Many rail against Stevens, ANWR

"This is one of the most unpatriotic acts ever attempted by an elected official -- tantamount to treason," said Brian Moore, legislative director for the Alaska Wilderness League. "It's Ted Stevens denying the troops food, funding, ammunition -- everything they need."

Stevens, R-Alaska, announced this week that he is trying to push ANWR through Congress by attaching it to the defense appropriations bill. He is a key negotiator on two of the last bills Congress is likely to pass this year -- defense spending and the five-year budget -- and he is doing all he can to hold them up until he gets ANWR passed on at least one of them.

His tactic of forcing lawmakers to vote for ANWR to get military spending has outraged more than environmentalists. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Stevens' effort "disgusting" and couldn't say how he'd vote on the combined bill.

"I think it's disgraceful that I have to be put in that position," McCain, a drilling opponent, told the Washington Post.

Rep. Joe Schwarz, R-Mich., called it "utterly despicable to be put in a position of choosing between funding our troops and opposing bad public policy."

The defense bill must pass the House first, which could happen today. The Senate might call it up this weekend or Monday.

Stevens had no apologies for his maneuver.

"I'm just doing my utmost to do my job, which is getting ANWR passed," he told reporters Thursday.

If he succeeds in attaching ANWR to the defense bill, drilling opponents would face a doubly unpleasant option: vote against Arctic oil development and they risk looking as though they don't support the troops, plus they'd be voting against Hurricane Katrina recovery funds that are expected to be in the bill. And the bill might also be joined with one that funds the departments of Labor and Health and Social Services.

"The only thing not in this bill is motherhood and apple pie," Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said Friday. He has voted down ANWR drilling in the past, but he said Friday the defense bill would be hard for anyone to oppose.

Stevens' bundling strategy appears to have won Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., to his side.

Smith, a previous vote against ANWR, told the Los Angeles Times he would vote for the military appropriations bill even if the Arctic drilling measure were attached.

"I cannot in good conscience take away (from the troops) their bullets to defend themselves," Smith said.

Sen. John Kerry, an ardent drilling opponent, said he has talked to many senators who feel they can't block a bill that funds the military. He hopes to prevail on ANWR by challenging its inclusion as a violation of Senate rules.

If that doesn't work, couldn't he filibuster the whole bill?

"You could, but we don't have the votes," Kerry said.

He would need 41 senators to sustain a filibuster.

Stevens would need 60 to break such a stall and pass the bill -- unless there's a way through the Senate's procedural maze without affording drilling opponents a chance to filibuster.

Kerry said he has heard such a move may be in the works. He also said attaching such a controversial issue to the defense spending bill is a "fundamental change in the appropriations rules and procedures."

Kerry harkened back to Stevens' argument this fall against a move to strip Alaska of its money for two controversial "bridges to nowhere" and give the money instead to New Orleans.

Stevens successfully argued that making just one state pay for the hurricane damage elsewhere was not in keeping with the Senate's tradition.

"Ted Stevens himself stood up, on his bridge issue only weeks ago, and said that the Senate is a place where you respect the rights of individual senators, and you respect the rules and it wasn't right for them to take this out outside of the process," Kerry told reporters. "We voted with Ted Stevens, in order to uphold that concept. And now he's coming in and doing the exact opposite of what he suggested at that moment. That's wrong."

A spokeswoman for Stevens said it's not unusual to have extraneous matters attached to appropriations bills.

Stevens acknowledged Thursday that even he has said in past years that ANWR doesn't belong on the defense spending bill. He said he was only attempting it because House members from both parties asked him to, after it became impossible to move ANWR through the House on the budget bill.

Daily News reporter Liz Ruskin can be reached at lruskin@adn.com or 202-383-0007.

ANWR: Go online for maps, photos and past stories.

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