GOP Shelves Alaska Drilling Plan

Wildlife Refuge Exploration Won't Be Part Of House Budget Bill

(CBS/AP)  House Republican leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a budget bill expected to come up for a vote on Thursday.

They also dropped from the budget document plans to allow states to authorize oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts - regions currently under a drilling moratorium.

GOP leaders acted after a rough day on Capitol Hill for the oil industry - as CEOs of the nation's largest oil companies testified at a Senate hearing on oil industry profits, soaring energy prices, and ways to protect consumers from price-gouging and unaffordable transporation and heating oil costs.

The House move to give up for now on the Alaska energy exploration proposal is a setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists including the Natural Resource Defense Council, which has lobbied hard against the drilling and argues that improving fuel efficiency in cars and trucks would do far more to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

President Bush has made drilling in the Alaska refuge his top energy priority. Supporters of the idea argue there is a good chance of a major oil field discovery and with the drilling area accounting for 8 percent of the total acreage of the refuge, the "long term ability of the habitat to support wildlife would not be affected."

The House Rules Committee formalized the change late Wednesday by issuing the terms of the debate when the House takes up the budget package on Thursday.

The decision to drop the ANWR drilling language came after GOP moderates said they would oppose the budget if it was kept in the bill. The offshore drilling provision was also viewed as too contentious and a threat to the bill, especially in the Senate.

Last week, the Senate included ANWR drilling in its version of the budget, so the matter will have to be thrashed out in negotiations between the Senate and House if the budget is approved by the House.

Protection of the Alaska refuge from oil companies has been championed by environmentalists for years. The House repeatedly has approved drilling in the refuge as part of broad energy legislation, only to see their effort blocked each time by the threat of a filibuster in the Senate.