The U.S. Senate on March 16 passed a pro-drilling provision with a vote of 51-49 as a part of its 2006 federal budget resolution. The Senate budget must now be reconciled with the U.S. House of Representatives’ budget, which did not include ANWR drilling.
"Although pro-drilling has passed through the budget resolution in the Senate, it is still too soon to predict the outcome of drilling in ANWR," said Kristen Bossi, press secretary for the Democrats on the House Committee on Resources.
In accordance with budget law, the House and Senate have until April 15 to reach agreement and pass a budget resolution. Bossi said that reconciliation is likely to be held up by major disagreements between the House and Senate regarding Medicaid. If the two houses are unable to reconcile their differences, the Senate budget will die, and along with it the ANWR drilling provision.
Senate Republican leadership introduced the amendment for ANWR oil exploration through the budget rather than through standard legislation because budget bills are not subject to filibuster. The budget needs only a majority vote to pass, whereas blocking a filibuster requires 60 votes, CNN reports. Arctic drilling has been discussed in Congress for nearly 25 years and has often been rejected through filibuster.
While it is likely that the contentious issues surrounding Medicaid could kill the Senate budget and the ANWR provision, drilling opponents are worried because ANWR legislation had previously been supported by the House and halted by the Senate. The budget amendment passage in the Senate signals an increase in that body’s support for ANWR drilling that apparently came with November’s congressional elections. Drilling in the refuge has been a major component of President George W. Bush’s administration’s plan to develop domestic energy resources.
Luci Beach, executive director of Gwich’in Nation steering committee, said she was surprised by the Senate’s decision to include drilling in its budget.
"It is unacceptable that it is considered okay to do this to yet another tribal people after the numerous broken treaties and genocide that have occurred in the lower 48 [states]," Beach said. Roughly 37 tribes, she estimated, are opposed to drilling because of the negative effects it would have on indigenous peoples and the environment.
Robby Romero, a Native artist, filmmaker, and spiritual leader whose band Red Thunder has been outspoken against ANWR drilling for years, called drilling in the Arctic "a human rights issue blinded by greed, where indigenous peoples, living at the point of impact, will be negatively affected by drilling."
"Who speaks for the four-legged and the winged who will be impacted by drilling?" Romero asked. "The fight is far from over."
Beach remains hopeful that drilling will not occur. She said she will continue to follow the mandate set by Gwich’in elders in 1988, to oppose development in a positive way assisted by prayer.
Porcupine caribou, which live throughout the refuge, sustain the Gwich’in Nation and are an integral part of their creation story and culture, Beach said, estimating that each year 45,000 caribou are born on the land where the proposed drilling would take place. They would have nowhere else to go, she said.
