Frankenbill
The energy bill is alive -- alive! -- and that could be bad news for ANWR
By Amanda Griscom Little
09 Nov 2004

A day after winning the presidential election last week, George
W. Bush made this now-legendary -- and, to some, menacing --
statement: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital,
and now I intend to spend it." Without dwelling on the notion
that conservatives are supposed to protect and grow capital, not
fritter it away, environmentalists are wondering just where and
how President Bush is going to spend his political booty in the
natural-resource realm.

In much the same way he spent his more limited allowance in the
last go-round, according to U.S. EPA chief Mike Leavitt. As
reported in Greenwire last Friday, Leavitt told the press that
the Bushies will proudly stay the course on their environmental
agenda -- one widely condemned by environmentalists, but newly
bolstered by the election. "We now have a clear agenda, one
that's been validated and empowered by the people of this
country," he said.

If past is indeed prologue in the Bush administration, say
enviros, it's fair to assume that a key beneficiary of the
president's newfound capital will be the energy industry. During
Bush's first term, efforts to weaken clean-air regulations and
expedite oil and gas drilling were regarded as paybacks for
campaign contributions. This time around, the energy and
natural-resources sector made record donations to Bush's
campaign -- a total of $4.4 million for the 2004 cycle,
according to the latest data from the Center for Responsive
Politics, compared with $2.8 million in the 2000 campaign.

"Right now Karl Rove is saying, 'First things first, George.
These are the folks that floated our campaign, we need to give
them our thanks,'" said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra
Club's Global Warming and Energy Program.

Now that the Republicans have gained four seats in the Senate,
giving them a 55-45 advantage, there's a good chance that the
109th Congress will enable President Bush to hand his corporate
contributors one of the most sought-after prizes of all:
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Bush is also better
positioned to get Senate approval for his stalled-out energy
bill, which has been widely criticized on both sides of the
aisle as pork at its worst, with its billions of dollars in
subsidies for fossil-fuel producers and other special interests.

There have been rumblings on Capitol Hill that the energy bill
could come up for consideration during the lame-duck session
that will begin on Nov. 16, even before the 108th Congress
adjourns at the end of this year. Lame-duck sessions are
typically more rushed and insulated from media scrutiny than
other sessions, which could be advantageous when pushing forward
a highly contentious and complex piece of legislation.

But most observers think the energy bill won't get off the
ground until 2005. "No one expects the Republicans to go to
great lengths to move it now when they can just rewrite it next
year, and they'll have the advantage of a bigger margin," said
Karen Wayland, legislative director for the Natural Resources
Defense Council.

Indeed, energy-bill advocates insist that the new Republicans
who'll be taking office in January will put them in good stead:
"We have more than enough votes for an energy bill," Sen. George
Allen (R-Va.), chair of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, declared at a press conference last Wednesday.

Scott Segal, a lobbyist for the industry group Electric
Reliability Coordinating Council, shares Allen's optimism.
"Things are definitely looking up for an omnibus energy bill,"
he told Muckraker. "Not only is there a larger operating
majority for Republicans, you've got to consider the cost of
energy: We've had sustained oil prices above $50 [a barrel],
which is a real red-flag zone, and natural gas at three times
the historical average. This could very well stimulate the
passage, particularly among moderate Democrats and more liberal
Republicans."

A big sticking point for the energy bill, though, is its MTBE
provision, which would indemnify producers of the gasoline
additive MTBE against water-pollution lawsuits. "The energy bill
got jammed on the MTBE provision and never got unstuck," said
Bill Wicker, spokesperson for Democrats on the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee. "Even though there are nine new
senators coming to town [seven Republicans, two Democrats],
nearly all of them will vote the same way on this issue as their
predecessors."

It's true that extra support for the bill in the Senate will
come from Richard Burr of North Carolina (replacing Democrat
John Edwards), Mel Martinez of Florida (replacing Democrat Bob
Graham), and Jim DeMint of South Carolina (replacing Democrat
Fritz Hollings). But Republican John Thune, who will take the
place of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D) from South
Dakota, won't amount to a gained vote because Daschle was a
strong supporter of the energy bill. Two more GOP gains are
canceled out by Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois (replacing
Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald) and Democrat Ken Salazar of
Colorado (replacing Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell).
Salazar is from a strong oil and gas state, so his pro-
environment vote on this bill is not guaranteed, but Becker,
whose organization endorsed Salazar's campaign, says it's very
likely.

Moreover, peer pressure from reenergized GOP colleagues won't
easily sway some New England Republicans: "John Sununu and Judd
Gregg are Republican senators from New Hampshire who voted
against the bill because of the MTBE provision," said Becker,
"but New Hampshire is currently suing MTBE manufacturers because
of water contamination in the state, so switching their vote
would undermine their state's legal position." Also, the
Republican senator from Nevada, John Ensign, is unlikely to
change his no vote because the bill is loaded with subsidies for
the nuclear-power industry and could therefore lead to the
generation of more nuclear waste. As the Bush administration
already wants to dump existing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain
in Nevada, to the ire of Ensign's constituency, a nuke-friendly
energy bill isn't likely to go over well in the Silver State.

According to Wicker, many folks on both sides of the aisle now
think the energy bill should be broken down into smaller
digestible bites, and the MTBE provision dropped. "That's far
more realistic than trying to force everyone to swallow one
gargantuan bill whole," even with the new Republican votes, he
said.

The piecemeal strategy could prove successful on many fronts,
including on the Arctic Refuge. "The vote numbers effectively
haven't moved on MTBE [given the new makeup of the Senate], but
the numbers have moved on ANWR," said Wicker.

Here's why: While Daschle voted for the energy bill, he was a
steadfast opponent of drilling in ANWR; his successor will
support both. And while Obama will almost certainly vote against
drilling in ANWR, his predecessor Peter Fitzgerald was one of
the few Republicans who also opposed it, meaning that Obama adds
no new votes to the ANWR opposition. Also, Republicans are much
more vulnerable to peer pressure on this issue given that there
are no regional reasons (such as MTBE contamination or Yucca
Mountain) for them to oppose it.

According to Wicker, the congressional leadership is expected to
make opening ANWR a part of the budget reconciliation process
early next year by tacking the ANWR provision onto a budget bill
that cannot be filibustered, so it would need only 50 votes to
pass rather than the 60 necessary to avert a filibuster. "They
tried to do this in 2003 and failed, but the reality is that
with four new Republican votes, open-ANWR proponents have the
wind at their back," he said.

Becker of the Sierra Club said this may be just what
environmentalists need. "The public opposition to drilling in
the Arctic Refuge is huge. People have come to associate it with
greed rather than need."

And historically the perception of greed has galvanized public
opposition to initiatives that are overly friendly to industry
and unfriendly to the environment and public health. Lawmakers
and business lobbies overreach, and then get slapped by public
opinion. This is precisely what happened with the MTBE liability
exemption, for instance. It's what happened during Bush's first
term when the EPA tried to weaken standards for arsenic in
drinking water and exempt millions of acres of wetlands from
protections -- initiatives that stirred up so much controversy
they simply couldn't survive.

"Right now," said Becker, "greed is the best friend that the
environment has."

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