Stevens can’t get ANWR into end zone

Football fans know the Statue of Liberty play. The quarterback backs up, lifts his arm as if to pass, then suddenly hands the ball off. It’s one of the classic deceptions. This week, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, attempted a variation on the Senate floor.

With $454 billion in Pentagon appropriations doing the blocking, Stevens and other Republicans tried to steamroll foes of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by suggesting a vote against defense funding was a failure of patriotism. Stevens added the drilling provision to the defense bill at the last minute, the better to increase pressure. The Republicans weren’t trying to deceive their opponents, but voters unwise to the ball-handling skills of an 82-year-old quarterback.

Wednesday, he was thrown for a loss. Again. The question now is whether Stevens’ ploy snookers voters come next year. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a leader in the fight against drilling, will be among their targets.

Drilling supporters in Congress occasionally carry a straight up or down vote. President Clinton vetoed one successful effort in 1995. But many Americans remain unwilling to forsake one of the nation’s last untouched natural reserves – one few will ever see – despite potential oil reserves that might supply about 5 percent of the nation’s daily requirements. That may indicate a dangerous unconcern about U.S. dependence on foreign sources, but that remains the tradeoff as matters stand today.

So, efforts will persist by Stevens and others to attach drilling permission to energy bills, budget bills, defense appropriations bills – anything so important of itself no one dare vote against it whatever odious amendments it might carry. In wartime, what could be more sacrosanct than a defense bill?

Stevens is a master at this. He managed to stuff the now-infamous $223 million Bridge to Nowhere into the highway bill. He threatened to quit the Senate when there was talk that the project should be sacrificed in favor of more Katrina aid.

Stevens also managed to pack federal loan guarantees up to 80 percent for a pipeline that would finally bring Alaska’s tremendous natural gas reserves down to the lower 48 states. The state has tried for some 30 years to build one of two lines: one parallel to the 800-mile oil pipeline connecting the North Slope to Valdez, or a more ambitious project that would follow the Alaskan Highway into Canada, where it could connect with existing lines into the Midwest. Gas piped to Valdez would be liquefied for shipment by tanker to the West Coast or, for that matter, anywhere in the world.

Despite the focus on ANWR, natural gas is by far the more important issue. Just ask those now opening Avista Utilities bills that reflect the impact of higher wholesale gas costs. Compared with some other areas, the Inland Northwest has been relatively lucky, but costs are painful any way you look at it.

And unlocking that Alaskan gas will not be simple, even with that fat federal loan guarantee. Three projects are competing for the right to ship North Slope gas. Competing hard.

Tuesday, the municipalities backing the pipeline to Valdez sued because ExxonMobil and BP PLC will not ship their gas along that line, or sell the gas to the cities. Those two companies, as well as ConocoPhillips, prefer the overland route. The state is prepared to provide some of the estimated $20 billion investment it will take to make that project happen.

Even for three of the world’s energy giants, and a state that has collected $100 billion in oil royalties since 1959, the calculations are sensitive.

A combination of higher than projected construction costs and lower than projected gas prices could burn them all badly.

Turn those assumptions around, and the pipeline becomes a huge cash cow.

Washington could be a winner no matter which route is eventually chosen. Existing gas lines would connect us with the overland route. Or, liquefied natural gas – LNG – could reach the state via a new terminal on the coast. Unfortunately, the state will have no control over where that terminal might be built.

Thank Stevens and the other energy hawks for that.

ANWR will be back. Stevens will call another play – a trap, a slant, maybe the Hail Mary. So far, the result has almost always been the same: The reverse.