Bush signals he would give on oil drilling in refuge
WASHINGTON -- The White House is easing away from insisting that Congress open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling after President Bush was told by lawmakers that the issue could doom energy legislation.
After meeting with legislators involved in the energy talks, Bush said Wednesday that he wanted a bill "that will pass both bodies," the House and Senate. He said the White House would work with those trying to resolve issues such as drilling in the Alaska refuge.
To the lawmakers present, it was a clear signal that the White House is willing to accept energy legislation without a provision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development, according to congressional sources close to the negotiations.
Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, said he and the other lawmakers made clear to the president that "we're not going to let ANWR defeat a comprehensive energy bill."
Bush was told that "we're going to have to determine whether inclusion of ANWR will kill this or not," Domenici said. "If it's going to kill it, it's not going to be in."
Representative Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana and head of the House delegation to the energy talks, said Bush gave no indication during the meeting how he viewed such a strategy.
Earlier this year, a Senate proposal to open the refuge to oil drilling failed, 48 to 52, a dozen votes shy of what would be needed to overcome a promised Democratic filibuster of an energy bill that would allow drilling in the refuge.
There is no indication that Senate sentiment has changed dramatically since then, said a GOP source closely involved in the energy discussions.
"It's certainly a contentious issue, and you'll find strong opinions around the table about this," Bush acknowledged. "And the job of the conferees is to work through these issues, and we look forward to helping them."
Bush renewed his call to find ways to "become less dependent on foreign sources of crude," but he did not say, as he often has in the past, that capturing the oil in the Alaska refuge was essential to doing that.
Last week, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham reiterated the administration's desire to exploit oil believed to lie beneath the refuge, estimated at between 5.6 billion and 16 billion barrels, and he urged conferees to include a drilling provision in the bill. Still, congressional sources said the administration has not pushed the refuge issue particularly hard.
