A Split in the New Hampshire Delegation
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 – The recent controversy in Congress over the deficit reduction bill and oil and natural gas drilling in the Alaska wilderness has not only clarified the division between moderate and conservative Republicans nationwide, it has also illuminated the ideological differences between New Hampshire’s four Republican members of Congress. And it has left Rep. Jeb Bradley squarely in the middle.
Bradley joined with fellow Rep. Charles Bass in the successful effort to remove language in the House version of the bill that would allow drilling in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
That puts the two of them at odds with their Senate colleagues, Judd Gregg and John Sununu, who both voted for the Senate version of the bill, which includes provisions for Alaska drilling
But Bradley, unlike Bass, has not pledged to reject the bill if, after House and Senate members meet to resolve the differences in the versions passed by each chamber, it returns to the House floor with Arctic drilling in it.
“I’m looking at it as a package,” Bradley said in a telephone interview Wednesday, adding the he voted in favor of the bill when it was before the Budget Committee and included the drilling provisions.
“With each step of the way, I’m going to look at it with spending and how we reduce spending as a priority.”
Bass, by contrast, said he would not endorse Alaska drilling even if it meant voting against the final version of the deficit reduction bill.
“Opening up ANWR to drilling would dramatically shift U.S. environmental policy,” he said. “A change this significant necessitates an open, substantive policy debate that can only occur in a stand-alone measure. Attaching this language to the budget reconciliation bill is simply inappropriate.”
Bass, a party moderate, created waves last week when he split with President Bush and his New Hampshire colleagues in the Senate by leading a group of 26 Republicans, including Bradley, in sending a letter to the GOP House leadership to remove the drilling provisions
“If we reverse the protection for ANWR, then the protection of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon and all other public spaces becomes meaningless,” Bass said in a press release last week.
Bass is co-chairman of the House Tuesday Group, an organization of moderate Republicans.
While Bradley may have found himself caught between his traditional fiscal conservative ways as a member of the Budget Committee and his moderate tendencies on issues like Alaska oil drilling, Gregg and Sununu are voting and speaking as one would expect from conservative Republicans.
After passage of the Senate version of the bill, Gregg, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said, “There is much more to be done, but today is the first time in nearly a decade that we have succeeded in reviewing and reducing the federal rate of entitlement spending, which is rapidly outpacing the growth of our economy.”
