A Senator's Bold Ploy
on Arctic Drilling
By SHERYL GAY
STOLBERG, NYTimes on the Web, December 21, 2005
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Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator
Ted Stevens of Alaska leaving a session with reporters Tuesday on
Capitol Hill. Mr. Stevens has long fought for Arctic oil drilling. |
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 -- It might be
said that Ted Stevens invented Alaska.
It was Mr. Stevens, the irascible senior senator from Alaska, who pushed for the
territory once derided as "Seward's Folly" to become the 49th state in the
1950's when he was a young lawyer in the Interior Department under President
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
And it was Senator Stevens who, as the Republican chairman of the Appropriations
Committee for six years, steered so many billions in taxpayer dollars to Alaska
that people there have a name for it: Stevens money.
Now, at 82, Mr. Stevens, a wiry man who dons a tie featuring the cartoon
character Incredible Hulk when he is facing a particularly tough fight, is
making his boldest -- Democrats say most egregious -- ploy for Alaska yet.
He has tucked a provision allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge into a must-pass $453.3 billion military spending bill.
The maneuver has put Mr. Stevens between his weary colleagues and their
long-awaited vacation and will come to a showdown vote on Wednesday. Mr.
Stevens was betting that opponents of drilling would not put themselves in the
awkward position of blocking a bill financing American troops in a time of war.
But the opponents say that is precisely what they intend to do.
To get the bill through, the Republican leadership might have to perform some
fancy parliamentary footwork, including a temporary alteration of Senate
procedures to allow the drilling language to be considered. No one knows
how it will turn out, not even Mr. Stevens.
"I'm never confident of anything -- I keep telling you that!" Mr. Stevens,
wearing the Hulk tie, declared Tuesday, barking at a mob of reporters after
explaining that the sleeping pill he took the night before was just now making
him groggy. "I don't go out on a limb and say, 'Yes, I've got votes.'
I'll get the votes that I deserve."
Most of his Republican colleagues seem inclined to support Mr. Stevens, though
not all are enthusiastic about his tactics. Senator John McCain, the
Arizona Republican who opposes Arctic drilling, used words like "disgraceful"
and "disgusting" to describe the proposal. Senator Gordon H. Smith,
Republican of Oregon, said that it was "certainly awkward" but that he bore Mr.
Stevens no ill will.
"He's spent 25 years fighting for this," Mr. Smith said. "He's earned our
patience."
But Mr. Stevens has not earned the patience of environmentalists, who ran an
advertisement last week in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, likening him
to King Kong ("Who can rescue us from his grip?") or of Senate Democrats, whose
leadership aides put out a statement on Tuesday calling Mr. Stevens "the Grinch
who stole the defense bill."
A native of Indianapolis and a graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr. Stevens moved
to Alaska in the early 1950's, when it was still a territory. He was the
United States attorney in Fairbanks, but transferred in 1956 to Washington,
where he worked in the Eisenhower administration. He returned to Alaska in
1964, served as a state representative and became a United States senator in
1968.
Mr. Stevens is a fearsome, often cranky, presence in Washington. "He's
like Yosemite Sam," said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers
University. "You can see the steam coming out of his ears."
And nothing makes Mr. Stevens more steamed than opponents of drilling in the
Arctic. A central component of President Bush's energy policy, such
drilling has been the most contentious environmental issue before Congress ever
since Jimmy Carter was president.
At issue is whether oil companies should be permitted to explore in 1.5 million
acres of coastal plain on the North Slope, beyond the Arctic Circle, part of the
larger 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 1980, President
Jimmy Carter, in a compromise, signed legislation that both expanded the Arctic
refuge and allowed a small slice of it to be opened to oil exploration, subject
to Congressional approval.
Mr. Stevens was vilified at home for supporting that measure on a promise from
its Democratic sponsors, Senators Henry M. Jackson of Washington and Paul E.
Tsongas of Massachusetts, that they would help open the doors for drilling.
Both men are dead now, and Mr. Stevens laments, "They were never able to help me
fulfill that commitment."
So he has been trudging along on his own, in fits and starts over the decades.
In 1995, the Senate used a budget maneuver to approve the drilling, but
President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill. This year, the Senate used that
same budget maneuver to approve drilling again, but the language was stripped
from the budget because of objections in the House.
An avid poker player, Mr. Stevens sees the military bill as his best, and
perhaps his last, gamble. He likened the uncertainty over the outcome to a
particularly tense game of Texas Hold 'Em.
"It's about the same," Mr. Stevens said, "as waiting on that last card."
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