WASHINGTON — Rep. Jim Hansen has won round one in a fight to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and a national inventory of coal available on such public lands as national monuments.
The House Resources Committee, which the Utah Republican chairs, voted 26-17 to pass a bill Tuesday he is sponsoring to implement portions of President Bush's energy policy that deal with public lands.
During debate, the committee voted 30-19 to kill a Democratic amendment that would have stripped out provisions to allow drilling in the Alaska refuge. Five Democrats joined all committee Republicans in that vote.
"Today's strong bipartisan vote signals a growing realization among Republicans and Democrats that increased energy production must be a cornerstone of our national energy policy," Hansen said after the vote.
President Bush also praised the committee for supporting using "a small portion" of ANWR "for environmentally responsible exploration." He added it is part of his plan to "reduce America's reliance on foreign oil through increased conservation and efficiency, improved infrastructure and increased exploration."
However, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., ranking Democrat on the Resources Committee, called Hansen's bill "a grab bag of goodies for Big Oil" and said it "represents an unprecedented assault on America's resources and on American taxpayers."
Jim Waltman, director of refuges and wildlife for the Wilderness Society, also said the vote to allow drilling in ANWR shows that Hansen's committee "is radically out of step with the wishes of the majority of the American public."
Hansen said that while many parts of his bill are intended to increase energy conservation and to develop alternative sources of energy from geothermal to solar, wind and hydropower operations, the portions about ANWR and allowing coal inventories in national monuments are attracting most attention.
"As long as our cars run on gasoline and we're almost exclusively building power plants that require natural gas, we must increase our production of gas and oil," he said. "To ignore that reality is only to delay a far more devastating energy crisis."
Democrats vowed to try again to kill the ANWR provisions when the full House considers the bill. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has also vowed to block ANWR provisions in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Hansen's committee fended off amendments that would have stopped an inventory of coal and other alternative energy sources on most public lands. Hansen's bill exempts only national parks and formal wilderness areas from that inventory.
Hansen has complained loudly that creation of Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument blocked development of the nation's largest remaining reserve of low-sulfur coal.
But both the House and Senate have voted in recent weeks to add amendments to 2002 spending bills to ban any coal mining within boundaries of current national monuments, even if boundaries are redrawn later.
Hansen stressed that his bill will not by itself allow drilling or mining on any protected public lands. But environmental groups have testified that ordering inventories could eventually lead to harvesting of the fuels.
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