Raiders of the Lost Arctic

"The threat to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has never been greater than it is today," according to Brian Moore, legislative director for the Alaska Wilderness League.

And, though the battle over the refuge has a Groundhog Day quality to it -- haven't we heard this same alarm sounding before? -- this time advocates on both sides of the issue agree: Congress is closer than ever before to green-lighting oil and gas drilling in one of the largest remaining undeveloped wild areas in the United States.

Wednesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 13-9 to include in a hulking budget package a provision that would not only allow drilling on the coastal plain at the northern edge of the Arctic Refuge, but also require that the land be leased to energy developers as a means of generating revenue for the federal treasury.

If this congressional maneuver sounds familiar, that's because it's part of the second phase of a budget-bill deliberation process that began early this year. The initial "resolution" phase outlines possible budget cuts and increases within congressional committees -- suggestions that aren't legally enforceable; the second, called the "reconciliation" phase, hones these instructions and locks them in, carrying the force of law.

In March, a resolution package that contained similar language paving the way for drilling in the Arctic Refuge passed the Senate by a narrow margin, instructing committees to trim their budgets by specific amounts. The Energy Committee's goal for cuts or offsets was set at $2.4 billion over five years. That's almost exactly the amount that the Congressional Budget Office predicts the feds would receive over the next five years from sales of energy leases on the refuge's coastal plain.

Drilling advocates are piggybacking the Arctic Refuge provision onto the budget initiative because reconciliation bills are immune to filibuster, thus requiring only a simple majority vote to clear the Senate. That vote is scheduled to occur within the next few weeks, and though Democrats are expected to unanimously oppose the bill, the 55-44 GOP majority in the Senate gives drilling advocates a comfortable margin for victory, even if there are a few moderate-Republican defectors.

Critics argue that the refuge drilling provision is entirely out of place in a budget bill. "The whole point of the resolution process is to hammer out the budget -- it's not to reverse existing legislation or enact new legislation of any kind," says Eleanor Huffines, Alaska regional director for The Wilderness Society. This is the logic that Senate opponents of the bill, such as Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), will invoke if they proceed with plans to challenge the provision under the Byrd Rule, which requires a budget bill to have 60 affirmative votes if it includes extraneous provisions.

Advocates of the drilling language counter that the Byrd Rule is effectively moot in this case, given that a precedent already exists for this very maneuver: The GOP-controlled Congress of 1995 managed to successfully pass a refuge-drilling provision in a budget reconciliation bill, which was then promptly vetoed by President Clinton. This time, of course, there's no chance of a veto from the Oval Office.

Arctic Refuge defenders are quick to assert that there's still hope, but it likely hinges on strong opposition to other parts of the bill, not the drilling provision itself. The budget resolution was unanimously opposed by Democrats in both the House and Senate in March for fear it would spur draconian cuts to a broad swath of social programs, including Medicare, food stamps, and college loans. All Dems in Congress are expected to vote against the budget initiative on this go-round too, and they're getting support not just from environmental groups but from a wide range of organizations including the People for the American Way, the National Women's Law Center, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the AFL-CIO, all united under the umbrella group Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities.