Washington – The Senate insisted Thursday on opening up the Arctic National Wildlife refuge for drilling after being blocked by conservationists for decades, then voted overwhelmingly to prohibit exporting any of the oil pumped from the region.
The Senate also narrowly approved the first cuts since 1997 to benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and farm subsidies, giving Republicans a modest victory against ever-rising government spending.
The budget bill, passed by a 52-47 vote, makes mild cuts to the health care programs for the elderly, poor and disabled but leaves the food stamp program untouched.
On a 51-48 vote, the Senate approved requiring the Interior Department to begin selling oil leases for the coastal plain of the Alaska refuge within two years.
Repeated attempts to approve such drilling had failed in the Senate because drilling supporters couldn’t muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster by opponents. This year, drilling supporters attached language ending the ban on drilling in the refuge to a budget measure that is immune to filibuster.
Opening the refuge, which was set aside for protection 44 years ago, has been one of President Bush’s top energy priorities.
Bush and other drilling advocates argue that the country needs the estimated 10.5 billion barrels of oil believed to lie beneath the refuge’s coastal tundra in northeastern Alaska. The United States uses about 7.3 billion barrels of oil a year.
“America needs this American oil,” said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He called opposition to pumping the refuge’s oil “ostrich-like” and said the refuge’s reserves are “crucial to the nation’s attempt to achieve energy independence.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who led the effort to continue the ban, called drilling in the refuge a gimmick that will have little impact on fuel prices or U.S. energy security.
“Using backdoor tactics to destroy America’s last great wild frontier will not solve our nation’s energy problems and will do nothing to lower skyrocketing gas prices,” Cantwell argued.
The House is considering a measure that also includes a provision to open the refuge to oil companies. It cleared the Budget Committee on Thursday but has garnered so much opposition for various reasons that House leaders are thinking about jettisoning the contentious refuge drilling section.
The Senate’s decision to keep the provision in its bill “gives us a little more flexibility,” said acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo. A decision on the refuge would then be made when the House and Senate try to mesh their two budgets.
Meanwhile, the Senate in an 86-13 vote, required that none of the oil from the refuge be exported. Otherwise, “there is no assurance that even one drop of Alaskan oil will get to hurting Americans,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a drilling opponent who sponsored the no-export provision. He co-sponsored the amendment with Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., who strongly supports drilling there.
Drilling supporters argued that the refuge will give the country more domestic oil production, so fewer barrels will have to be imported.
Today, about 60 percent of the oil used in the United States is imported, but no oil is likely to flow from the refuge for 10 years, and peak production of about 1 million barrels a day isn’t expected until about 2025, according to the Energy Department. Currently, the United States uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.
Environmentalists have cited a report by the Energy Information Administration, a branch of the Energy Department, that concluded that drilling in the refuge would only slightly affect gasoline prices and marginally lower the growth of imports by 2025, when imported oil would account for 64 percent of U.S. demand instead of 68 percent without the refuge’s oil.
Conservationists said drilling platforms and a spider web of roads and pipelines will threaten the ecology of the refuge’s coastal plain, which is used by caribou, polar bears, musk oxen and millions of migratory birds that land there during warmer parts of the year.
The overall spending bill is estimated to trim $36 billion, or 2 percent, from budget deficits forecast at $1.6 trillion over five years. The cuts total $6 billion for the plan’s first year, with deficits predicted to exceed $300 billion.
Republicans said the debate was an important moment for their party, which gained control of Congress 11 years ago with promises to balance the budget. The return of intractable deficits and surging spending has caused heartburn for many Republicans over their record on holding the line on spending and addressing budget deficits.
The long-planned budget measure would make the first cuts to mandatory programs since 1997. The programs account for 55 percent of the budget and include Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies and student loan subsidies.
