E&E
Daily
Monday, March 27, 2006
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
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
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