WASHINGTON - Citing the public outcry over $3-a-gallon gasoline and America's heavy reliance on foreign oil, the House on Thursday voted to open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, knowing the prospects for Senate approval were slim.
Drilling proponents argued that the refuge on Alaska's North Slope would provide 1 million barrels a day of additional domestic oil at peak production and reduce the need for imports.
But opponents to developing what environmentalists argue is a pristine area where drilling will harm caribou, polar bears and migratory birds, said Congress should pursue conservation and alternative energy sources that would save more oil than would be tapped from the refuge.
The House voted 225-201 to direct the Interior Department to open oil leases on the coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — an area of 1.5 million acres that is thought likely to hold about 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
But the action may be little more than symbolic. Arctic refuge development, while approved by the House five times, repeatedly has been blocked in the Senate where drilling proponents have been unable to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
Okay, so we've heard these arguments before. And the House has always voted to drill in ANWAR, while the Senate has has been stuck in a filibuster on this proposal. But now I want to include some fun comments by our congressmen:
"We need to develop energy, here at home. ... We can't say no to everything," declared Rep. Richard Pombo (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., who pressed for a House vote on opening the refuge that lies east of the declining Prudhoe Bay oil fields 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Nice to hear that Richard Pombo is looking out for his constituent's interests. According to OpenSecrets.org, oil and gas interests gave Richard Pombo $86,700 in political campaign contributions for the 2006 election. And there is this little interesting piece of information from the SF Guardian:
[Pombo's] third largest source of campaign funds is the oil and gas industry, which has given him $178,788 since 1989. Pombo is chair of the House Committee on Resources, which oversees those industries. Chevron Texaco alone gave him $21,500.
There are plenty of reasons for the oil giant to like Pombo. He opposed a Chinese bid to purchase Unocal -- Chevron also wanted to buy Unocal – and has tried to lift the moratorium on oil drilling off the coast of California.
So Mr. Pombo, how is pushing for oil drilling in ANWAR going to help your voting constituents in California?
Ah, but the congressional bombast gets better. Consider this from the Yahoo story:
Congress approved drilling in the refuge in 1995, but
President Clinton vetoed the bill.
Had Clinton not issued his veto "we would have had a million barrels of oil today," said Rep. Don Young (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska. "We should be drilling off shore, we should be drilling in the Rockies and most of all we should be drilling in the Arctic refuge."
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., countered that had Congress passed improved auto fuel economy measures 11 years ago when they were considered, today "we would save far more oil than ANWR would produce."
"This Congress hasn't voted on a single conservation measure since gasoline hit $3 a gallon," said Boehlert.
"Rather than debating how we could increase the fuel efficiency standards (of cars) over the next few years, we are debating about a bill that won't produce the first barrel of oil for 10 years and it will come from a pristine wildlife refuge," complained Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a leading drilling opponent.
Talk about putting all these supply-sided, oil drilling Republicans in their place. We certainly do hear all this talk about oil drilling in ANWAR, but the Republicans in Congress have refused to increase the CAFE fuel efficient standards for the past decade. Boehlert is right. We probably could have saved more oil, and more money, in improving our country's energy efficiency, rather than continuing to drill for a dwindling supply of oil.
But the House Republicans still don't get it.
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