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Senate defeats amendment to open ANWR Highway bill proves a poor vehicle; senators also reject an amendment to put lease sales back on schedule for North Aleutian basin Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
Yet another attempt to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing has died in the U.S. Senate.
An effort to lift a ban on leasing in Alaska’s Bristol Bay also failed.
U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., offered an amendment to S. 1813, a major highway transportation bill, to open the coastal plain and to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, among other provisions.
But senators on March 13 killed the amendment by a vote of 41 in favor, 57 against.
The Senate easily passed the highway bill the next day.
Alaska reaction Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, voted in favor of the Roberts amendment, and released a statement about its failure.
“As a supporter of opening ANWR, I voted for this amendment because we must take real steps to increase domestic energy production,” Begich said. “I am disappointed others in the Senate junked it up with a bunch of other provisions, as this is no way to address gas prices and our long-term energy needs.”
Begich continued: “If we want to get serious about an energy plan that includes ANWR and other Alaska oil and gas resources, let’s get to it. But an amendment to an important transportation bill that is put forward simply to divide the body is not a good way to conduct public policy.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also voted in favor of the Roberts amendment.
The Senate, now under the control of Democrats, long has been a barrier to opening ANWR to oil development. The coastal plain is highly prospective for a major discovery, but conservationists have made its protection a top priority.
Bristol Bay defeat The Senate also rejected an amendment that would have put offshore lease sales back on schedule for the North Aleutian basin in Bristol Bay. The effect of this would have been to reverse the Obama administration’s policy to disallow leasing there until 2017.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., offered the amendment, but it failed on March 8 with Begich and Murkowski among the senators who voted against it.
Leasing is controversial in Bristol Bay in part because of its large and commercially important fish and shellfish stocks.
A Bristol Bay lease sale in 1988 generated $95 million in high bids. But the government bought back the leases following the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The Republican-led House of Representatives on Feb. 16 passed an energy bill, H.R. 3408, with a provision requiring a North Aleutian basin lease sale by 2015. That bill also contains language to open ANWR.
At least one major company, Shell, has shown considerable interest in the gas-prone North Aleutian basin.
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