House Approves ANWR Drilling in Effort to Lure Voters
Tuesday May 30, 2006
The U.S. House of Representatives voted last Thursday to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil development, but the vote was more show than substance.
Even those who are most passionate about drilling for oil in ANWR acknowledge that the bill has no chance of Senate approval. Senate Democrats will block the bill, as they have previous attempts to open ANWR to oil exploration, and Senate Republicans simply don’t have the 60 votes they need to override a filibuster.
But this is an election year, and the ANWR vote was a symbolic gesture designed to enable many House members, primarily Republicans, to curry favor with constituents who are angry about rising gasoline prices. Before House Republicans headed home to campaign over the Memorial Day recess, they wanted something current they could point to that might help them convince voters they are actually trying to do something about America’s addiction to foreign oil and the high price of gasoline.
The new ANWR bill passed the House by a vote of 225 to 201, and the debate preceding the vote was predictable and uninspired. And why not? Lawmakers have been down this road before—as many as a dozen times in recent years by some counts—and everyone involved knew that the bill was largely campaign window dressing.
Lawmakers who favor drilling in ANWR claimed the refuge could produce as much as a million barrels of oil a day—about the same amount the U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia—and sustain that rate of production for 30 years or more. Drilling opponents argued that ANWR would yield only enough oil to satisfy America’s energy needs for about six months and reduce gasoline prices by no more than a penny a gallon.
Drilling opponents said that ANWR is the last pristine wilderness area in North America and should be left unspoiled, while proponents claim it is a barren wasteland and that drilling would occur in only a fraction of its vast expanse.
The battle doesn’t end here, of course. Republicans plan to include an ANWR provision in the budget reconciliation bill later this year, which would increase its chances of Senate passage. Senate rules don’t allow filibusters on budget bills, so Senate Republicans would need only 51 votes, a simple majority, for the measure to pass.
Republicans have tried this strategy before, of course, as recently as 2005. What may make the difference this year is that the House plans to offer a budget reconciliation bill that is streamlined for election year politics, with far fewer spending cuts and tax measures than usual.
More information:
House Votes to Allow Drilling in Alaska Refuge (The New York Times)
House OKs symbolic ANWR bill (Anchorage Daily News)
House OKs Oil Drilling in Alaska Refuge (CBS News)
Even those who are most passionate about drilling for oil in ANWR acknowledge that the bill has no chance of Senate approval. Senate Democrats will block the bill, as they have previous attempts to open ANWR to oil exploration, and Senate Republicans simply don’t have the 60 votes they need to override a filibuster.
But this is an election year, and the ANWR vote was a symbolic gesture designed to enable many House members, primarily Republicans, to curry favor with constituents who are angry about rising gasoline prices. Before House Republicans headed home to campaign over the Memorial Day recess, they wanted something current they could point to that might help them convince voters they are actually trying to do something about America’s addiction to foreign oil and the high price of gasoline.
The new ANWR bill passed the House by a vote of 225 to 201, and the debate preceding the vote was predictable and uninspired. And why not? Lawmakers have been down this road before—as many as a dozen times in recent years by some counts—and everyone involved knew that the bill was largely campaign window dressing.
Lawmakers who favor drilling in ANWR claimed the refuge could produce as much as a million barrels of oil a day—about the same amount the U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia—and sustain that rate of production for 30 years or more. Drilling opponents argued that ANWR would yield only enough oil to satisfy America’s energy needs for about six months and reduce gasoline prices by no more than a penny a gallon.
Drilling opponents said that ANWR is the last pristine wilderness area in North America and should be left unspoiled, while proponents claim it is a barren wasteland and that drilling would occur in only a fraction of its vast expanse.
The battle doesn’t end here, of course. Republicans plan to include an ANWR provision in the budget reconciliation bill later this year, which would increase its chances of Senate passage. Senate rules don’t allow filibusters on budget bills, so Senate Republicans would need only 51 votes, a simple majority, for the measure to pass.
Republicans have tried this strategy before, of course, as recently as 2005. What may make the difference this year is that the House plans to offer a budget reconciliation bill that is streamlined for election year politics, with far fewer spending cuts and tax measures than usual.
More information:
House Votes to Allow Drilling in Alaska Refuge (The New York Times)
House OKs symbolic ANWR bill (Anchorage Daily News)
House OKs Oil Drilling in Alaska Refuge (CBS News)
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