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Alaska counting votes for ANWR State hopeful but still short on winning congressional approval for drilling in refuge Larry Persily Petroleum News Juneau Correspondent
Alaska’s chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C., says he feels a little like a Chicago Cubs or Boston Red Sox fan, hoping this will be the year the team wins it all. The Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908 and the Red Sox since 1918, but regardless whether this is their year John Katz of Alaska’s D.C. office hopes this is the state’s year to finally win congressional approval for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
“There isn’t that much new to say to members of Congress on the issue,” said Katz, director of Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski’s Washington office. “The issue has been debated for so long.”
It might be settled in Alaska’s favor this fall. House-Senate conferees working on a national energy bill have included ANWR language in their draft bill, though opponents say they have enough votes to force drilling supporters to drop the provision.
The question of allowing drilling in the coastal area goes back to at least 1959, when Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens worked in the Interior Department. Then Congress got involved during work on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which was adopted in 1971, and while debating the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which became law in 1980.
Murkowski took office as a senator after the November 1980 election, and spent the next 22 years pushing for congressional approval to open the coastal plain for drilling.
Over the past decade the Alaska Legislature has given $6.5 million to Arctic Power, an industry-backed lobbying group, to help with the fight. The Legislature appropriated almost $2 million of that money this past session. Governor writes former colleagues And though no longer a member of the Senate, the governor is personally lobbying his former colleagues, Katz said, including recently sending a letter to all 65 members of the House-Senate conference committee working to put together a compromise energy bill.
John Manly, the governor’s press secretary in Juneau, said the administration is hopeful, but realistic, of the chances for winning a vote on ANWR.
Although it takes just 50 senators to approve a measure — assuming Vice President Dick Cheney would cast his vote in favor of opening ANWR if the chamber were to deadlock 50-50 — it takes 60 senators to block a filibuster. A collection of 43 senators has gone on record as opposing any version of an energy bill that opens ANWR to drilling, which might leave Alaska at least three votes short of stopping a filibuster in the 100-member chamber.
Katz said the state’s lobbying tactic is to talk with senators, suggesting that even if they oppose drilling in ANWR they should look over the entire energy bill and maybe they’ll find enough other provisions to like. The bill includes so many other issues, such as provisions in support of nuclear energy, coal, oil and ethane production, and efforts to fix the nation’s electrical distribution problems, that Katz said he hopes at least 60 senators will find something good for their own constituents to convince them to back the measure. Lobbyists assist state’s effort The state has two high-powered lobbying firms under contract to help with the ANWR push. “They enable us to expand our advocacy into the nooks and crannies of Congress on a daily basis,” Katz said.
One of the firms is The Lundquist Group, led by Andrew Lundquist, formerly a director of President Bush’s White House National Energy Policy Development Group, chief of staff for then-Sen. Murkowski and senior legislative assistant for Sen. Ted Stevens. He is a University of Alaska graduate and currently serves on the board of directors of Evergreen Resources, the Denver-based company that is looking to develop large coalbed methane gas wells in the Matanuska Valley north of Anchorage.
The other lobbying firm under contract to help the state is Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates. Katz explained this firm covers both sides of the political aisle. Anne Wexler worked for President Jimmy Carter and was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton’s transition team in 1994. The other principal of the firm, Bob Walker, served 20 years as a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania.
The state also is getting help from some labor unions, especially the Teamsters, Katz said, in addition to coordinating its lobbying work with Arctic Power.
Roger Herrera of Arctic Power said the battle is in the Senate, not the House where members have twice in the past two years passed legislation to open ANWR to drilling. “The Senate could do all sorts of things … crumble … come off the wall and threaten sort of a revolt,” Herrera said. “It’s unpredictable, especially when you consider the energy bill as a whole is not finalized and the fact that its most contentious issues are still to be decided, mainly electricity.” Senate likely to vote after Oct. 13 Herrera and others watching the conference committee say the members could finish their negotiations and present a bill to the House and Senate before Congress adjourns for its Columbus Day recess Oct. 3. And although some say it’s possible the House might even vote on the package before the break, most expect the Senate will wait until it returns to work the week of Oct. 13.
One reason for the delay is negotiators are looking for ways to reduce the price tag that has climbed into the billions of dollars for all of the energy production incentives in the bill. Estimates put the total cost at as much as $20 billion, far more than the president has said he is willing to support.
Like Katz, Herrera figures maybe there will be enough other provisions in the bill to win out over opponents to ANWR drilling.
Leaders want an energy bill But Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the conference committee, has acknowledged he doesn’t see enough votes yet to block a filibuster. Congressional leaders say winning passage of the energy bill is too important to let it die over ANWR, and the Alaska provision will be dropped from the bill if drilling supporters cannot show they have enough votes to win.
The New Mexico Republican is a strong supporter of opening ANWR to exploration, and including ANWR in the committee’s work draft was intended as a signal of his support, according to his staff. “The best way to know if you have 60 votes is to put it out there in draft discussion and start bargaining,” said Marnie Funk, Domenici’s spokeswoman.
In an effort to win support, the ANWR language would limit to 2,000 acres the amount of land that could be developed with gravel pads, airstrips, production facilities or other structures. And in an effort to retain more of the hopeful oil and gas revenue for the federal treasury, the draft language also would share federal leasing and royalty revenues 50-50 with the state, instead of giving the state 90 percent as provided in existing law.
It also would limit legal challenges to the legislation.
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