Just over a month after the 109th Congress passed last
year's only major energy bill, some lawmakers are already exploring ways to
dramatically widen that measure, by expanding drilling elsewhere along U.S. coasts.
Senate Energy Committee ranking minority member Pete V.
Domenici, R-N.M. - who, as head of the panel in the Republican-controlled Congress
helped push through the gulf drilling measure - has asked the committee to hold
a hearing this week to talk about drilling elsewhere in U.S. waters.
Last year's bill opened a modest slice of the Gulf of Mexico
for oil drilling, and will channel some profits to Gulf Coast
states.
"Senator Domenici said his
OCS [outer continental shelf drilling] bill was a start, but there was more he
wanted to do," said Domenici's spokeswoman, Marnie Funk.
"He wants to talk about what other resources are out there, so that we can
talk in a meaningful way about expanding domestic oil production," she
said.
On its way to the finish line, last year's drilling bill met
with resistance from many Republicans, who said its provision to open up one
8.3-million-acre portion of the gulf to drilling was too modest. They pushed
instead to lift longstanding moratoriums on drilling on most of the U.S. coast.
Domenici told his party then that such a comprehensive measure would never gain
enough support to pass Congress, and instead urged colleagues to view the
opening of one discrete portion of U.S. waters as a first step that could later lead to wider drilling measures.
He now appears ready to explore
such measures. But he will meet opposition from Democrats and
environmentalists, some of whom supported last year's drilling measure
precisely because it brought drilling to one defined spot, rather than opening
up vast coastal areas to oil rigs.
One of the strongest opponents to last year's drilling bill
was the new Democratic head of Senate Energy, Domenici's fellow New Mexican,
Jeff Bingaman. Bingaman does not oppose drilling in the Gulf
of Mexico, but was adamantly against a provision in the bill that
will channel 37.5 percent of the oil drilling royalties to the coastal states.
Until that bill passed, all offshore oil royalties went to the Treasury, and
constituted one of its top three sources of income. Bingaman charged that the
measure was bad fiscal policy that would drain federal coffers.
Meanwhile, environmentalists feared the prospect of new
offshore drilling revenues - Louisiana
is expected to reap millions from the new deal - could lure some coastal states
to push to open up their waters.
That prospect may be addressed at Thursday's hearing.
"Other states have been interested in getting involved,
particularly after they saw the royalties the Gulf Coast
states got," said Funk. Set to speak to the issue at the hearing is New Jersey's
commissioner of Environmental Protection, Lisa Jackson.
But any drilling legislation that includes the royalty
measure looks likely to die in committee as long as Bingaman is chairman.
His opposition to the measure is as strong as ever, his
spokesman said.
