From CBS News:
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House Republican leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a budget bill expected to come up for a vote on Thursday.
They also dropped from the budget document plans to allow states to authorize oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts - regions currently under a drilling moratorium.
GOP leaders acted after a rough day on Capitol Hill for the oil industry - as CEOs of the nation's largest oil companies testified at a Senate hearing on oil industry profits, soaring energy prices, and ways to protect consumers from price-gouging and unaffordable transporation and heating oil costs.
The House move to give up for now on the Alaska energy exploration proposal is a setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists including the Natural Resource Defense Council, which has lobbied hard against the drilling and argues that improving fuel efficiency in cars and trucks would do far more to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
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