E&E Daily
Monday, March 27, 2006
ANWR: House budget to veer away from Arctic drilling
Ben Geman, E&E Daily senior reporter
Breaking with the Senate, the House budget resolution is not expected to
assume revenue from Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil drilling, though
some sources think advocates of development may yet find a way to use the
House budget process to advance the issue.
With the House Budget Committee set to mark up its version of the fiscal
year 2007 budget resolution this week -- possibly Wednesday -- it became
clear last week that the budget will not likely assume revenues from ANWR
leasing. Moreover, House Republican sources familiar with the budget
drafting process say the resolution will not include a reconciliation
instruction to the House Resources Committee large enough to match
expected federal revenues from lease sales on the refuge's coastal plain.
These sources say that if there is an instruction to the Resources
Committee, it will likely be far smaller than the $3 billion
reconciliation instruction to the Senate Energy Committee in that
chamber's budget blueprint that narrowly passed earlier this month.
If that is the case, the budget will be significantly different than last
year's measure, which provided a $2.4 billion instruction to Resources
Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), a figure that roughly
matched estimates at the time of how much revenue lease sales would bring
to federal coffers.
The current CBO estimate for total lease sale revenues is $6 billion,
which would be shared 50-50 with the state of Alaska. The Senate budget
provided the $3 billion instruction that Energy and Natural Resources
Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) plans to generate by
authorizing leasing in budget reconciliation legislation in coming
months.
Efforts to allow ANWR drilling collapsed in Congress last year despite
pro-drilling majorities in both chambers. Winning approval is complicated
because Senate supporters lack the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster
if ANWR is addressed through regular legislation, and as a result
drilling backers have included it in budget measures immune from
filibuster.
But in the House, where ANWR has majority support, Democratic opposition
to GOP budget bills combined with moderate GOP opposition makes including
ANWR in the budget very tricky, a reality demonstrated last year when
leaders had to dump ANWR to win passage of a reconciliation package.
One House GOP aide said including a smaller instruction to Pombo's
committee possibly signals the leadership may not hold out much hope for
moving Arctic drilling language in an election year. Even Pombo has
indicated in recent weeks that winning approval for drilling this year
may be difficult.
Still, a reconciliation instruction to Pombo's committee that is far
smaller than expected ANWR revenues would not by definition prevent an
effort to open the refuge through the reconciliation process. The
committee could seek to raise more revenues than called for by the
reconciliation instruction. Last year, in fact, the reconciliation
package that cleared the Resources Committee was larger than the
instruction after the committee reported a measure that included ANWR,
wider offshore drilling and other revenue-raising measures.
Asked whether Pombo would seek to address ANWR through reconciliation if
the instruction is indeed far smaller than anticipated federal ANWR
leasing revenues, Pombo aide Brian Kennedy said no decisions have been
made. "The chairman is considering several options for ANWR, and has not
ruled anything out yet," he said in an e-mail exchange.
Last year, moderate House GOP lawmakers forced leadership to jettison
ANWR from a reconciliation package after pledging to vote against it if
leasing remained. The moderates had enough leverage to force its removal
because every Democrat -- including the 30 or so that back drilling --
unified against GOP budget plans due to unrelated entitlement cuts and
other provisions.
Kirk Walder, an adviser to the moderate Republican Main Street
Partnership, said he expects an equally aggressive anti-drilling effort
from GOP moderates this year. "I think they are very confident. They were
united last year," he said.
"We got a strong response from pro-environment segments in members'
districts. We had a number of members who shared their district
experiences of people who came up to them on the street and said, 'Thank
you for blocking ANWR," he added.
The $2.8 trillion Senate budget blueprint approved March 16 steers clear
of seeking cuts to mandatory spending programs that proved so
controversial in the fiscal 2006 process, when Congress ultimately agreed
to a $39 billion deficit reduction package. The only reconciliation
instruction in the Senate package is the ANWR-linked language for
Domenici's committee.
House leaders plan to address mandatory spending in some capacity this
year, but the overall effort is expected to be far smaller than last
year's plan overall. A conservative GOP aide expects it to include "no
brainer" reforms to some spending programs.
One looming question is whether an eventual House or conference
reconciliation package -- if it were to include ANWR -- could be
palatable enough to attract support from Democrats that back refuge
development to offset opposition from GOP moderates. The Senate ANWR plan
was crafted to entice the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) for the
budget package, which narrowly passed on a 51-49 vote on March 16.
It provides up to $10 billion in Gulf Coast protection and restoration
funding, to be generated by ANWR lease sales, offshore drilling revenues
and digital spectrum sales (E&E Daily, March 17).



Lydia Weiss
Government Relations
Defenders of Wildlife
202-772-0250 
www.savearcticrefuge.org 

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