The Bush administration is headed toward a big defeat as it insists on its plan to permit drilling for oil and natural gas in the vast Alaskan wilderness called the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Vice President Dick Cheney indicated in his speech this week that the plan would remain a major element in the policy statement his energy task force is expected to present later this month.

Members of Congress of both parties, including Maine’s Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have expressed misgivings about the Alaska drilling plan long promoted by the oil industry and pushed by two former executives in that industry, President George W. Bush and his vice president. Even Mr. Bush, in his March 29 news conference, took note of the growing opposition and said, “There’s a lot of other areas we can explore.”

Probably the harshest blow against the drilling proposal has come from The Wall Street Journal, even though the newspaper’s editorial page is among its strongest supporters. (On April 26, a Journal editorial expressed the hope that the Cheney task force would support drilling in the Alaska refuge, that “the green lobby blows a gasket,” and that “the liberal Democrats in Congress go berserk.”) A Page One story on April 13 reported that Alaska state inspectors had discovered that almost one-third of the safety shutoff valves tested at one drilling platform in the nearby Prudhoe Bay oil fields had failed to close.

Those valves, sitting on top of huge drilling platforms, are the first lines of defense against pipeline ruptures that can spew hot oil across the arctic tundra. Employees of the BP Amoco PLC consortium that runs the Prudhoe Bay operations say that secondary valves, connecting the platforms with processing plants, are also prone to failure. BP is expected to play a major role in development of the Wildlife Refuge if drilling is permitted there.

A flood of information on a BP employees’ Web site, at www.anwrnews.com, shows that Mr. Bush has been misled by BP’s claim that new technology will protect against spills and mean only minimal encroachment on the 19-million-acre reservation. The employees cite leaking valves, corroded pipe and reduction of maintenance staffs, charging that “costs and the budget are the first priority for BP management, not safety and the environment.” As an economy measure, BP is building “open air” platforms instead of the safer enclosed modules that cost more but can contain a leak inside a steel building.

Protection of the wildlife refuge fits an old definition of conservation, dating from the era of President Theodore Roosevelt and the creation of the great national parks. A newer definition involves safeguarding natural resources like oil and gas by using them more efficiently. Sens. Snowe and Dianne Feinstein of California have introduced a bill that would tighten the fuel-economy standards for light-duty trucks, including sport utility vehicles, to match those set for cars. Sen. Collins is among the co-sponsors, and the measure deserves the support of Congress.

Mr. Cheney, never one to mince words, came out against both forms of conservation. He scorned as outmoded 1970s-era thinking the notion that “we could simply conserve or ration our way out” of an energy crisis. He said he would oppose any measure based on the premise that Americans now “live too well” or that people should “do more with less.” That sounded like disparagement of fuel-saving measures. He did mention lower-power computer screens and energy-efficient light bulbs. His belittling of conservation technology is especially disheartening as it came just as President Bush was announcing his intention to commit the United States to spend $60 billion to $100 billion on national missile defense. How an administration can assert that it can find scientists to build a hugely complex missile shield but cannot find anyone with the skills to build a cost-effective, energy-efficient car or house is a mystery.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat who lost to Mr. Cheney in the vice-presidential race, has taken an opposite view. He told a talk-show audience that cutting automobile fuel consumption by 3 miles per gallon would save more fuel than drilling could produce in the Alaska reservation. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy reached a similar conclusion in a report issued this week. It said increasing the fuel efficiency of new cars and light trucks by just 5 percent a year would cut U.S. oil use by 1.5 million barrels per day within a decade. It said such a program over 40 years would save 10 to 20 times more oil than the projected supply from the Arctic refuge and more than three times the present total U.S. proven oil reserves.

Saving the wildlife refuge while making those gas-guzzling SUVs lighter on the gas pedal sounds like a good deal for us all.