Senate vetoes oil drilling in Alaska refuge

No drilling to take place in wildlife refuge

The US Senate threw out one of President Bush's most controversial proposals yesterday: the plan to drill for oil in the huge Arctic national wildlife refuge in Alaska.

Supporters of the measure needed 60 of the 100 votes to stave off a threatened filibuster. They got only 54, and Republican party leaders are now expected to drop the scheme to allow the rest of a complex energy bill to be passed.

Though the plan may be reinstated if the Republicans regain control of the Senate in the midterm elections seven months from now, the supporters of drilling were far from hopeful yesterday.

They had expected defeat for at least two months, but the two senators from Alaska, which stood to gain half the royalties from the oil, were none the less bitter.

Ted Stevens blamed "radical environmental organisations" for the defeat.

His colleague Frank Murkowski said: "There's an inferno in the Middle East and we're importing more than 50% of our oil."

The president's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the Senate had missed an opportunity to give the US greater energy independence, and warned that the fight would continue.

Petrol prices, always a big issue for American consumers, have risen sharply in the past few weeks and the national average is now $1.41 (about 98p) for a US gallon (four-fifths of a UK gallon). This is causing widespread annoyance, although prices remain a fraction of those in Europe.

There were reports yesterday that the administration was considering plans to allow drilling at dozens of sites in the Rocky Mountains. These schemes are likely to attract more vehement opposition than the notion of drilling in the 1.5m-acre (6-0,000-hectare) Alaska wildlife refuge, where few people have ever been.

The fight revived an old struggle between the environmental lobby and gung-ho development advocates, represented at the highest reaches of the government, which has former oil executives as its president and vice-president.

The administration argued that the Arctic oil was essential to reduce the country's dependence on imports from the unstable and possibly unfriendly Middle East, though it preferred not to mention that American cars are largely fuelled from Iraq.

But the argument had little resonance even after September 11, because the Arctic oil could not possibly be available before 2010.

Even then, it could only provide the US with 18 months' supply on the most optimistic estimates, and six on the most pessimistic.

John Kerry, a potential presidential candidate who led the Democrat opposition to the scheme in the Senate, said: "I've learned a few lessons about national security as a soldier and a senator, but the mathematics I learned in elementary school prove that Arctic drilling won't make a difference for national security."

Mr Kerry recently failed in an attempt to introduce a law to force the car industry to introduce tougher fuel efficiency standards.