'This is pathetic': Lawmakers, Interior official spar over Arctic oil

A House Natural Resources panel held a hearing on legislation to undo President Joe Biden's cancellation of Arctic oil exploration.

November 30, 2023

Republicans on a House Natural Resources subcommittee excoriated a senior Interior Department official Wednesday over the Biden administration’s Arctic oil policies.

The hearing of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee sparked a heated debate over future drilling on Alaska's public lands.

Republicans also slammed Interior for not consulting with Alaska Native leaders before proposing new limits on oil and gas activity. At one point, Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), the full committee chair, told the Interior witness: "This is pathetic," adding that he and the administration should be "ashamed."

Subcommittee Chair Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) convened the hearing to debate his "Alaska's Right to Produce Act," H.R. 6285, which would reinstate oil development rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) that were canceled by Interior earlier this year.

It would also halt a proposed rule for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) that critics say would thwart drilling to the detriment of Alaska Native villages.

...

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) panned Stauber’s legislation as “another fossil fuel sugar high” that proposes “short-term economic benefits with terrible and irreversible long-term damage.”

Ranking member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the very existence of the oil and gas program in ANWR, created in 2017 by the Republican-led Congress to pay for “tax cuts for the rich” in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“This was going to be a moneymaker,” she said, noting that the Congressional Budget Office estimate of $1 billion in revenue has not proved accurate.

...

Huffman again came to the defense of the Biden administration, saying Stauber’s proposed legislation would speed through oil and gas approvals on these lands without tribal consultation or public input.

“It's a little rich, I think, to suggest that this Native consultation issue favors one side or the other,” he said. “There is no high ground here for my friends across the aisle or for the fossil fuel enthusiasts who are behind this legislation.”

...

For complete article, please visit source link below. 


By:  Heather Richards
Source: E&E Daily