The fate of a bill that would allow oil and gas drilling on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge appeared uncertain early Dec. 21 when ANWR proponents lost a key procedural vote in the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations, had inserted the Arctic drilling measure into the $446.7 billion defense spending package the week of Dec. 12 after the ANWR provision hit an impasse in budget reconciliation conference negotiations.
The FY’06 Defense Appropriations Conference Report is a measure that requires passage before the Senate can recess for the holidays. It includes funding for critical defense programs and activities as well as $50 billion to sustain contingency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, $142.8 million for body armor and personal protection equipment, and $180 million for equipment for the National Guard and Reserve. The bill also provided a 3.1 percent across-the-board pay raise for military personnel.
Other provisions of the legislation included $29 billion in federal aid for victims of Katrina and other storms and $3.8 billion to prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic, provisions hard to ignore by Senate moderates and Democrats from the Gulf States, solely because ANWR drilling was part of the package.
ANWR drilling opponents in the Senate, however, succeeded in blocking the drilling measure in an 11th-hour procedural motion based on Rule 28 early Dec. 21. The motion for cloture, which required 60 votes to limit debate on the bill, failed 56 to 44 in midday balloting.
Four Democrats, Sens. Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Benjamin Nelson of Nebraska, voted for the motion, while three Republicans, Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Thomas Dewine of Ohio and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., of Tennessee, opposed it.
Passage of the motion would have prevented a Democratic filibuster of the bill, making ANWR drilling immune to defeat without tanking the entire defense spending package. However, defeat of the cloture motion means Senate negotiators will have to make changes in the bill, likely including removal of ANWR drilling, or send the entire defense appropriations package back to the drawing board, according to Stevens. Additionally, removal of ANWR drilling from the defense spending bill would eliminate a source of funding critical for emergency measures added to the bill in the past week such as hurricane disaster relief and $2 billion for federal assistance to low-income families for home heating bills this winter.
Reconsideration of cloture possible
At the last minute, Frist switched his vote to “no,” which allows the cloture motion to be reconsidered later in the debate.
Earlier, the Senate passed a $40.6 billion budget reconciliation bill that included several changes that now sends it back to the House of Representative for approval. The House approved a slightly different version of the deficit-cutting legislation on Dec. 19.
Throughout the week, Stevens and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, argued that ANWR drilling is critical to national security and reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign sources of oil, but also crucial in providing federal revenue.
“We have to realize that ANWR is germane to the bill. Nothing is more germane and essential to national defense than energy,” Stevens said in a statement Dec. 20. “ANWR supports national security because it would unquestionably increase the national supply.”
The Department of Defense is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government, he explained.
“The Arctic Coastal Plain can produce between 876,000 and 1.6 million barrels of oil per day,” Stevens asserted. “Developing domestic resources in the Coastal Plain would help reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign countries and unfriendly regimes.
Murkowski also cited the importance of the legislation. “When you look at all that this bill encompasses, it is vital that it be taken up and passed before we adjourn for the year,” Murkowski said Dec. 20.
Opponents argued that Stevens broke Senate rules by inserting ANWR drilling in the defense-spending bill and accused him of abusing his power in the Senate.
Stevens fired back that he was following Senate rules, which allowed for ANWR drilling to be inserted into the measure provided Senate procedures were followed.
If the cloture vote is sustained, the House and Senate will have to reconstitute a conference and reappoint conferees, Stevens predicted. The House had indicated it would not reconstitute a conference and would instead rely on a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Defense, preventing the hurricane relief and avian flu preparation funding from taking effect along with ANWR drilling, he added.
Stevens also said many of the provisions likely would be dropped if Congress had to start all over in drafting a defense spending bill.
During debate early Dec. 21, Stevens said he canceled his Christmas holiday plans and was prepared to stay in Washington until the issue is resolved. “If the people of New Orleans can’t go home for Christmas, I won’t go home either,” he said. “I am not a fair-weather friend,” he added, recalling that he spent a New Year’s Eve in the Senate President’s chair one year.
The Congress cannot leave town for the holidays until it has dealt with spending bills, including the defense measure, with or without ANWR drilling, and the deficit-cutting package.
The decision to remove ANWR drilling from the defense spending package had not been made by press time (1p.m. Alaska time, Dec. 21) but some observers say proponents of ANWR drilling and emergency funding measures might be able to attach them to a reconciliation bill in the future. Reconciliation bills are not subject to cloture in the Senate and can be passed with a simple majority of 51 votes.
House votes for ANWR drilling in defense spending bill
The U.S. House of Representatives was expected to reconvene Dec. 22 to take up consideration of a new version of the budget reconciliation package approved by the Senate early Dec. 21.
House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the defense spending measure 308-106 early Dec. 19 with Arctic drilling. The ANWR drilling provision had a much closer call in an earlier procedural vote on which 16 House Democrats rallied to the aid of the Republican majority to approve the legislation 214-201. Twenty-one Republicans voted against the rules motion, he added.
The House also set aside its differences briefly to greet Rep. Joe Barton, who returned to Congress after suffering a heart attack Dec. 15.
