Senate Defeats Amendment to Energy Bill Alaskan That Provided Health Benefits for Retired Steel Workers

The Senate on April 18 defeated by a 64-36 vote an amendment to a comprehensive energy bill that would have used revenue from oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to pay for health care coverage and other benefits for retired steel workers, the Washington Post reports (Dewar, Washington Post, 4/19). The amendment would have allocated 10% of drilling rights and production royalties over the next 30 years to pay $7 billion in steel industry benefits and $900 million in health funds for coal miners (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 4/17). The amendment, offered by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), was an attempt to "attract wavering votes" for a related energy measure -- also defeated on April 18 -- that would have opened the refuge to drilling for oil and natural gas, the Post reports. But steel-state Democrats, whose support drilling advocates targeted, "turned down the deal," and "[c]onservative Republicans opposed the idea of a bailout" for the steel industry, the Post reports (Washington Post, 4/19).