Environmental Stances Are Balancing Act For McCain

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/11/ST2008051102016.html?hpid=topnews

In December 2005, Republicans were poised to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up for oil and gas drilling, an achievement they had sought for decades. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had attached the provision to a must-pass defense spending bill and threatened to keep lawmakers in Washington until Christmas if they tried to strip it. Desperate to remove the provision, leaders from national environmental groups turned to a handful of key GOP senators for help.

With only days left before the critical vote, League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund President Rodger Schlickheisen obtained a private audience with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain had been on both sides of the Arctic drilling issue over the course of his career, and the two leaders of the fight against opening the refuge were eager to know whether he would come down in their column.

His answer disappointed them. In the brief meeting, the senator said he was unwilling to risk blocking a bill involving the military at a time of war -- even though it was clear the broader funding bill would pass quickly and by a wide margin if opponents managed to strip the ANWR provision from it. "We told him, 'This may be the key vote, this may be the time we win this,' " Schlickheisen recalled in an interview. "He said, 'Not on this bill.' That was it."

Ultimately environmental activists were able to defeat the measure with the aid of two Republican senators -- Lincoln Chafee (R.I.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio). But they have not forgotten McCain's decision, and many say it exemplifies his approach to environmental issues.