Senate vote makes Arctic oil exploration more likely

In a major victory for the Bush administration, the U.S. Senate last month voted to approve oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska's Coastal Plain.

The 51-49 vote to defeat an amendment to strike ANWR funding from the Senate Budget Resolution was the first major show of Republican strength in support of the president since the GOP increased its Senate majority in the 2004 election.

The House is working on its own Budget Resolution, which sets parameters that the Appropriations Committee is expected to follow when drafting individual appropriations bills. When the House and Senate have both completed work, a conference committee will be named to reconcile differences in the two bills prior to a final vote and submittal to the president.

In 1995, both the Senate and the House included ANWR funding in their resolutions, but President Clinton vetoed the final measure. This time, President Bush is likely to sign the final resolution, barring some other budget-related difficulty with the bill, as he has sought to open the refuge to exploration for a long time.

Exploring for oil in the Arctic Refuge has been controversial since it was first proposed more than 20 years ago. Environmentalists are vigorously opposed to the idea, partly because of the precedent it could set for energy exploration on other federally owned lands that have heretofore been considered off-limits. There also is considerable disagreement over how much oil is actually underground in the Coastal Plain.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are approximately 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, a figure that proponents believe is at the low end of the area's potential.

Supporters of the exploration, including Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources, point out that in 1968 the federal government estimated recoverable reserves in Prudhoe Bay, the largest Alaska oil field explored so far, to be about nine billion barrels. To date, that field has produced 13 billion barrels and continues to produce oil.

Opponents, led by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have vowed to fight to the end to prevent drilling in the Arctic Refuge, citing what they believe will be irreparable harm to a sensitive wildlife preserve.

Mechanical engineering, nanotechnology budget requests are outlined

Every year, shortly after the president submits his budget request to Congress, several ASME task forces and committees representing various research and development interests review the proposed R&D budgets of the major federal agencies and departments.

They then prepare an analysis specifically relating to program activities that have signifi-
cant mechanical engineering and nanotechnology components.

This year's analysis, "Mechanical Engineering in the FY06 Budget Request" and "Nano- technology in the FY06 Budget Request," have been finalized by Timothy Wei of ASME's Board on Government Relations and Michael Roco, an ASME Fellow at the National Science Foundation.

The two reports are available for review at www.engineeringpolicy.org/Repts.html.

During the next few months, the analyses will be used as the foundation for written and/or oral testimony on the agency budgets for Congressional hearings as well as for Society position statements. The analyses also will be incorporated in an annual report issued by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

— Francis Dietz
ASME Government Relations

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