House negotiators conferring on broad energy legislation (H.R. 4) offered last week to more than double the size of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in exchange for their Senate counterparts agreeing to allow oil and natural gas drilling on a 2,000-acre “footprint” in the Alaska wilderness region.

The proposal, which was narrowly passed by House conferees, would enlarge ANWR to 17.4 million acres from its current 7.2 million acres, creating the “single largest designation of wilderness ever made in the history of this country in one geographic place,” said Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-LA), who is heading up the effort to reconcile the differences in the House and Senate energy bills. The House energy bill favors drilling in ANWR on a limited basis, but the issue is absent from the Senate measure.

In return for the larger ANWR designation, the House is seeking a concession from the Senate to permit exploration and production on 2,000 acres within the 1002 area of ANWR. This is only “one-thousandth of one percent” of the proposed designation of 17.4 million acres for ANWR, Tauzin noted.

“Obviously our members will have to review” this offer, said chief Senate negotiator, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). He gave no indication when the Senate would respond to the House offer on ANWR. Some House negotiators signaled last week that an unfavorable Senate response on ANWR could sink the energy bill this year.

If there’s no agreement from the Senate on the issue, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) — obviously exasperated by the lack of progress on ANWR — suggested that the entire conference on the energy bill be called off. “This is the week that we’re supposed to do a deal or not…We can’t just keep walking around ANWR,” he said.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was peeved as well. “This footprint is so small you couldn’t even find it,” he said, especially lawmakers who have never been to ANWR. “If I was the governor of Alaska, I’d shut the [oil] pipeline down and let everyone freeze in the dark” to underscore the importance of Alaska energy to the Lower 48 states.

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