Alaskan Pipeline. During consideration of the energy bill (S. 517), Senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) offered an amendment to prohibit constructing a natural gas pipeline eastward from the Prudhoe Bay area through the adjacent coastal area of the energy-rich Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and on into Canada and the lower forty-eight states. This amendment would in effect mandate that the already-proposed natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the lower forty-eight be constructed south from Prudhoe Bay through the Fairbanks area before entering Canada. Daschle argued that the southern route through Fairbanks would "avoid the environmental pitfalls that construction could have on the fragile northern Alaska environment." Senator Don Nickles (R-Okla.) opposed this Daschle amendment: "I would like to think we believe in the free market system enough to where we would let the marketplace decide what is the best route, what is the most economical route, what is the route that will do the least environmental damage ."
The Senate adopted Daschle’s amendment on March 6, 2002 by a vote of 93 to 5 (Roll Call 41). We have assigned pluses to the nays.
