Happy Winter Solstice!! --kf

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ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY DAILY 

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 -- 1:15 PM 





BREAKING NEWS 

1. ANWR 

Senate backs Arctic drilling filibuster, 56-44 

Ben Geman and Mary O'Driscoll, Greenwire senior reporters 

Opponents of oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
scored a dramatic victory today when the Senate upheld a filibuster of a
defense spending measure that authorized refuge leasing. With 60 votes
needed to override the filibuster, drilling proponents fell just short,
56-44. 

Including ANWR in the $453 billion defense spending bill was a bold
gamble by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has for decades been pressing
for opening the refuge to oil and gas exploration. The rejection of the
defense bill sends the measure back to conference, where conferees will
likely have to strip drilling provisions in order to see the military
spending bill pass. 

"This was a victory for the Senate and for an orderly process," Sen. John
Kerry (D-Mass.) said after the vote. 

If Stevens agrees to relent on keeping ANWR in the defense bill, the
House will have to return to pass a revised defense spending bill minus
the language. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he hopes
Stevens will accept today's cloture vote as a sign that ANWR does not
belong in the military bill. 

"Republican devotion to special interests and their unwillingness to
accept the fact that we will not permit them to advance these interests
at the expense of our troops," he said following the vote. 

On the other side of the aisle, key senators said the failure was in not
moving it through the budget reconciliation process, where ANWR would
have been immune from a filibuster. "We have got to get it on a
reconciliation bill with nothing else on it," said Sen. Pete Domenici
(R-N.M.). 


Vote count 


Democrats voting for cloture were Sens. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Daniel
Inouye of Hawaii, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. 

Republicans who voted against were Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island,
Mike DeWine of Ohio and Bill Frist of Tennessee. 

Frist, who had initially voted for clouture, changed his vote for
procedural reasons. It allows him to bring the drilling issue up for
consideration later. 


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