The House voted earlier this week to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The approval was a major victory for President George W. Bush's energy plan, which calls drilling in the refuge key to assuring the country's energy needs in years to come.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where many Democrats and moderate Republicans oppose opening the refuge for oil exploration and have expressed resistance to expanded oil drilling on other federal lands. The White House called the energy bill, which also would provide billions of dollars in tax breaks for energy industries, a proper balance between energy development and conservation.

The Arctic refuge is a 1.5 million acre coastal plain where as much as 16 billion barrels of oil is believed to be located. Oil beneath the refuge's coastal plain has been called essential to meeting U.S. needs and reducing the nation's reliance on foreign oil.

Opponents of the drilling in the refuge have argued that fuel efficiency improvements for motor vehicles would save more oil each year than could be produced in the Arctic refuge.