WASHINGTON, DC, March 8, 2006 - “Last year, the drilling boosters tried every dirty trick and every back door maneuver in the book, but they were stopped by the American people and bipartisan leadership in Congress at every turn. What part of ‘no’ don’t they understand?”
“With this blatant abuse of power, Senator Stevens and his allies are throwing aside every pretense of good government. They are not even pretending that this budget resolution is about balancing the budget anymore.”
“Americans want a clean Congress and clean energy, not politicians who will bend the rules on behalf of Big Oil and the drilling lobby. This desperate maneuver faces the same steadfast, bipartisan opposition that decisively rejected it last year.”
“The desperate obsession of a few politicians has distracted us long enough from finding real energy solutions. Americans know that handing one of America’s greatest wildlife refuges over to the oil companies in order to save only about a penny per gallon on gas twenty years from now would be a bad deal. It’s time for certain politicians in Congress to stop wasting time, listen to the American people, and get their priorities straight.”
Background
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH) announced this afternoon his intentions to use the powers of the federal budget process to force an unprecedented “stand-alone” budget bill whose only purpose is to authorize drilling in the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. During opening statements of the FY 2007 budget resolution mark-up this afternoon, Senator Gregg said that the only reconciliation instructions in his mark of the Senate Budget Resolution are to the Energy Committee for Arctic Refuge drilling. Federal budget bills, which are not intended to carry controversial policy measures, are not subject to Senate filibuster.
Last year, strong bipartisan opposition in the House forced pro-drilling leadership to remove their controversial Arctic Refuge drilling provision from the final Budget Reconciliation Bill. Following this defeat, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) attached the drilling plan to the Defense Appropriations Bill, thereby holding hostage funding for U.S. troops and hurricane victims. A bipartisan group of Senators removed Arctic Refuge drilling from that bill and went on to pass the funding bill just before Christmas.
