WASHINGTON -- A day after the House Resources Committee approved an energy bill with a measure to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the committee's chairman sharply criticized Senate tactics that have made it impossible for the same measure to pass there.
"It's unfair to the American people for these guys, for 40 people, to keep stopping an energy bill from moving forward for any reason," said Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif. "It's time they stopped being obstructionists."
Pombo was joined at a Capitol press conference Thursday by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., to talk about energy issues. The three committees all passed component legislation this week that will be part of a comprehensive energy bill expected to go before the full House next week. The Senate is working on its own energy bill, which is expected to reach the floor in the next two months.
During the press conference, Pombo objected to a threat of a filibuster by Senate opponents to prevent refuge-drilling legislation from passing. While supporters likely have a majority of Senate votes this year to approve drilling in the refuge, they don't have the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster.
"They've been stopping it for years," Pombo said. "Whether it's ANWR or something else, it's unfair for a minority in the Senate to stop something from going through."
Thomas added the measure should be decided in an up-or-down vote.
But Athan Manuel, who directs the Arctic Wilderness Campaign for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group that opposes opening the refuge to oil exploration, sees it another way.
The filibuster is a "not-so-secret constitutional weapon," he said.
With an estimated 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil, the refuge has been described as a source of oil to improve the nation's energy security. But opponents argue there is not enough oil in the refuge to affect U.S. supply or prices; they say it is more important to protect one of the country's last pristine wilderness areas.
In 1991, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., led a successful filibuster against a move to open ANWR. In 1995, President Clinton vetoed the Balanced Budget Act, which included a provision to open ANWR. In 2002, drilling opponents used the filibuster again to kill an amendment by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, to open the refuge to drilling.
As a result, the Senate's Republican leaders have sought to maneuver around the filibuster threat. This year, they inserted a provision to open ANWR into the federal budget resolution, which is not subject to extended debate and therefore can't be filibustered.
This year's budget vote has brought drilling proponents closer to success than at any other time since Clinton's veto, but they're still not assured a victory. The Senate budget, passed in March, contains controversial Medicaid cuts and tax reductions that aren't included in the House version, putting the fate of a final budget resolution in question.
A similar budget-bill tactic failed in 2003, when the Senate passed an amendment by Boxer that removed the ANWR provision from a budget reconciliation bill.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has vigorously opposed opening ANWR, objects to the way the refuge drilling provision was passed this year.
"By including this drilling provision in the budget it sets a precedent for further use of the budget process to pass measures that have nothing to do with fiscal policy," he said through a spokeswoman. "Proponents of drilling are in the strongest position in years, but this is not over yet. There are many battles left to fight before it becomes law."
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Thursday that she sympathizes with Pombo's frustration over passing an energy bill.
As for ANWR, the House has the enough members who approve opening the coastal plain to drilling. The Senate does not, she said.
"The reality is the number of votes," she said. "We can get to 51, not to 60."
Daily News reporter Nicole Tsong can be reached at ntsong@adn.com or 1-202-383-0007.
