The House approved a bill Thursday barring drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a measure that would reverse a change in the 2017 Republican tax bill that repealed a long-time ban on energy development there.
The bill passed mostly on partisan lines 225 to 193, with only four Republicans supporting it.
It won’t be considered by the Republican-controlled Senate, meaning Democrats mostly intended the bill to set the terms of the energy and climate change debate as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies.
Most Democratic presidential candidates have proposed to ban all new fossil fuel leases on federal lands and waters, and the party’s leaders in Congress are seeking to support those positions.
The House also approved a pair of anti-offshore drilling bills Wednesday that stand no chance in the Senate.
The 19.6-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, known as ANWR, has long been a fraught topic in Congress.
Republicans are closer than ever to achieving their goal of drilling in the long off-limits ANWR after Congress, as part of the GOP tax cut bill of 2017, voted to allow energy exploration in a 1.5 million-acre section of the refuge, known as the “1002 area,” where billions of barrels of oil are believed to lie beneath the coastal plain.
ANWR was created under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1960. In 1980, Congress provided additional protections to the refuge, but set aside the 1002 area for future drilling if lawmakers approved it.
Democrats have managed to block those efforts over fears that drilling would harm the ecosystem of what they call one of the wildest places left on earth, with polar bears, caribou, and arctic foxes.
After finally succeeding with the 2017 tax bill, Republicans and the Trump administration are racing to begin oil and gas leases before the 2020 election, when a Democrat could win the White House and block the planned sales.
The Interior Department is expected soon to release an environmental impact statement assessing the risks of drilling in ANWR, a necessary step before the agency conducts a lease sale, which the Trump administration is planning for this year.
Any actual drilling wouldn’t happen for 10 to 15 years, and it’s uncertain how interested energy companies would be in the opportunity, with oil prices hovering at low levels in the mid-$50s per barrel and competition steep from in the nation’s lower 48 shale regions.
