Just what can the energy industry expect to encounter underincoming President-elect George W. Bush’s administration? Theformer Midland, TX, oilman, paired with former Halliburton CEO DickCheney, appears to be more open to new exploration and production.Add to that Bush’s recent Cabinet picks, and it beams a thousandpoints of light on what industry may expect in the next four years.

In opening remarks before the Senate Commerce Committeeyesterday, Commerce Department designate Don Evans, Bush’s campaignmanager and a former energy executive himself, pledged to “foster amarketplace where ideas and energy can thrive, where theentrepreneurial spirit indeed will flourish.”

Evans, who once worked as an oilfield roughneck and also was CEOof his own energy company, won’t even be in charge of one of thedepartments overseeing aspects of the U.S. energy industry if he isconfirmed. But he offers just one more pin in the top-heavy energystructure that Bush has built around him.

Those most likely to play a key role in pushing Bush’s energyagenda through — led in no small part by Bush and Cheney — willbe the Interior and Energy Cabinet heads. For Interior, Bushselected former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton. For Energy,Bush reached out to former Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham, who wasdefeated in his first re-election bid in November. Both areconsidered conservative Republicans who already have calledattention to themselves in recent days because of their outspokenstatements on issues their new departments would oversee.

If confirmed, handling controversy should be no problem forNorton, 46, who cut her teeth working under President RonaldReagan’s heavily criticized first Interior Secretary James Watt andWatt’s successor Donald Hodel.

Norton was hired by Watt for a staff position at the MountainStates Legal Foundation, considered the conservative’s answer tothe Sierra Club, favoring Western economic interests includingmining, timber production and ranching. She also has litigatedagainst the Endangered Species Act, a statute that falls under theInterior Department’s jurisdiction.

While working under Hodel, Norton was part of an unsuccessfullobbying attempt in the mid-1980s to persuade Congress, thencontrolled by Democrats, to open part of the Alaska NationalWildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration. As associate solicitor atInterior, Norton helped draft the legal papers for Hodel’s plan toopen the coastal plain of ANWR.

Opening up part of ANWR was one of Bush’s campaign promises. Hehas vowed to allow energy companies access to the area, butDemocrats have remained strongly opposed. Now, however, Republicanscontrol Congress, and the battle over new drilling may become oneof Bush’s — and Norton’s — first battles. Her appointment alsopoints to a shift in natural resources philosophy in the WhiteHouse, which under Bill Clinton has seen more U.S. land designatedas national monument areas, and pushed back attacks to open upfederal land and waterways for exploitation.

Norton, a property rights advocate, has long pushed for abalance between environmental and industrial interests in Colorado,which has a history of growth and land management issues. She hasstated that there is an opportunity to make better use of most ofthe land now under federal authority, including offering moreaccess to business.

As Colorado’s first female attorney general, Norton favoredchanging federal law in 1988 to allow industry to self-audit itsenvironmental pollution activities. Favored by business butdiscouraged by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, theself-audit plan, which allows companies amnesty if they findpollution problems, report them and clean them up, was threatenedwith federal sanctions.

Norton still outspokenly favored the changes. “Companies aremore likely to find out if they have environmental problems ifthere’s some hope regulators will work with them,” she said in1988.

Although Norton has not generated quite as much heat as Bush’schoice for attorney general, John Ashcroft, she already has beenstung by the Sierra Club and others, which have threatened to blockher nomination.

Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource policy for theWashington, D.C.-based Cato Institute, said that Norton’sappointment “is a throwing down of the gauntlet against theconstituency who believes that the federal government needs to lockup more land or wall off existing land from further economicexploitation.”

Calling Norton “James Watt in a skirt,” Allen Mattison, theSierra Club’s national spokesman, said she would be just asunsympathetic to conservationists as her former Interior bosses.Watt, who eventually resigned, had angered many for attempting tousurp Congressional restrictions to allow more oil and gasexploration in the West.

Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski, who met with Norton inpre-confirmation hearings yesterday, brushed off theenvironmentalists’ comments, saying she would be “superb.” He saidhe foresaw no problems with her confirmation hearings, and said shewould “protect the public lands, endangered species and improveparks and recreational opportunities for all Americans.”

Edmund Spencer Abraham, “Spence” to his colleagues, is aone-term Michigan senator whom Bush has tapped to run thebeleaguered and second-tier Energy Department. Abraham, 48, wasconsidered a dark horse for the post, and ironically, he triedthree times in five years while he served in the Senate to abolishthe department he may soon head, calling it wasteful, with “no coremission.”

In a 1997 opinion article about the Energy Department writtenfor The Washington Times, Abraham said “Energy oversees everythingfrom nuclear waste disposal to energy conservation to corporatewelfare. What is not unneeded or harmful in this list would bebetter secured without Energy’s wasteful umbrella organization.”

Asked about those comments this week, Abraham was not available.His office said he was traveling. Following his selection, however,Abraham said that “as we know, many significant EnergyDepartment-related issues face us at this time, ranging from theadequacy of supply, to affordability, to the development of newtechnologies, to the issues of security at our facilities, andmore. Fortunately, this administration is comprised of manyindividuals with incredible expertise in these areas, and I lookforward to helping the president-elect to effectively address thesechallenges in the days ahead.”

Abraham favors many of the things his potential new boss favors:free trade, opening ANWR and doing away with many environmentalregulations. Last summer, while calling for a suspension of federalgas taxes as prices rose across the Midwest, Abraham took donationsfrom several energy companies for his November re-election bid.According to campaign finance watchdog FECInfo, Abraham had$221,848 in contributions from several energy companies, including$10,000 from El Paso Energy Corp.; $10,000 from Ohio Valley CoalCo.; and $9,000 each from Chevron, Coastal Corp. and MichiganPetroleum.

For the Sierra Club, Abraham’s appointment would further add towhat it expects will be a hostile environment for naturalresources’ issues. Sierra Club’s Daniel F. Becker, director of itsglobal warming and energy program, said Abraham had received theClub’s lowest rating on environmental issues in the last Congress.

Whatever the criticism, it’s clear that Harvard Law School gradAbraham has taken a post in a troubled department that many othersdid not want. With its burgeoning agenda — keeping track of theU.S.’s weapons laboratories, cleaning up nuclear waste sites andmanaging the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the next Energy chiefwill have a full plate with extra helpings on the side.

The next energy secretary faces the new challenges of dealingwith electricity shortages and energy shortfalls, as well asefforts among OPEC nations to keep the oil prices high. AndAbraham, or whoever takes the hot seat, will face the samecontroversies the Interior chief will on the prospects of openingup ANWR to oil and gas development and finding energy solutions forthe entire country amid a nearly deadlocked and potentiallyuncompromising Congress.

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