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ANWR update: Herrera says ANWR vote expected in September
Petroleum News Alaska Staff
Stevens says ANWR drilling lacks votes
There are not currently enough votes in Congress to win support for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling, Sen. Ted Stevens told a joint session of the Alaska Legislature April 11.
Stevens said extreme environmentalists stand in the way of development of Alaska’s resources.
“We don’t have a rural-urban divide; we have an extreme environmental-Alaska divide,” Stevens said.
Higher gasoline prices this summer likely will force many Americans to re-think their opposition to drilling, Stevens said.
ANWR not focus of new ad campaign by greens ANWR’s absence from the television commercials doesn’t mean the battle is over in Congress, said two environmental groups at a Washington news conference April 18.
“No, we don’t think the fight is over on the Arctic refuge,” said Debbie Sease, legislative director for the Sierra Club. Rather, several groups in national campaigns had targeted ANWR alone and other matters deserved attention, she said.
Steve Shimberg, vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, said the new campaign is directed more at Bush’s efforts to open public lands in general to development. Murkowski proposes presidential visit to ANWR Sen. Frank Murkowski said it’s time President George W. Bush sees ANWR for himself.
“We’re going to try to get the president up there,” Murkowski said in a news conference April 2.
A White House spokesman said Bush has never seen ANWR, but spent the summer of 1974 in Fairbanks working for Alaska International Industries, a cargo plane company. Energy Stewardship Alliance, Job Power join pro-ANWR forces Arctic Power announced March 21 the formation of the Energy Stewardship Alliance, a non-profit group to create national support for exploration in ANWR and for the recently introduced National Energy Security Act 2001.
The alliance includes professional associations, consumer groups, policy institutes and citizens for energy availability, less reliance on imported energy and responsible development of domestic energy resources.
The broad based membership of the alliance indicates an underpinning of support for ANWR development, said oil and gas consultant Roger Herrera.
“The support throughout society is better than one would expect from the green propaganda,” Herrera said.
Herrera said the Job Power alliance of labor unions was equally important, and delivered the support of “tens of millions of workers.” Stevens says oil companies need to push ANWR Alaska’s major oil producers must more actively promote ANWR oil exploration, Sen. Ted Stevens said at a news conference April 6.
He said the companies are backing off from the ANWR fight at present because they can drill elsewhere with less political conflict and cost.
Stevens, Sen. Frank Murkowski and Rep. Don Young said high gasoline prices and shortages this summer would likely change the dynamics of the ANWR debate.
Three decades ago it took the Arab oil embargo and long lines at gas stations to sway public opinion on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, Stevens said.
“The next field of battle is at the pump,” he said. Herrera says Bush’s remarks misunderstood Roger Herrera told PNA that some members of the press and general public misunderstood President George W. Bush’s remarks about ANWR at a White House news conference March 29.
Herrera, who is under contract as a lobbyist for Arctic Power in Washington, D.C., said that Bush was “trying to answer what was a loaded question from a CNN reporter. The reporter said something to the effect, ‘Mr. Bush you are clearly in favor of opening the coastal plain of ANWR to drilling and yet you can’t keep your own Republican senators in line on this issue. What are you going to do about that?’ The president did not want to answer that question, so my interpretation is that he gave what I think is a very logical answer … that we’ll find our gas elsewhere.”
Arctic Power keeps in close contact with the White House, Herrera said: “We absolutely have got to find more energy but the president clearly believes the best option is the domestic option. … That the president is looking for foreign energy … that’s a stretch in my view.” Final vote on ANWR likely in September Herrera thinks the chances of getting the coastal plain of ANWR opened for drilling are very good: “But having said that I think it’s going to be a tough and prolonged battle.”
When asked about the importance of the Senate excluding ANWR from the budget bill, Herrera said, “we feared the budget process more than our opponents.”
He said anti-ANWR forces were better organized and funded. “Before the vote they had spent more than $1 million on TV ads. We have spent about $15,000. We weren’t ready for that vote, so consequently delaying it will only help us, not harm us.”
Herrera expects a final vote on ANWR in September. In the meantime, he expects the energy crisis to get much worse. “The energy gurus tell us that the problems California is having will creep into other areas this summer.”
“There are indications that the White House energy task group in their report, which has been delayed until mid-May, will include ANWR as an energy solution,” Herrera told PNA April 18.
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