Facing Obstacles on Arctic Oil, Bush Says He'll Look Elsewhere

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
March 30, 2001

Faced with strong opposition in Congress to his plans for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, President Bush said today that he was prepared to exploit oil and gas resources elsewhere in the nation on land that was not federally protected.

And Mr. Bush said that if he could not wring enough fuel out of the United States, he would look to Canada and Mexico to address current domestic shortages.

"It doesn't matter to me where the gas comes from, in the long run, just so long as we get gas moving into the country," he said.

It was the first time the president had suggested that he might not soon achieve his goal of extracting oil from the Arctic refuge in Alaska, although the oil and gas industry is lobbying Congress intensely for the right to drill there.

In a half-hour news conference in the White House briefing room, punctuated by easy banter with reporters, Mr. Bush took an assertive pro-business stand on a variety of domestic policy issues, including energy, the environment, taxes and regulation.

"We will not do anything that harms our economy," the president declared in a blunt defense of his recent environmental actions, including his decision not to seek lower power-plant emissions of carbon dioxide, his withdrawal of President Bill Clinton's stricter limits on arsenic in drinking water and his refusal to participate in an international agreement on climate change.

Mr. Bush said his administration would tighten the arsenic limits after a review of water standards. And he defended his administration's first steps to overrule Clinton administration orders, saying his actions were consistent with his bedrock belief that the economic health of American companies would take priority during his tenure.

"Because, first things first, are the people who live in America," Mr. Bush said, explaining his desire to fire up the American economy, even if it meant disappointing other nations seeking a commitment to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases that many scientists believe lead to global warming.

"We'll be working with Germany; we'll be working with our allies to reduce greenhouse gases," he said. "But I will not accept a plan that will harm our economy and hurt American workers."

His approach so far, he suggested, provides a clear signal of how he will govern.

"People are beginning to learn what my administration is like," he said.

Mr. Bush said that world leaders were getting to know him, too - and would be reassured in the process.

"I'm sure there were some concerns initially, because they didn't know me," he said, just before sitting down with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany to discuss, among other things, global warming. "And they heard all kinds of rumors about what our administration would be about. And now I have the chance to sit down and talk to them, face to face. I'm a pretty straightforward fellow."

True to his word, he said later in front of Mr. Schröder that the global warming treaty "makes no economic sense."

For much of his news conference, the second of his fledgling administration, Mr. Bush displayed a firm set of views on energy policy and the economy, and he seemed most determined to convey his desire to increase the nation's gas and oil supplies. Using language that has built in a steady crescendo from the final days of his presidential campaign, Mr. Bush declared the nation today to be in the throes of an energy crisis.

"Circumstances have changed since the campaign," he said. "We are now in an energy crisis. And that's why I decided to not have mandatory caps on CO2, because in order to meet those caps, our nation would have had to have had, you know, a lot of natural gas immediately flow into the system, which is impossible. We don't have the infrastructure able to move natural gas."

Mr. Bush later amended his declaration of an energy crisis, holding it chiefly to California, where the state's program to deregulate the power industry has led to rolling blackouts.

"And we need a full affront on an energy crisis that is real in California and looms for other parts of our country if we don't move quickly," Mr. Bush said.

The notion that the nation is in the grip of an energy crisis is not universally accepted. The United States consumes a quarter of the world's energy but still pays among the lowest prices, leading some critics to suggest that Mr. Bush's eagerness for aggressive oil and gas exploration is rooted in his ties to the industry and its millions in campaign contributions.

Mr. Bush's warnings of a critical energy shortage did not include any recommendation that Americans adopt measures to conserve energy.

Mr. Bush has long advocated oil drilling in the Alaska Arctic refuge, which environmentalists consider a jewel of federally protected lands. But over the last few weeks, Congress has begun to squelch this plan through its budget resolutions.

Those who favor the drilling had estimated that finding gas there could yield $1.2 billion in energy revenues next year. But both the House and Senate omitted this figure from their budgets, signaling that they do not expect such revenues to materialize because they do not expect the drilling to be approved.

Mr. Bush said that if plans to drill in the Arctic refuge were stymied, he would look for oil sources in Canada's adjacent Northwest Territories.

Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said that Mr. Bush's remarks today reflected his realization that there was too much political opposition in Congress to allow the drilling.

"He recognizes that A.N.W.R. isn't going to pass," Mr. Reid said, using the initials for the refuge. "The American people don't want it."

Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush's spokesman, said that Mr. Bush was not conceding defeat on the Alaska drilling. Mr. Fleischer acknowledged that achieving the goal through the budget looked like a dead end, but that the president would look for other vehicles.

But Mr. Bush seemed to sense the enormous political obstacles to drilling in Alaska. "There's a lot of other areas we can explore," he said. "There's gas in our hemisphere, and the fundamental question is, where's it going to come from? I'd like it to be American gas."

But the president remained firm in his larger goal.

"I'm interested in getting more energy supply, so that businesses can grow and people can heat their homes," he said. "We've got a shortage of energy in America."