the
significance of the vote, blaming what they called environmental
extremists for pressuring members and arguing that they could still
revive the drilling issue when House and Senate conferees meet late
this year to try to craft compromise energy legislation.
"This is a disappointing vote, but this fight is not over," said Senate
Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). "We will continue it on land, on
sea and in the air."
But Democrats, environmentalists and some Republicans said the vote
represents a ringing repudiation of administration energy and
environmental policies that have stressed production over conservation.
Some said the struggle over the issue could play a big role in this
year's congressional races.
"The politics of this are such that most senators know this would be a
major factor for them in any election," said William H. Meadows,
president of the Wilderness Society. "This is an issue the
environmental community lives for."
Chafee, a moderate Republican member of the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee, said the Democrats and environmental groups
managed to transform the vote on drilling into a "symbol" that obscured
some of the Republicans' stronger arguments.
"I think the environment is a big issue, and I think we are vulnerable
as Republicans," Chafee said.
[END of Washington Post report]
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