At least he said he's "not interested" in making a
deal
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Sent:
Friday, May 05, 2006 9:15 AM
To: DAULTON, Mike
Cc: Arctic Lobbying
Team
Subject: Re: [ak_lobby] CongressDailyAM: ANWR/CAFE link
I
certainly don't like where boehlert's aide??? is heading vis a vis
trading
arctic for cafe (see last
line)
"DAULTON,
Mike"
<MDAULTON@audubon
.org>
To
"Arctic Lobbying
Team"
05/05/2006 08:55
<[log in to unmask]>
AM
cc
Subject
Please respond to [ak_lobby]
CongressDailyAM:
"DAULTON, Mike" ANWR/CAFE
link
<MDAULTON@audubon
.org>
ENERGY
ANWR, Mileage
Standards Might Be Tied In Bid For Votes
Senate
Commerce Chairman Stevens and fellow Alaska Republican Sen.
Lisa Murkowski
said Thursday their push for congressional authorization
to
drill in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might be tied to a bid for
higher
fuel-efficiency standards.
Both issues are
contentious and have come up short in the past. But
bundling the issues this
year, while public outcry over soaring gasoline
prices is at its zenith,
might prompt enough vote switches to make
a
difference.
Stevens said the House will approve
and send the Senate a
stand-alone
ANWR drilling bill, something Murkowski
said might happen before
Memorial
Day. The message coming from the House,
Stevens said, is, "We'll help
you
on ANWR if you help us on CAFE,"
referring to the federal Corporate
Average
Fuel Economy
standard.
Stevens is one of the leading advocates
for drilling in ANWR and
his
committee holds primary Senate jurisdiction
over the fuel-efficiency
standards.
The potential
linking of the measures appears to be aimed at
moderates, many of whom are in
favor of higher mileage standards but
chilly
toward ANWR
drilling.
This would not be the first time that an
effort has been made to
link
ANWR drilling and higher fuel-efficiency
standards. There was discussion
late last year about linking the issues
during an unsuccessful attempt
to
authorize ANWR drilling in the FY06
budget reconciliation and Defense
Department spending
bills.
But those discussions took place without the
outcry about gas
prices
that have topped $3 a gallon in parts of the
country and absent the
pressures that an election year
brings.
ANWR drilling supporters have not had enough
votes to overcome a
Senate filibuster in recent years. House moderate
Republicans and
Democrats
also successfully thwarted a Senate GOP effort
last year to include ANWR
drilling as part of the filibuster-proof budget
reconciliation measure.
Stevens said Senate
Republicans will unveil a new gas price
strategy
next week in preparation
for floor debate that would probably begin the
following week. That
legislation would expand oil and natural gas
drilling
in the eastern Gulf
of Mexico but does not authorize drilling in the
Alaska
wildlife
area.
"We're working on a short-term plan. We know
that ANWR is not a
short-term issue," Stevens
said.
Those comments appear to undercut another ANWR
proposal that was
the
subject of speculation around the Capitol Wednesday
-- trying to include
ANWR drilling in the supplemental appropriations
package.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee
next week will vote on a
bill
supported by the Bush Administration that
gives the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration authority to review
and raise the current
27.5 miles per gallon CAFE standard for passenger cars.
But, Murkowski
said, "I don't think that in and of itself is sufficient."
Many
Democrats
and moderate Republicans say the administration already has
the
authority
to raise CAFE standards and wants Congress to prescribe a
specific
increase
in the standards.
The bill
coming before the committee, sponsored by House Science
Chairman Boehlert and
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., would raise the CAFE
standard for passenger cars
to 33 miles per gallon by 2015. Last year
their
proposal received 177
votes in the House and a similar Senate amendment
only gained 28 votes. Both
lawmakers have adamantly opposed drilling
in
ANWR.
An aide said Boehlert had not been
approached about making a deal
and
was not interested in making one. The
aide said there was only an
informal
promise during the talks late last
year that a vote for ANWR drilling
would
elicit a GOP effort to try to
include a CAFE increase in a
later
conference
report.
Any effort to tie the
issues together would require a more formal
pledge to work for the CAFE
standards, the spokesman said. By
Darren
Goode