By JOHN MACHACEK
Star-Gazette Washington Bureau
mailto:jmachace@gns.gannett.comWASHINGTON -- With the war on terrorism reviving a push in Congress to increase domestic energy supplies in the name of
national security, New York lawmakers are scurrying to protect the Finger Lakes National Forest from natural gas drilling. Most House members from upstate
New York, including Rep. Amo Houghton, R-Corning, have mounted a bipartisan drive to get the House to accept a Senate-passed provision permanently
banning any kind of drilling in the state's only national forest -- 16,000 acres that environmentalists say are a "recreational and ecological gem." But there has
been no commitment yet from House negotiators for the upcoming House-Senate conference committee on energy and water spending that will write a final bill.
Moreover, Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., the chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee and the vote New Yorkers
must get, strongly! supports oil and gas exploration on public lands. He opposes bans on drilling off the Gulf Coast, in the Great Lakes and the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. "He is going to be open to arguments that a bipartisan delegation from a single state is going to make," said Jo Bonner, Callahan's
spokesman. "But he also believes that we can't take all of our options off the table if we are going to seriously come up with long-term solutions to our energy
needs" and deal with terrorism. There is at least one New Yorker of similar mind. Rep. Thomas Reynolds, a western New York Republican and a member of the
powerful House Rules Committee, said he might support a temporary ban on drilling, but not a permanent one in the Finger Lakes National Forest, which begins
north of Burdett in Schuyler County and stretches north into Seneca County. Reynolds said he believes that the forest can be drilled in an environmentally safe
manner and that drinking water supplies -- his major conce! rn -- are protected by state law barring drillers from polluting surface water or groundwater. "The
fact is that we are a nation in a state of war," Reynolds said in an interview. "Unless there is some compelling reason, I don't think we can arbitrarily prohibit the
country from increasing its domestic energy production." Other pro-energy lawmakers are voicing the same concerns and pushing to find ways to pass
President Bush's energy plan that includes opening up the Alaska refuge to drilling. Pro-environment senators last week thwarted an attempt by Sen. James
Inhofe, R-Okla., to attach the energy bill to a must-pass defense spending bill, but warned that Inhofe might not give up. And a decision by Michigan officials
last month to resume issuing oil and gas drilling leases for the Great Lakes could also reopen debate in the House-Senate energy and water conference that will
consider the Finger Lakes issue. Michigan's congressional Democrats are pushing negotiators to accept H! ouse and Senate bans on Great Lakes drilling despite
the step taken by Republican Gov. John Engler. Under a U.S. Forest Service proposal, 13,000 acres of the Finger Lakes forest's 16,000 acres would be opened
to oil and gas leasing. Companies from Texas and West Virginia have applied for the leases. Whether the Finger Lakes drilling gets caught up in discussion over oil
and gas exploration on public lands remains to be seen, said New York lawmakers, environmentalists and energy industry lobbyists. Democratic Sens. Charles
Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said the Finger Lakes drilling ban they got inserted into the Senate version of the energy and water spending
bill will be hard to kill because it was part of an amendment that Republicans did not try to defeat. Industry lobbyists, preoccupied with trying to pass Bush's
energy bill, said they are not aggressively trying to challenge Great Lakes or Finger Lakes drilling. But they argue that more sophisticated dril! ling methods won't
cause environmental damage to federal lands. Led by Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties, and Houghton, seven upstate New York members recently wrote to
Callahan asking that he work to keep the ban on Finger Lakes drilling. The letter also went to Rep. Peter Visclosky of Indiana, the ranking Democrat on the
Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, who voted for the ban on Great Lakes drilling. "This is something that is supported by everyone
across the state," Hinchey said in an interview, noting that included Gov. George Pataki. "I don't know of anyone who is in favor of drilling in the Finger Lakes
National Forest." Houghton said he is "doing everything possible to protect" the forest, but indicated that he could support drilling in a national emergency. Most
of the letters and e-mail received by the Forest Service during a public comment period opposed drilling in the forest, Paul Brewster, supervisor of the Green
Mountain, Vt., and Finger! Lakes National Forests, said Friday. Brewster, who is based in Rutland, Vt., said he and Martha Twarkins, the ranger at the Finger
Lakes forest, will make a final decision on whether to open up the forest to drilling later this fall.