What do you do when your highly controversial proposal to drill for oil in the for-centuries-pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge runs into political trouble?
What if Democrats, environmentalists and moderates in your own party have grouped together to keep the measure from going through? What is a friend of the oil industry to DO?
Here’s an idea: attach it to a DEFENSE SPENDING bill — then you can accuse politicians who vote against it of undercutting the troops.
Put it in there as military matter so they MUST vote for it — and get your spin machine ready to deny that’s what you’re doing. In other words: make it UNPATRIOTIC for them to vote against it.
Is this far fetched? NOPE. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Federal authorization to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge moved closer to becoming law Sunday night as House and Senate conferees tied the controversial energy program to a must-pass spending bill to fund the war in Iraq and other defense needs.
The House was expected to approve the $453 billion defense conference report in the early hours of Monday before turning to legislation that would cut federal spending for Medicare, Medicaid, student loans and other programs by nearly $42 billion over five years.
Drilling in Alaska’s wildlife refuge has long been a subject of great controversy in Congress. Proponents say it is essential to giving the nation energy independence. Opponents say it would disrupt an environmentally pristine area of the world for little long-term benefit.
By fusing the Arctic drilling legislation with the critical defense spending measure, Republican leaders made it extremely difficult for lawmakers to vote no without looking like they were failing to support American troops in Iraq.
This should be of interest to:
- Republicans who, if they can do this, will have confirmation that by controlling both houses of the Congress they can use power politics to push through a measure that otherwise would have failed due to not even having solid votes in their own party. Wrapping a proposal — literally — in the flag could be a tactic we’ll see more in the future if this works. There is nothing illegal about this.
- Democrats and independents who are environmentalists may conclude that if you truly care about the environment it may be difficult to vote for GOP candidates in 2006. There is nothing illegal about this.
- Ralph Nader voters – know that your man was full of THIS when he said there was no difference between political parties. There was nothing rational about that.
The Democrats are upset, perhaps because they don’t understand that it shows authentic patriotic values to attach a provision that makes oil lobbyists drool to a defense spending bill so that those who might vote against it from both parties are put in the position of seeming not to care about the lives of American troops:
“Republicans are holding funding for our military hostage in order to give a huge holiday gift to the oil industry,” charged Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee.
The tactic also infuriated Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who accused Republicans of “changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.” That’s because arctic drilling is not considered relevant to defense spending, and was not submitted to the conference by either chamber.
“The arrogance of power of the Republicans in the House and the Senate is beyond my ability to comprehend,” said Reid, who threatened to slow down the work of the Senate in the final hours of the session before Christmas.
And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist? Do we HAVE to tell you what his reaction is?
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., dismissed Reid’s complaints, describing it as a “flailing of the arms and false bravado” borne of frustration from being in the minority. And he called Reid’s accusation that rules were being improperly changed “flat-out false,” noting that Reid had previously done the same thing himself.
Good point, since Frist has shown great consistency, particularly when holding his finger up to test the political winds on issues such as stem cell research. See our post HERE on Frist’s latest financial controversy.
The Houston Chronicle has some other details:
The GOP leaders had to quell a rebellion of moderate Republicans to pass a Defense Department spending bill that included language that would grant energy companies access to what’s believed to be the largest, untapped oil deposit left onshore in the United States.
The real battle could come this week over in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to try to strip the drilling language from the legislation.
The wildlife refuge is believed to hold some 10 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil. But environmentalists fear drilling there would spoil a spectacular wilderness area.
Opening a portion of the refuge to oil and gas exploration has been lynchpin of the White House’s strategy to boost domestic oil production and has been a major objective of the nation’s oil companies dating back to the Carter administration.
The key battle, the Chronicle reports, could come in the Senate where the Demmies have more power to block majority-pitched legislation.
But reports suggest supporters will CHANGE SENATE RULES to make sure it gets through there:
Democrats say they plan to object to the provision’s including in the spending bill, arguing that oil drilling is not germane to Defense Department activities.
Supporters will then move to change the Senate rules, to allow the measure to tag along on the bill.If the Senate votes to allow the provision to remain on the bill, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has promised to lead a filibuster fight to block the bill.
Stevens would need to find 60 votes to break a filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Sunday evening drilling supporters have the votes to get past the filibuster hurdle and to pass the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., wasn’t so sure the legislation would even get that far. “We’ll find out,” Reid said.
But various news reports note that many Senators who don’t want the drilling, including Arizona’s Senator John McCain, would wind up voting to do it if it is super-glued to military spending. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Democrats and environmental groups were outraged at what they called a backdoor effort to pass drilling, which has been blocked by House Republican moderates who refused to support an earlier strategy that included the authority to drill in the Arctic refuge as part of a major budget bill.
“This is a brazen attempt by the Republican leadership to hold funding for our troops and relief for Hurricane Katrina victims hostage to a misguided effort to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif….
….Some Republicans are already balking at the idea of attaching drilling to a military spending bill. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has opposed drilling in the past, said tying the drilling provision to funding for U.S. troops was “disgusting.”
But senators of both parties acknowledged that lawmakers may fear that a vote against the bill could be portrayed as a vote against supporting troops in a time of war.
“Voting against a defense appropriations bill would be a difficult vote for most members,” said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 ranking Democrat in the Senate.
And how do you spell “cynical 21st-century power politics”? This way:
“They’ll have a choice of passing it and having a defense bill or not,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H. “A lot of other things are going to be in there — LIHEAP (Low Income Energy Assistance Program) money will be in there, Katrina money will be in there. There are going to be a lot of reasons to vote for it.”
So perhaps we can boil all this down to what this really is:
It’s political blackmail aimed at environmentally-conscious members of BOTH PARTIES. The backers of this measure know they can’t win it if it’s up alone so they’re going to lump it with must-do things.
What’s troubling is that it’s all coming from upper levels of the GOP. And we’re sure THIS REPUBLICAN is turning over in his grave.
OTHER RESOURCES:
Stop ANWR Drilling
Site in favor of ANWR drilling
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.