Arctic Oil Drilling Bill 'Will Die by Filibuster'

Arctic Oil Drilling Bill 'Will Die by Filibuster'

NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2001

WASHINGTON (UPI) – If Sen. Frank Murkowski succeeds in getting his broad energy industry overhaul proposal out of committee, it will immediately be killed by senators opposed to its provisions to open an Arctic game preserve to oil drilling, a Senate source said Monday.

"Even if Murkowski succeeds in getting this bill out of his committee – something he's never shown much ability to do in the past – it will die by filibuster on the floor of the Senate," said a top staffer for Senate Democrats.

Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will take the first look at the broad-based bill, hopes to quickly get the measure out of his committee and onto the floor of the Senate. He introduced the measure to help solve the electricity crisis on the West Coast and reduce the nation's overall dependence on foreign oil, which he says poses a danger that makes drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge worthwhile.

"It is going to take a team effort to solve this problem," Murkowski said.

"We can't afford to leave our best players on the bench. That means it is necessary to responsibly open certain parts of Alaska's Coastal Plain, our nation's best hope for new domestic exploration."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has already promised a filibuster.

Although the drilling of ANWR composes only part of the energy policy proposal, it will certainly encounter the most opposition from some Democrats and Republicans alike. Although President Bush has long advocated opening the region to drilling and repeatedly called for development during his campaign, opposition to the plan by most Democrats and conservation-minded Republicans makes it unlikely that the bill will see Bush's pen.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Bob Smith of New Hampshire has repeatedly stated his opposition to opening ANWR to development and could ask for the bill to be referred to his committee. If he does, it would be a simple matter for him to kill the offending sections. Even without Smith's help, Senate Democrats have 50 votes in the Senate, which would force Murkowski to find 10 Democrats to help him break a filibuster. Most observers find that scenario unlikely.

Besides opening ANWR, the bill also makes huge changes to the nation's energy policies. In fact, one Democratic staffer said the bill was too large to pass.

"It's such a huge bill that it certainly isn't going anywhere," he said. "Too many people oppose portions of it. It will be easy to defeat."

The bill also:

Sets a goal of reducing dependence on foreign oil by 2010, from more than 60 percent to 50 percent.

Asks that the federal government closely examine the effect new rules and regulations would have on production of oil, natural gas and electricity.

Reduces the environmental review necessary to build a coal-fired power plant.

Offers a huge range of tax incentives and research subsidies to companies involved in oil exploration, natural gas development, pipeline construction, energy-efficient vehicles and cleaner coal technology.

Corporate Welfare?

Although Murkowski promised that the tax breaks and subsidies would benefit small oil producers and not larger companies, a preliminary research effort by the group Taxpayers for Common Sense found that an estimated $23.6 billion in oil, natural gas and nuclear power subsidies and tax breaks would benefit those industries.

"Senator Murkowski has publicly stated that there is no corporate welfare in this bill. However, the Murkowski bill dishes out at least $21 billion in subsidies and tax breaks to energy companies seeing record profits," the group's Cena Swisher said.

"Throwing bags of money at these companies won't solve the current energy crisis. Most of the subsidies in this bill have proven to be expensive failures of past administrations and will do nothing to benefit taxpayers or ratepayers."

Murkowski said his bill would address the electricity crisis in California. But industry observers see little in the bill that would help the situation.

"If you want me to say this bill would have averted the California crisis if Clinton had passed it into law in 1992, I can't," said an official who represents competitive electricity traders.

"It doesn't really hurt the situation. But it does send a signal that all [Murkowski] cares about the problem isn't consequential [to solving it]. It just shows how out of touch they are up there."

The bill provides huge subsidies to coal-mining companies and utilities to use "clean coal" technology, which treats coal to reduce pollution.

The bill also repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which regulates the structure and operations of investor-owned utilities, preventing many of them from entering competitive markets. But by proposing to repeal the law without developing a national competitive market, electricity industry sources say the move will do little.

"PUHCA requires the SEC to monitor the companies' structures, but they barely do it anyway," a source said.

"No one enforces those laws as it is, so we can't get too worried about it. Instead of trying to reform the electricity market and help consumers and companies, Murkowski has said, 'We don't know what to do, so we'll just give the big companies a lot of money.' "

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