Alaska wildlife refuge's fate again hangs in balance

WASHINGTON -- Even on its best day, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is an austere place, a sprawling block of land on Alaska's northern edge the size of South Carolina that is sparsely populated and two steps beyond remote.

Yet ANWR is looming large in Congress again, touching off a fierce battle over competing goals of protecting the environment and increasing domestic production of oil and gas. The pace -- and the intensity -- is expected to pick up in the coming weeks as congressional committees begin considering legislation to allow drilling in ANWR.

While many key players and issues remain the same from 1987 when the battle began, changes this year have upset expectations on both sides.

Republicans, emboldened by bigger majorities in the House and Senate, believe this is the best chance they've had to finally pass a bill since 1995, when Congress approved drilling only to have it vetoed by President Clinton.

Critics point to their own changes. Foremost is a pronounced lack of interest in ANWR from some big oil companies. BP, ConocoPhillips and ChevronTexaco have withdrawn from Arctic Power, the business coalition formed to lobby for drilling in ANWR. Among big oil companies, only Exxon Mobil Corp. remains.

Thus the battle lines are set.

Supporters, including President Bush, say opening ANWR is a crucial first step toward easing the United States' reliance on foreign sources of oil. With modern technology, they say, the job can be done without harming ANWR's unique wildlife.

"I think we ought to allow for exploration in environmentally responsible ways in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," Bush told the Detroit Economic Club this month.

"For the sake of this economy and for the sake of national security, Congress needs to pass an energy plan and get it to my desk as soon as possible so we can become less reliant on foreign sources of energy," Bush said.

Opponents strenuously disagree, arguing that opening a largely untouched refuge to industrial activity would destroy its unique wildlife and environment while contributing little to resolving the nation's energy woes. Even worse, they believe that opening ANWR would lead to increased drilling in other protected areas.

"If they are allowed to go into ANWR, where will they go next? Big Sur? Olympic National Forest? Puget Sound?" asks Brian Moore, legislative director for the Alaska Wilderness League, a group opposing drilling in ANWR.

Both sides have been maneuvering for weeks to gain advantage. There are dueling Web sites, opinion polls, news conferences and lobbying campaigns.

At issue is a 1.5 million-acre coastal plain within ANWR that was set aside by President Carter in 1980 so it could be studied to determine whether it had oil and natural-gas deposits. Drilling supporters say only 2,000 acres of the 1.5 million acres would be affected by exploration, a virtual speck in the refuge's total of 19 million acres. Opponents counter that far more area would be affected by roads and pipelines connecting drilling pads.

No one knows for certain how much oil lies beneath ANWR. Industry officials estimate the total is between 6 billion barrels and 16 billion barrels. Opponents dispute those numbers as wild guesses.

Even if ANWR is awash in oil, it isn't enough to make a dent in the nation's energy needs or to offset the dangers of drilling in a pristine land, critics say.

"We can't produce our way out of the problems we have," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We have less than 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world, counting what's in ANWR. We simply can't do that."

The knowledge about ANWR's biology is more complete. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has described the coastal plain as a rich and important biological resource. It serves as the breeding ground for the Porcupine herd of caribou and sustains bears, wolves and a vast variety of migratory birds.

"Reducing America's dependence on foreign oil is an urgent priority," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., co-sponsor of legislation to permanently designate ANWR as a wilderness area, the highest level of protection.

"Is it worth forever losing a national treasure, one of our country's last great wild places, for oil that would not reach refineries for seven to 10 years?" Cantwell said. "We should be developing a smart, forward-looking strategy to wean our economy off its addiction to foreign oil without sacrificing our country's wild places."

Drilling in ANWR, she said, "is symbolic of an ill-conceived strategy. Why are you taking this pristine place and turning it into something else?"

Drilling opponents are seizing on the oil companies pulling out of Arctic Power.

"The oil companies saying they don't want to lobby Congress for access to this piece of land is a huge setback," said Moore of the Alaska Wilderness League.

"Who's asking for it? Only a handful of people -- the Alaska delegation, the White House and some leaders in Congress. That's all. We're not only right on the facts and figures, we're right morally. They know they're wrong, and they're only pandering to big business," Moore said.

Republicans are also uncertain about tactics. Republican leaders in the House disagreed last week on whether ANWR should be included in a giant energy bill. Last year the inclusion of ANWR helped to kill the bill. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the committee writing the bill, said he prefers to leave ANWR out of the new bill to increase chances that an energy bill will pass.

But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., quickly dismissed that approach. DeLay said he "wholeheartedly" supported including ANWR in the energy bill.

With the outcome in doubt, both sides are launching public relations campaigns.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. who is leading efforts to allow drilling, will visit ANWR this week with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and at least two other senators.

"The case for greater self-reliance has never been more compelling. The case for environmentally sensitive energy development in Alaska has never been sounder," Domenici said in announcing the trip.

"We will see for ourselves how American ingenuity and innovation protects our environment and our wildlife while allowing us to develop our own energy."

Moore said several hundred opponents from 30 states will swarm across Capitol Hill the week of March 6 to persuade lawmakers to block drilling. Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, says the lobbying won't work.

"Environmental special interest groups have distorted the facts about ANWR energy production to raise money and advance political agendas," he said. "In fact, ANWR has been a cash cow for their fund raising for more than a decade. It's time for ANWR to become a cash and jobs cow for all of the American people, not just a few."

Opponents, which include most major environmental groups and many Democrats, including all seven from Washington state, promise to dig in just as deep. They have successfully blocked Republican-led efforts the past five years to allow drilling to take place.

Despite the tough talk on both sides, the fate of the proposal is likely to lie in the arcane world of parliamentary procedure.

Republicans in the Senate concede they don't have the 60 votes needed to cut off the filibuster Democrats promise to launch to block any bill to open ANWR to drilling.

To get around that barrier, Domenici wants to add the ANWR provision to the budget resolution, a blueprint on how Congress plans to spend money in the coming fiscal year. That measure cannot be filibustered and needs only 51 votes to pass.

But even that approach has barriers. Congress failed to pass a budget resolution last year because of difference over spending priorities.

Still, Bush remains optimistic. He has included $2.4 billion in revenue from oil leases at ANWR in his budget for next fiscal year.

P-I Washington correspondent Charles Pope can be reached at 202-263-6461 or charliepope@seattlepi.com