By Kathleen Hunter, CQ Staff

MINNEAPOLIS — Republican platform writers beat back an insurgent attempt Wednesday to endorse drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge amid concerns that such a move could undercut John McCain ’s effort to win the White House in November.

The 112-member GOP platform-writing committee is hammering out the party’s policy blueprint here in advance of next week’s Republican National Convention in neighboring St. Paul.

Unlike President Bush and most of the Republican base, McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, does not support ANWR drilling, although he has left open the possibility of reconsidering that view in the future.

In an effort to avoid a rift with the presumptive nominee, the draft proposal unveiled Tuesday called for “accelerated exploration, drilling and development in America, from new oil fields off the nation’s coasts to onshore fields such as those in Montana, North Dakota and Alaska” but was silent on the specific issue of ANWR.

Platform committee member David Boyle of Alaska proposed adding language that would explicitly include drilling in ANWR, saying the issue enjoyed broad support, was very important to voters and should be addressed in the platform. Boyle pointed out that he has ties to the McCain campaign — he is listed as the Alaska contact on the campaign’s Web site — but said the issue was too important to ignore in the platform.

Backers of Boyle’s amendment argued that it would translate into support for Republicans across the country.

“I don’t believe that there is a stronger way to support our candidate than to support what our people want,” said platform member Cathie Adams, of Texas. “This has become the number one issue in this campaign  . . .  I think this is a very positive move  . . .  one that would bring people to the party and to our candidate.”

Opponents countered that inserting the language would do more harm than good, saying it would undermine McCain, who, they pointed out, recently came around to supporting increased drilling in the outer continental shelf. They also pointed out that the underlying language was carefully drafted to avoid embarrassing McCain, while at the same time not precluding drilling in ANWR, which many said they supported.

“The goal is to not have this serve as a lightning rod,” said Terry Strine of Delaware, a member of the platform committee’s energy and environment subcommittee, which debated for more than four hours Tuesday.

“This will bring difficulties and challenges for John McCain and none of us want to do that,” Strine added.

Others echoed that concern.

“We have a nominee for the party who is entitled to a platform he can run on, and we should not create unnecessary conflicts between the nominee and the platform,” said James Bopp of Indiana.

Platform members said they were confident that McCain, if elected, eventually would be convinced to support drilling in a 2,000-acre coastal plain section of ANWR.