Although opening up the coastal region of the Arctic NationalWildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration is high on his list of thingsto do, President Bush said yesterday that if Congress should failto pass legislation to allow drilling in the Alaska region it willonly toughen his resolve to lift restrictions on other federallands for producers.

“First of all, there are other areas in the United States onwhich we can find natural gas. I think it’s important for us toopen up ANWR. Whether or not the Congress sees it that way isanother matter. That’s not going to deter me from having, forexample, the Interior Secretary look at all lands that arenot…..to be fully protected, for exploration,” he said during animpromptu press briefing yesterday.

While “it would be helpful if we opened up ANWR,” Bush toldreporters “there’s going to be a lot of areas where we can findnatural gas in America other than ANWR.”

The president said he would prefer to have “American gas” fuelthe U.S. economy, “but if Congress decides not tohave…..exploration in ANWR, we’ll work with the Canadians.” Thereis a “shortage of energy in America. And it doesn’t matter to mewhere the gas comes from in the long run, just so long as we getgas moving into the country” to increase the nation’s inventories.

He indicated the White has a “plan to make sure thatgas…..flows freely out of Canada into the United States.” He saidhe’s already had discussions with Canada’s prime minister. It’sironic, he noted, that the U.S. can have “meaningful discussions”with Canada about exploration in the Northwest Territories, whileonly “miles away” is ANWR, a U.S. region that engenders so muchcontroversy. “It’s important for us to explore, encourageexploration [and] work with the Canadians to get pipelines comingout of the Northwest Territories to the United States.” Bushreported that he’s had similar energy talks with officials inMexico.

The chances of getting an ANWR bill through Congress began todim when the House recently approved a budget resolution thatdidn’t include any revenue from drilling in ANWR. The Senate’sbudget resolution, which is to be considered next week, fails tomake a similar provision. There is a consensus among lawmakers inboth houses, and on both sides of the aisle, that ANWR isunwinnable.

Bush declared for the first time yesterday that “we’re now in anenergy crisis,” which he said is “real in California and looms forother parts of our country if we don’t quickly.” He said it willrequire a “full affront” approach on the part of the nation to turnthe tables.

Bush cited the energy crisis as the reason he decided againstimposing mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions from powerplants nationwide. In order to meet those caps, “our nation wouldhave had to have had a lot of natural gas immediately flow into thesystem, which is impossible. We don’t have the infrastructure [tobe] able to move gas,” he said during the White House briefing.”We’ve got pipeline capacity problems in the country.”

Significant gas supplies also would help to curb greenhouseemissions, Bush said, but “there is not enough of it [gas]” at thistime. “We need to have an active exploration program” with orwithout ANWR.

A White House energy task force chaired by Vice President DickCheney is expected to release a national energy policy soon, whichwill propose a series of recommendations and other actions to dealwith the current energy crisis. The policy recommendations will besent to Congress, where two major omnibus energy bills are pending,and to federal energy regulators.

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