Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005

DEFICIT REDUCTION OMNIBUS RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2005

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Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of Senator Cantwell's amendment to strike section 401 from the budget reconciliation bill. I thank her for her dedication to protecting the Arctic Refuge, for her great deal of work over the years on this very important issue, and especially for her leadership today.

As I have said numerous times, I am deeply disappointed that the budget process is being abused to open the Refuge to oil and gas activities.

The Senator from New Mexico said he is going to hear Senators come out and say this isn't the way to do it. He is right. This isn't the way to do it. I have tried to make this point in the Budget Committee for 2 years. This isn't the way to make policy relating to energy, and I deeply regret that we have to be out here on the floor dealing with this. It should have been disposed of in the Budget Committee, as it is a matter not appropriate for this setting.

Drilling in the Arctic Refuge is something that has been, and should continue to be, discussed in an open debate instead of as part a back-door maneuver. This is a debate about energy and environmental policy, as everybody knows. This is not about the Nation's budget. I believe that this back-door tactic is an abuse of the reconciliation process. It reflects poorly on this body, Mr. President, and invites greater mischief down the line.

Sadly, regardless of when or where we have this debate, we have it because of a failure, most recently encapsulated by this administration's flawed Energy bill, to provide the American public with an energy policy that actually looks to the future. There is no doubt that we, as a nation, face tough questions about our energy policy. However, it is clear that offering the Refuge as the solution points us in the wrong direction. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a shortsighted sacrifice of one of America's greatest natural treasures, all for a supply of oil that may not last more than a year, would not be available for
many years to come, and, as the Senator from Washington pointed out, would decrease gas prices by only a penny at its highest production. Instead of such a backward plan, we need a forward-looking national energy policy that responsibly moves away from our dependence on a finite resource such as oil and toward greater energy independence. I regret that the administration's only answer to our energy crisis is to attempt to drill their way out of it.

Beyond my objection to the abuse of process and to the failure of our energy policy, I have several concerns about the specific language included in this bill.

First, I have grave concerns that we are basing our revenue assumptions on false financial pretenses. To achieve the $2.4 billion required by the budget reconciliation, which, for comparison purposes, is equal to 3 weeks' worth of ExxonMobil's 2005 third quarter profits, we are proceeding on the assumption that companies will bid an average of $3,333 for each and every acre of the 1.5 million acres of Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge. However, over the last 15 years, bonus bids for acreage on Alaska's North Slope have averaged approximately $60 per acre, which is 98 percent less than what is required for purposes of this budget reconciliation. Assuming the leases on areas with unknown deposits will sell for more than 50 times the historical average is just plain fiscally irresponsible. Fundamentally, the reality of the leasing situation does not seem to coincide with the revenues we assume today.

Second, supposing that the revenues actually do reach the presumed level, the U.S. Treasury, and the U.S. taxpayer, may never see the money associated with opening the Refuge.

Both the State of Alaska and the Alaskan delegation have made it clear that the State is likely to sue to receive 90 percent of the leasing revenues instead of the 50 percent stated in this language. In fact, this spring, the Alaska legislature passed a resolution that said they opposed ``any attempt to coerce the State of Alaska into accepting less than the 90 percent of the oil, gas, and mineral royalties from the Federal land in Alaska that was promised to the State at statehood.'' The Alaskan resolution makes it clear, as I have stated before, that the debate over the Refuge is about energy policy and not about the budget, and it doesn't belong in the budget reconciliation package which is before us today.

Finally, the language included in this bill fails to grant the same fundamental protections to the Arctic Refuge as we grant to every square inch of the other Federal lands on which drilling occurs. Why does the bill fail to provide the Arctic Refuge with fundamental environmental protections? Simply because the Energy Committee argues that the Federal Government can meet the budgetary time constraints only by ignoring the established laws of the land. By slashing environmental protections so that they are lower than on any other Federal land, we are all but guaranteeing that the Coastal Plain will suffer unnecessary, preventable, and irreversible damage. This is no way to treat the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System.

Mr. President, the language of the underlying provision is based on risky lease bid assumptions, it leaves the door open to diminished Federal revenues, and it gives the Refuge fewer environmental protections than all other Federal lands that produce oil. It has no place in this reconciliation bill, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support Senator Cantwell's amendment.

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