Congressman Devin Nunes (CA-22), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced a bill in the House of Representatives today encouraging the Department of the Interior to advance its plan to sell two leases for energy development in the Arctic.
The Arctic lease sales are included in the Department of the Interior’s draft plan for its 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. However, after canceling the draft plan’s approval of new drilling in the southeast Atlantic Ocean, the Obama administration has come under pressure from environmental activists to scrap the Arctic lease sales in an effort to fight global warming.
Estimated to contain at least 34 billion barrels of oil equivalent, the Arctic holds vast energy resources whose development would increase U.S. energy security, spark economic growth in neighboring Alaskan communities, and reverse the rapidly declining operation of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
“For the sake of our national security, America needs an all-of-the-above energy policy that allows us to produce our own cheap, reliable energy instead of importing it from dictators, unstable governments, and hostile foreign regimes,” said Congressman Nunes. “But we won’t achieve energy independence by blocking development of our most promising energy resources. Canceling the Arctic lease sales would be a self-defeating action that would not have the slightest effect on global warming—it would merely surrender the development of Arctic energy to rival nations like Russia.”