Congress is closer to opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling as both chambers made progress on budget legislation on Thursday.
The House passed its fiscal 2018 budget resolution, which contains instructions for the Natural Resources Committee to approve legislation to reduce the government’s deficit by $5 billion over 10 years.
Many lawmakers and observers expect the savings to come from opening up a portion of the refuge, located in Alaska, to oil and gas drilling, even if the legislation doesn’t specifically say that.
The Natural Resources Committee has jurisdiction over the refuge.
“Congress is asserting the peoples’ will to promote fiscal health and economic opportunity, and that is a good thing,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, chairman of the committee, who has expressed support for allowing drilling on the refuge. “New and better policies are needed to facilitate greater natural resource management and responsible development. This committee will do its part to help balance the budget and increase revenues while also expanding economic growth for state, local and tribal communities.”
The Senate Budget Committee on Thursday approved its fiscal 2018 budget resolution that contained a smaller-scale provision intended to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The budget resolution contains instructions for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to recommend policies to save $1 billion over the next decade, likely to be served by drilling in the refuge.
Republicans in Congress have long pressed to allow energy exploration in a 1.5 million-acre section of the refuge, where billions of barrels of oil lie beneath the refuge’s coastal plain.
But Democrats have managed to block those efforts in the past. Indeed, the GOP-controlled Congress in 1995 passed a budget allowing refuge drilling, before the measure was vetoed by former President Bill Clinton.
Environmentalists who oppose drilling in the refuge warn the chances of success in Congress are better now.
The Senate is primed to use the special process of reconciliation to pass its budget blueprint so that it can be approved by a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster.
“This is a shameless attempt to hijack the federal budget process and push an exceptionally unpopular idea through Congress so that President Trump can sell off one of our greatest national treasures to the oil industry,” said Jamie Williams, president of the Wilderness Society. “The Arctic Refuge is simply too fragile and special to drill and we have a moral obligation to protect it for future generations of Americans.”
The Trump administration supports Republican efforts to permit refuge drilling, meaning there is little threat of a presidential veto. Last month the Interior Department lifted restrictions on seismic studies to probe how much oil is under the refuge.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Friday the success of Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda hinges on drilling in Alaska’s Arctic refuge.
“The road to energy dominance goes through the great state of Alaska,” Zinke said in a speech on energy policy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Congress designated the 19-million-acre Arctic National as a wildlife refuge in 1980 but set aside a 1.5-million-acre section known as the “1002 area” for possible future drilling if lawmakers approved it.
Republicans have tried and failed to take advantage of that provision. While that could change this year, it’s still unclear if enough Senate Republicans would back the proposal if it goes to a floor vote before the full chamber.
