Fading hope on the Arctic

THE OIL industry took a step closer to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Wednesday when the Senate rejected a bill, 51-49, that would have protected the Alaskan home of caribou, bears, and snow geese. That tally lets senators who favor drilling place a green light for ANWR exploitation in the congressional budget resolution, where it cannot be blocked by a filibuster, which requires 60 votes to end. Still, there will be at least one more Senate vote on drilling, and defenders of the refuge should use the coming weeks to turn the narrow margin around.

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Two years ago, drilling advocates tried to make the opening of ANWR a budget issue but failed on a 52-48 vote. Last year's election strengthened the pro-drilling camp just enough to provide the majority needed to include future lease revenues from ANWR as a budget item. Later, there will be a vote on budget-related measures, including drilling permission. While drilling opponents hope to persuade senators to change their views before that measure comes up, the stronger chance for stopping any drilling in the refuge may lie in Congress's recent record of not being able to come to final agreement on a budget resolution.

In the past two years, disagreements on a number of spending issues were so entrenched that no deal was possible and no budget resolution emerged. Leaders in the two chambers have already expressed sharply differing views on proposed Medicaid cuts, for example.

But ANWR drilling is such a misuse of critical habitat for a modest gain in petroleum that it deserves to be defeated on its merits, not just on a technicality. Industry already has access to 95 percent of Alaska's Arctic coastal plain. Even if drilling is approved now, no oil would come from ANWR for a decade at least. The administration's own Energy Information Administration estimates that ANWR's likely contribution to oil supplies is so slight that even with ANWR oil, by 2025 the United States would still need to import 65 of its oil, as opposed to 68 percent without it. This would come at the price of a network of roads, airstrips, pipelines, drill pads, and other structures.

In 2003 the National Academy of Sciences answered industry's claim that oil extraction and production in ANWR could be done in an environmentally benign way with a study showing that the deleterious effects of oil development on the environment and wildlife would reach far beyond the immediate area used for drilling. The American public knows this. A poll last December by Zogby International showed 55 percent in opposition and 38 percent in support of ANWR drilling. Congress should not hand this unique swath of the continent over to an industry that is already exploiting vast stretches of Alaska.