WASHINGTON -- Opening the Arctic refuge to oil drilling was at the fore of the Senate budget debate last month, but now it has been overshadowed by even more controversial items in the budget as Congress attempts to reconcile two very divergent spending plans in the weeks ahead.
Not only did the Senate version of the budget open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, it also rescinded $14 billion in Medicaid cuts sought by President Bush and further deepened the deficit by approving new tax cuts without matching spending cuts. None of those items were in the House version of the budget, and some of the House's deficit hawks have been loudly critical of the Senate action.
If the House and Senate are unable to resolve their considerable differences, the budget could go down in flames, as it has in two of the last three years. And if it does, it will take refuge development with it, since Senate leaders and the state's two Republican senators attempted to open the refuge through the budget process rather than regular legislation.
"It's not a slam-dunk that a budget resolution will be passed," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization founded by Democrats and Republicans that advocates balanced budgets. "The Medicaid issue is probably the biggest stumbling block in getting the budget resolution passed. It's not that much money, but the Senate and the House are pretty far apart on that. The other potential one is the size of the tax cut."
The government can function without a budget, since Congress can ensure ongoing operations through appropriation bills. But failing to pass a budget would be a huge embarrassment to the Republican leadership, since Republicans control Congress and the White House, and failing to enact a spending plan would make it more difficult to tame the huge national deficits.
The effort to bring the two chambers together on a single budget resolution begins this week, when Congress returns from its two-week Easter break and its leadership is expected to appoint a budget conference committee. The budget law requires that a completed resolution pass both houses by April 15, but there are no penalties for failing and few believe Congress would meet that deadline under even the most favorable circumstances.
The Senate and House passed their respective budget resolutions March 17, the Senate 51-49 and the House 218-214. In both cases, Democrats were united in their opposition, while a few Republicans crossed over -- four in the Senate, a dozen in the House.
The Republican leadership in the Senate, bolstered by gains in the November election, succeeded in attaching an open-ANWR provision in the budget under the theory -- far from universally accepted -- that the federal treasury would received $2.5 billion from oil companies to lease the lands. Budget bills, unlike regular legislation, are not subject to a filibuster, and Senate leaders still don't have the 60 votes they would need to cut off debate on an energy bill that would tap the refuge for oil.
Government geologists have estimated that the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the refuge may contain over 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil. At the same time, the surface is an important habitat for caribou, musk oxen and polar bears, and environmental organizations have long portrayed it as the last great coastal wilderness of the North.
In the increasingly chaotic lead-up to passage of the Senate budget bill -- the final vote occurred later than 10 p.m. after votes on a dizzying series of amendments over three days -- the Senate voted 51-49 in favor of refuge drilling. The vote came March 16 on an amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, to strip the refuge from the budget. Seven Republicans sided with Cantwell, and three Democrats opposed her.
But even bigger news the next day was the $14 billion Medicaid restoration, sponsored by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who is also a refuge drilling opponent. Six other Republicans joined all the Democrats and the Senate's independent in approving the measure, 52-48. With stronger majorities, the Senate also restored $2 billion in cuts to the popular community development block grant program for urban areas and nearly $1 billion for fire and police grants and border security agents. And after Senate budget leaders originally reduced President Bush's tax cuts from $100 billion to about $70 billion in an effort to cut the deficit, the Senate turned around and added new cuts, bringing the total to about $134 billion.
The Medicaid cuts were part of a broad effort by the White House and Republican leaders to reduce entitlement programs over the next five years -- automatic programs that pay qualified beneficiaries. But many governors, facing huge money problems of their own, strongly lobbied for more Medicaid money.
The House budget more closely adhered to the White House proposal, and House budget chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, said it will be tough trying to reconcile the two versions.
"I hate to be a naysayer about this at all, but I'm not sure how we get a conference with the Senate with where they're at," he was quoted as saying in The Washington Post two weeks ago.
The House budget had no refuge provision. A group of moderate House Republicans led by Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., has urged Nussle to keep it that way.
Another Connecticut Republican, Rosa DeLauro, agreed. "The fact that the Republican leadership did not include an ANWR provision in the House budget proves that drilling is still a highly contentious issue," she said in a prepared statement Thursday. "This battle is far from over, which is why the conferees should respect the House's position and keep this provision out of the final budget resolution."
But even opponents of drilling believe the House would easily pass a budget resolution that would open the refuge, assuming other issues don't get in the way.
Meanwhile, the House Resources Committee plans to move ahead with the markup of a separate energy bill this week that will include refuge drilling, spokesman Brian Kennedy said.
"This committee and the House have never had a problem passing ANWR before," Kennedy said. "ANWR can follow two tracks over here."
Even if the budget resolution clears through conference with the refuge provision intact and is approved by both chambers, the battle will continue. Under the complex budget process, the resolution directs House and Senate committees to write legislation to enable the items in the budget. In the case of the refuge, that would be the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee and House Resources Committee. The committees will have until June to return legislation, which would then be combined in a reconciliation package that must be approved again by both chambers and signed by the president.
Environmental organizations plan to keep their pressure on senators they believe may waiver during the months ahead.
"The public is pretty outraged that Congress would have the audacity to ignore their will and have that vote," said Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League in Washington, D.C. "There are letters to the editor everywhere, and people are very energized everywhere."
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski acknowledged the risks ahead when she spoke before the Alaska Legislature last week.
"We've been able to breathe a little easier, but the tournament is far from over," she said. "Congress must still pass a budget. ANWR not withstanding, the House and the Senate disagree on several very significant issues that could prevent a budget from passing." Murkowski urged Alaskans to write to the same senators the environmental organizations were targeting.
Murkowski sits on the Senate Energy Committee along with Cantwell, the Washington Democrat who tried to remove the refuge from the budget bill. The committee also has two of the three Democrats who voted for drilling, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and one of the seven Republicans who opposed it, Smith of Oregon. The chairman, Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is a leading proponent of drilling. The ranking Democrat who sits beside him at the head of the committee, fellow New Mexican Jeff Bingaman, is just as strong an opponent.
"It's going to be interesting," said Angela Becker-Dippmann, Cantwell's communications director. Cantwell will continue to fight the issue through committee, assuming it gets there, Becker-Dippmann said.
And even if the refuge makes it through the committees and into a reconciliation bill sometime next summer, there's yet another potential stumbling block -- the Senate's Byrd rule. Under that rule, which has no counterpart in the House, any senator can challenge an item in the budget package for relevance to the actual budget. The Senate parliamentarian, an independent member of the Senate staff, would rule.
Becker-Dippmann said opponents could raise the Byrd rule as a last-ditch effort, depending on what emerges from the Energy Committee.
But long before that happens, the House and Senate will have to deal with significant differences.
"I'm just wondering how it will play out on the Medicaid thing," said Bixby of the Concord Coalition. "That's what everyone is watching."
Daily News reporter Richard Mauer can be reached at rmauer@adn.com.
