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Thursday, November 10, 2005
ANWR and Offshore Drilling Dropped, Vote Will Be Close
Late last night House GOP leaders removed language from the budget reconciliation bill on both drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and allowing for offshore oil drilling. Both provisions were widely opposed by House GOP moderates, and the move was made in an effort to pick up votes for the bill, which cuts mandatory spending by $54 billion over the next five years. The provisions were stripped after pressure from the moderates, twenty-six of whom sent a letter to the leadership November 8, arguing their position.
Even though ANWR and offshore drilling were removed from the bill, the future is uncertain. A number of Republican House members oppose other contentious provisions in the bill, such as the proposed Medicaid cuts or the repeal of the Byrd amendment. And the House may also run into trouble with the Senate on ANWR matters in conference. A number of Republican senators, such as Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pete Domenici of New Mexico have noted that ANWR drilling is by far the most important provision in the bill, and thus leaving it out of the House bill sets up a potential battle with the Senate.
The Rules Committee also made an exceedingly slight change to the food stamp immigrant provision, which is being dubbed a "fix." In reality it is anything but this. The House budget bill still contains large and damaging food stamp cuts. Tens of thousands of children will lose free school meals, and much of the cost will shift to states, adding administrative complexity and client confusion. The minor exemptions added by Rules do little to ameliorate the harsh impact that CBO originally estimated for the House Agriculture Committee immigrant cuts ($275 million over five years, cutting 70,000 legal immigrants in an average month).
Posted by Becky Lewis
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