Wildlife Refuge being lost

Democrats worry Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being lost amid tax debate

By BEN LEFEBVRE

Democrats’ fight to keep oil and gas rigs out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is losing ground as the Republican tax plan advances — and it's almost as if no one has noticed.

The prospect of drilling in the untouched Alaskan tundra is as close to reality as it's been in more than a decade, with none of the political drama that in past decades turned the refuge's fate into a top-tier rallying cry for liberals. Legislation to allow drilling in ANWR is quietly hitching a ride on the tax code overhaul that Senate Republicans hope to complete by the end of the week, overshadowed by larger debates on whether the bill is a giveaway to rich people and corporations at the expense of the poor and working class.

“It’s really not gotten the attention that it should,” Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told POLITICO about the ANWR provision. “It’s not just the budget discussion. It’s about everything else that’s going on, the flurry of all sorts of other news.”

Angus King (I-Maine) said Republicans were trying to shield ANWR from opposition by adding it to the larger bill rather than bringing it to the floor on its own under rules, which would require it to win support from 60 senators to overcome a filibuster.

“Well, clearly the strategy is to try to get it through as part of this tax reform effort and thereby avoid a direct up-or-down vote,” King said in an interview earlier this month.

The nonstop news cycle and preponderance of other concerns with the tax bill are making it difficult to focus on an issue that normally fires up Democratic voters.

“I do think that putting ANWR in the budget reconciliation package hasn't drawn as much extremist opposition because it is completely overshadowed by tax reform, which is the center of the package,” said Chris Guith, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute. “But there are some who aren't exactly supportive of tax reform that support ANWR, and it's possible to see ANWR bring a vote or two to help pass tax reform.”

Senate Energy Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) easily advanced legislation through her committee directing the Interior Department to hold two lease sales for drilling in ANWR over the next decade. It would raise $1 billion over that period, according to the Congressional Budget Office, making it eligible for inclusion in a budget reconciliation package that Democrats cannot filibuster.

The reconciliation package also will include Republicans' tax plan and a repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate. While Murkowski helped scuttle the Obamacare repeal push earlier this year, she says she supports ending the mandate. Murkowski’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

ANWR, a swath of tundra on the northern Alaska coast, is home to polar bears, porcupine caribou and a landscape that hasn’t been touched in thousands of years. Congress designated the 19-million-acre area a wildlife refuge in 1980, but it set aside a 1.5-million-acre parcel known as "10-02" for possible future drilling if future lawmakers approved such a plan. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 1998 that part of ANWR could hold up to 12 billion barrels of oil, and President Donald Trump and Alaska Republicans have called it essential for their plans for American “energy dominance.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is undecided on the tax bill for a several reasons, said she will support an amendment on the Senate floor to eliminate the ANWR language, but she said success there is not a prerequisite for her to vote for the underlying bill. "No it is not, but I would certainly try to get it out of the package," Collins told reporters Tuesday. Collins was the only Republican to cross the aisle on an unsuccessful amendment to keep pro-drilling language out of the underlying budget resolution, meaning it is unlikely that she would be able to strip the ANWR provision from a reconciliation bill.

But Democrats say that passing a deficit-increasing tax bill in order to open ANWR would actually harm energy-producing states. That's because the $1.5 trillion shortfall from the GOP tax cuts would trigger required "pay-as-you-go" cuts to mandatory spending programs, according to a CBO analysis sent to House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

One of the programs on the PAYGO chopping block would be the energy royalty revenue sharing program carried out through the Mineral Leasing Act. Cutting those payments would lose Alaska an estimated $15 million in energy royalty payments next year alone, an amount important to a state already facing budget shortfalls.

“Communities throughout the West would be impacted by the loss of revenue, which is used to support a variety of needs including infrastructure, school funding, conservation, and recreation,” Hoyer said in a statement to POLITICO. “This is yet another example of the consequences associated with forcing through legislation to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy.”

PAYGO cuts also would hit popular programs like Medicare and student loans, but Congress can waive the law with 60 votes in the Senate. Democrats are not yet on board with that approach.

The current push to open ANWR, coming amid a swarm of competing headlines and buried in larger legislation, has come nearer to succeeding than in the GOP’s two previous attempts. President Bill Clinton vetoed a budget package in 1995 that included language opening ANWR, while a Democratic filibuster thwarted a second attempt in 2005.

What public engagement environmental groups have made has targeted only a handful of congressional districts. The League of Conservation Voters also spent $550,000 on television ads in three Republican congressional districts. The LCV also paid for a bipartisan polling firm to probe public opinion on opening ANWR, but even that focused only on registered voters in eight congressional districts.

“The reason they’re trying to sneak it into the tax package is they know they don’t have the votes otherwise,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, the league's senior vice president of government affairs. “They know they can’t pass it under regular order, that’s why they’re doing a sneak attack.”

Even ANWR supporters are staying out of the spotlight.

“I haven’t seen any full out, front-page ads, nothing like that,” Alaska Oil and Gas Association President Kara Moriarty said. “We’re a little battle weary, to be honest. Alaskans support opening up ANWR. There’s been a few statements reiterating that.”