WASHINGTON – With gasoline prices nearing an all-time high this week, lawmakers and environmentalists here are rejoining with increased vigor a decade-long battle over proposed drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The acrimony resurfaced when some Republican lawmakers said sharp increases in gasoline prices following Hurricane Katrina have increased the urgency of approving the Alaska proposal. Advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers responded by renewing a call to arms on the issue and casting Republicans as blind allies of the oil industry.

“We’ve been working on this issue all summer,” a spokesman for the Wilderness Society, Pete Rafle, said. “But it’s taken on an urgency now because of the unfortunate rhetorical posturing of those who have used this tragedy as an excuse to push through something that they couldn’t pass otherwise and which won’t help anybody.”

President Bush omitted the divisive proposal from the energy bill he signed last month, but cleared the way for its inclusion in a budget reconciliation bill both houses of Congress are expected to take up in October. That bill, designed to generate $35 billion to cover spending outlined in the president’s budget, includes $2.6 billion the federal government expects to earn by leasing land in the refuge to oil companies.

In pressing for passage of the bill, the chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senator Domenici, a Republican of New Mexico, cited gasoline prices in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo, made a similar argument this week. A spokesman for Mr. Domenici repeated the call for drilling in wake of the disaster yesterday.

“Chairman Domenici’s focus this month will be passing our ANWR language as part of the larger budget legislation,” the spokeswoman, Angela Harper, said. “Diversifying our nation’s supply of energy, namely accessing our reserves in the refuge, must be part of the larger hurricane relief effort.”

The Wilderness Society is planning a demonstration at the Capitol later this month that Mr. Rafle said will number in the thousands. Activists will likely get a warm welcome from Democratic lawmakers, who have seized on the comments of Mr. Domenici and Mr. Pombo, as evidence of a nefarious alliance between oil barons and the Republican Party.

“Senator Clinton called on President Bush weeks ago to launch an FTC investigation into price gouging at the pumps and she has said she supports a temporary suspension of the gas tax if in fact the savings are passed on to the consumer and there is no negative impact on New York jobs and projects,” a spokesman for Senator Clinton, Philippe Reines, said. “Senator Clinton is standing up to the administration, which has had five years to develop an energy policy that would be good for America, instead of benefiting the oil companies.”

Republicans yesterday defended the Alaska plan, however, saying it will decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil. They also rejected the charge that it will take too long to yield oil. “If we had done this when it was first brought up maybe we would be closer to having better control on our supply,” a spokesman for Senator Cornyn, a Republican of Texas, Donald Stewart, said.