Senate Vote Nears On Arctic Drilling

(AP)  The Senate is facing a showdown over oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge.
Opponents argue that the future of an environmental treasure is at risk. Supporters say the refuge's oil is needed to reduce America's dependence on imports.

With war looming in Iraq, proponents of developing the oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have focused on energy security as they try to use a budget resolution to lift the congressional ban on drilling there.

Senate Democrats said they are confident they have the 51 votes to strip the refuge drilling provision from the budget resolution, but both sides acknowledge the vote will be close.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and several other Democrats as well as a handful of Republicans have offered an amendment that would remove the provision.

The United States could save more oil than the refuge will produce "by just getting the SUVs to have the same fuel economy as autos," Boxer argued Tuesday night.

Drilling advocates contend the oil can be pumped without disturbing the environment and harming the wildlife.

"We're not using a lot of land," insisted Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, arguing that the "footprint" that oil companies would leave would cover no more than 2,000 acres of the 19 million-acre reserve in the northeastern corner of Alaska.

But environmentalists said those acres will be scattered across the reserve's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain, disturbing polar bears in their dens, affecting calving grounds for caribou and interfering with millions of migratory birds that swoop down on the plain each summer.

"This is a national treasure," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., one of the Democrats who successfully blocked attempts to lift the drilling ban last year. Last year, they staged a filibuster, meaning drilling proponents needed 60 votes to get the measure through.

But Senate rules bar such delaying tactics on the budget resolution and the issue must be decided by a simple majority vote.

Democrats said Tuesday they believe they have the 51 votes needed to scuttle the provision. Stevens earlier this week acknowledged privately that he probably will not have enough votes.

"This is a sound proposition for America," argued Stevens, insisting that his state should be allowed to have the oil developed. Alaska would get a share of the proceeds from oil taken from the refuge, as it does from oil pumped now on the North Slope.

President Bush has cited the refuge's oil as essential to reducing America's reliance on oil imports, which in a few years will account for about 60 percent of U.S. oil consumption.

Kerry, who hopes to challenge Mr. Bush for president in 2004, scoffed at the argument, saying the refuge's oil would reduce oil imports by only 2 percent.

"God only gave us 3 percent of the world's oil. The Middle East has about 65 percent ... and a 2 percent difference for the destruction of the wilderness does not solve America's problem," said Kerry.

How much oil is beneath the refuge's coastal plain is uncertain because only one exploratory well has been drilled and its results have not been made public. The Interior Department estimates that the plain could have anywhere from 5.7 billion barrels to 16 billion barrels.

Environmentalists argue that much less oil than that — no more than about 3.2 billion barrels — is likely to be economical for oil companies to pursue. Major oil companies, in fact, have begun to lose interest in the refuge.

The United States uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day.