The Republican majority of the House Resources Committee yesterday fought off two attempts by Democratic members to remove from energy legislation a controversial provision that would open the coastal region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and natural gas drilling.

By 29 to 20, the Republican members voted down a Democratic amendment that sought to replace their legislation, the Energy Security Act, which calls for exploration and production in ANWR, and an estimated $7.4 billion in royalty relief to further encourage drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The measure was sponsored by Rep. Nick J. Rahall II of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the panel. As an alternative to drilling in the Arctic refuge, the Democrats favored expanded drilling in already-developed fields on the North Slope, which they estimate could result in 35 Tcf for delivery to the Lower 48 states.

By a vote of 29 to 19, the Republicans also fended off an attempt by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) to deep-six the section of their bill that would open up ANWR. He called for the committee to preserve current law, which he said prohibited exploration in the refuge. Markey argued that the United States would save more in energy by raising the fuel economy standards than it would by extracting oil from ANWR.

Committee Vice Chairman Don Young of Alaska quickly shot back that there wasn’t any existing law on the books that precludes drilling in ANWR. “We left the 1002 [coastal region] open for drilling by an act of this committee,” he said.

The House committee only had marked up the ANWR portion of H.R. 2436 by press time, but Committee Chairman James Hansen (R-UT) pledged that the panel would complete the entire bill Tuesday. It will then be forwarded to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which shares jurisdiction, before it heads to the House floor.

Rahall called the Republican energy bill a “grab bag of goodies” for big oil and natural gas because it declares a multi-million dollar royalty holiday for producers “at the taxpayers’ expense.” In proposing this, the Republican legislation goes beyond what the Bush administration called for in its national energy policy, he said. This is “really a trick-or-treat time,” with royalty giveaways for the industry, Rahall charged.

The “message” of the recent votes by the full House to defer Lease Sale 181 in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and bar drilling on federal lands that have been declared national monuments “has been lost” on the Republican members of the House Resources panel, he said.

The Republicans were equally as vociferous in their criticism of the Democratic energy alternative. The Rahall proposal would do nothing to add to supply and encourage production, said Hansen, but opening ANWR and reviewing energy inventories on federal lands were steps in the right direction.

“We need to open ANWR to responsible and sound exploration. We need to provide… incentives for companies to explore [in the] Gulf of Mexico, where we have successfully and responsibly explored for decades,” the chairman said. “We need to take a close look at our federal lands and see where our energy supplies are stored and how they might be extracted in a safe manner. The Rahall amendment accomplishes none of these needs. In fact, it is more the same policy [that] we’ve seen for the past eight years.”

Hansen further charged that the Rahall measure would delay construction of a long-line natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48 states. Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-LA) claimed it also would dictate the chosen route for the gas pipeline, “regardless of what’s right environmentally.”

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