Columbus Dispatch: DeWine to Oppose Arctic Drilling Plan

By Jonathan Riskind

Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio will break ranks with Republican leaders and oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as part of a military spending bill.

The issue of whether the drilling provision should be inserted into the $453 billion defense bill is one of several key year-end Senate votes this week featuring DeWine in a major role.

DeWine also is expected to vote against a $40 billion budget-cutting bill sought by Republican leaders, who can’t afford to lose many votes among the 55 GOP senators.

The outcome is so uncertain that Vice President Dick Cheney returned early from a foreign trip in case his tie-breaking vote is required to pass the Republican-crafted bill cutting the growth of programs such as Medicaid.

Sen. George V. Voinovich, of Ohio, is among a majority of Republicans who say the budget bill is a relatively modest attempt to restrain the growth of social programs and slice away at the federal deficit.

Still, Voinovich, along with Rep. David L. Hobson, R-Springfield, and some other Ohio lawmakers didn’t sign off on the budget bill until they made sure Medicare payments for oxygen equipment weren’t limited too severely, a move that aided Invacare, a supplier of oxygen tanks based in Elyria.

But DeWine thinks the overall bill cuts too deeply into Medicaid and other social programs, said spokesman Mike Dawson. He added that the National Association of Children’s Hospitals says the budget bill would scale back Medicaid benefits for poor children.

DeWine voted against the original Senate budget bill, which then featured the oil drilling provision.

That provision was dropped from the final budget agreement, which narrowly gained House approval.

But a powerful lawmaker from Alaska, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, forced the drilling provision into the military spending bill. It includes money for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq under the theory that few lawmakers want to vote against money for U.S. troops. A Senate vote on the defense bill could come today.

In the Senate, it takes 60 votes to stop debate and proceed to a final tally, making prospects uncertain for the bill.

While DeWine would not reject a final defense-spending bill, he does plan to vote against the procedural motion cutting off debate, Dawson said. DeWine hopes a failed procedural motion will force Stevens and GOP leaders to take the drilling provision out of the defense bill.

If the Senate this week can’t pass the final defense bill and another spending bill covering education and human-services programs, lawmakers likely will have to pass stopgap spending measures to keep funding flowing into January.

In the House, a number of Democrats — including a potential DeWine challenger in the 2006 midterm elections, Rep. Sherrod Brown of Avon — voted for the final defense bill containing the drilling provision.

“Of course Sherrod doesn’t support drilling in the Arctic region,” said Joanna Kuebler, Brown’s spokeswoman. But, “Sherrod was not going to vote against money for the troops.”

Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran running against Brown in the Democratic primary, would have voted against the defense bill because of the drilling provision, said Karl Frisch, Hackett’s spokesman. “If you can’t stand up on your principles, then what does that mean?” Frisch said.

December 21, 2005 | Filed Under Hackett, News Mentions 

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