A resolution calling on British Petroleum (BP) to assess the risks of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on the producer’s stock will be voted on by shareholders at its annual meeting in April. Similar resolutions have been filed to be placed on the ballots at ChevronTexaco’s and ExxonMobil’s annual meetings, while preliminary discussions are underway with Phillips Petroleum.

A coalition of British, European, Canadian and American institutional and individual investors, all of whom are opposed to opening ANWR to oil and natural gas production, are behind the resolutions. This is the third time that the coalition has filed to put resolutions on the ballots at BP’s and ChevronTexaco’s annual meetings, and the second time for ExxonMobil, said Athan Manuel, director of the Arctic Wilderness campaign for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a public advocacy group in Washington, DC, and coordinator of the coalition’s efforts.

While BP has approved the resolution for a vote in April, neither ChevronTexaco nor ExxonMobil have done so yet, he said. But he doubts the two producers will challenge the resolutions this year.

Two years ago, an estimated 13% of BP’s shareholders voted for the ANWR resolution, he noted, while 11% and 9.6% of ChevonTexaco’s and Exxon Mobil’s shareholders approved it last year. For the resolutions to fly, a simple majority (51%) of shareholder votes is required in the United States. But British law requires that 75% of BP’s shareholders pass the resolution in order to force BP to assess the risks of Arctic drilling to its stock value.

“We think it is important for BP to measure the risk to its carefully cultivated brand image from drilling in sensitive areas like the Arctic refuge. The stakes are very high for BP, a company that has declared its intention to go beyond petroleum and respect the environment and human rights,” Manuel noted.

“Our real goal is to get more votes each year, and put pressure on the companies” to re-think their plans to drill in ANWR and other environmentally sensitive areas, he said. “Once they [shareholder votes] get into the double figures, they start to seriously negotiate with us.”

The “outcry” against exploring in ANWR and other sensitive areas “gets stronger each year,” Manuel said.

The shareholder resolutions are being filed just as the Senate is preparing to debate energy legislation, which President Bush and a number of Senate Republicans hope will include a provision to allow exploration and production in the Arctic refuge. But the debate in the Senate over the issue is guaranteed to be heated, as Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) and most Democrats want to keep ANWR closed to the oil and gas industry. The House passed an energy bill that includes ANWR last August.

Bush renewed his cry for drilling in ANWR during a speech Tuesday in Charleston, WV. A comprehensive energy bill, one that would open up ANWR as a supply source, “is more important than political party,” he said, in urging Republicans and Democrats to work together.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who some see as a Democratic presidential hopeful in 2004, countered with an attack on ANWR. “Nothing is more indicative of old thinking, special interest policy than the attempt by the administration to falsely sell to the American people a rationale for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” he said in a speech to the Center for National Policy Tuesday.

“Big oil and its allies have lusted over the refuge for two decades. With each attempt they make up new arguments for despoiling a unique and irreplaceable arctic environment for a quantity of petroleum that simply will not reduce the fact of our dependency on high-risk foreign investment.”

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