HOORAY! Linking Arctic drilling to budget may backfire

[BigBearJohn]

WASHINGTON - Proposals to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have sailed through the House in recent years, only to die in the Senate. Ironically, now that the Senate has finally passed a drilling bill, it looks like it's in trouble in the House.

"Sure, I'm worried about the House," Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, acknowledged. He pushed ANWR drilling for 22 years as a senator. "I think we all had certain assumptions that the House wasn't going to be a problem," he said.

For proponents of drilling, the Arctic preserve is caught in a strategic conundrum. The drilling measure squeaked through the Senate last week with 52 votes because it was attached to a budget bill. If it had been attached to a regular bill, opponents would have threatened to filibuster, a Senate custom of talking a bill to death. Republicans didn't have the 60 votes it takes to stop a filibuster, so the bill would have failed. Drilling proponents knew they had to move ANWR on a budget bill because that kind of bill can't be filibustered.

But in the House, ANWR may fail precisely because it is attached to a budget bill.

SOURCE: http://www.sitnews.us/1105news/110805/110805_shns_arctic.html