Senate OK's drilling in Gulf of Mexico
House bill would open more areas
WASHINGTON -- With political anxiety on Capitol Hill rising along with gasoline prices, the Senate voted yesterday to open a large section of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, advancing the energy bill that stands the best chance of approval this year.
The bill, approved 71 to 25, now must be reconciled with a broader and more controversial House measure that would relax the decades-long ban on drilling in most coastal waters, including along the Pacific Coast.
Senators from both parties, attuned to constituents' ire over high fuel costs, were eager to pass energy legislation before heading home for the summer recess. Eighteen Democrats joined 53 Republicans to support the Senate bill; 24 Democrats and one independent were opposed.
The Senate bill would limit new drilling to about 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico -- an area believed to contain more than 1.2 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day and about 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year.
By contrast, the House bill would lift the nationwide ban on drilling beyond 100 miles of the coast. It would also enable each coastal state to decide whether to permit energy exploration within 100 miles of its shore.
In return for opening their coasts to energy exploration, states would get a share of drilling royalties -- a provision that gained the strong backing of Gulf Coast senators of both parties. Even so, a large number of coastal-state officials, including Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, strongly oppose the House proposal.
To win the backing of Gulf Coast lawmakers, the bill would give Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas a bigger chunk of the royalties from drilling in the newly opened area.
The Bush administration has expressed support for the Senate bill, calling it important to national security.
Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, predicted that it would be the first step toward lifting the moratorium on coastal drilling in other parts of the country.
``This is the beginning," Domenici said. ``The precedent is going to be broken here . . . then we can move step-by-step to other areas of American-owned property off other shores, with no damage, and produce our own natural gas and some of our own crude oil."
Though narrowly focused, the bill still drew strong opposition from a number of coastal-state senators. They expressed fear that it would open the door to Republicans on the House-Senate conference committee negotiating a more expansive final bill that would relax the nationwide ban on new offshore drilling.
Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, who voted in favor of the bill because of the funds it would provide for Gulf Coast restoration, has vowed to lead a bill-killing filibuster unless the House accepts the narrower Senate measure.
House leaders, however, weren't ready to accede to any Senate take-it-or-leave it demand.
``House Republicans strongly support our bill because we believe it does a better job of providing relief to working families being hit hard by high gasoline prices," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and majority leader John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, said in a joint statement after the Senate vote.
But critics of the Senate bill asserted that it would provide no immediate relief from high pump prices. 