Since taking office 10 horrifying months ago, Donald Trump has been able to assemble a team filled with fossil fuel interests that is determined to destroy the livability of the planet and all for a quick buck. The chaos President, with it’s endless scandals of obstruction of justice and treason, has allowed the equally revolting GOP congress to enact their craven environmental agenda while the public’s attention is focused on the Mueller investigation.
The Republicans in the senate lack the 60 votes needed to pass a bill to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to seismic testing and oil and gas drilling. The profits of this proposed environmental calamity if passed (they have the votes to do so) will be disbursed in the form of tax cuts to the richest people in this country. Does this sound familiar to the GOP plot to take away the health care of tens of millions of Americans?
ANWR authorization through budget would avoid filibuster
Republicans in Congress are angling to use the budget process as a means to opening part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development.
The House of Representatives passed House Concurrent Resolution 71 on Oct. 5, which authorizes spending for the 2018 fiscal year and provides general recommendations on spending priorities through 2027. It includes language instructing the House Natural Resources Committee to find ways to generate at least $5 billion in new revenue over the next 10 years as a way to cut the annual deficit.
The 464-page budget report also instructs Congress to focus on energy production from federal lands.
“Unlocking domestic energy supplies in a safe, environmentally responsible manner will increase receipts from bonus bids, rental payments, royalties, and fees,” the budget report states. “The budget allows for greater access in areas such as Alaska, the Outer Continental Shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Intermountain West.”
The Senate Budget Committee had its own instructions for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, to find ways to generate $1 billion for the Treasury in its 2018 budget resolution released Sept. 29.
GOP throws health care curveball into ANWR fight
Senate Republicans last night punted on a series of tough decisions on key energy tax breaks in the latest version of their tax bill, while injecting the tricky politics of health care into the push to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
The revised chairman's mark, released by Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), makes no mention of orphaned renewables, biodiesel, nuclear or carbon capture and sequestration credits sought by members of both parties in the more than 350 amendments filed to the bill (E&E Daily, Nov. 14).
However, the revised measure would repeal the individual mandate tax that lies at the heart of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Obama-era health care law that Republicans have failed repeatedly to repeal after years of promises to do so.
While quelling growing furor among conservatives by repealing the Obamacare tax, the move also would raise $318 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), easing concerns that the bill would exceed fiscal limits.
"By scrapping this unpopular tax from an unworkable law, we not only ease the financial burdens already associated with the mandate, but also generate additional revenue to provide more tax relief to these individuals," Hatch said in a statement.
But reviving the health care fight in tax reform also adds a wrinkle to the ANWR fight, which will flare again this morning down the hall from the ongoing Finance Committee markup, as Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) prepares to move legislation through her committee to open the reserve to drilling.
Murkowski, along with fellow GOPers Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona, voted down the Senate GOP's efforts to repeal much of the ACA. In doing so, she repeatedly cited the potential impact on health coverage in her state, which has expanded under the law.
Murkowski now may face a choice of whether to secure the legislative victory on ANWR that has eluded the Alaska delegation — including her father, former Energy Chairman Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) — for nearly 40 years, or maintain health coverage for thousands of Alaskans.
Polar bears in Kaktovik, Alaska, within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Sept. 11, 2016. The prospects for opening the refuge to oil and gas exploration are better than they have been in years. The coastal plain is the home of polar bears and other marine mammals, caribou, grizzly bears, wolves, musk oxen, fish and migratory birds. It is a vital resource to Alaska’s Gwich’in people who have for generations relied on the Arctic Refuge to support ancient subsistence and cultural traditions.The GOP dream of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling might come true
Long before environmentalists and the fossil fuel industry traded blows over the Keystone XL pipeline and hydraulic fracturing, ANWR was the definitive issue dividing them.
The case for establishing the refuge was first laid out in the journal of the Sierra Club in 1953, and groups ranging from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Audubon Society have all campaigned and litigated against Alaska’s attempts to allow drilling in ANWR for decades.
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The 19 million-acre refuge, managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, was created in 1960 and remains the largest wildlife refuge in the United States. It’s home to polar bears, musk oxen, and migratory birds from six continents, and is the calving ground for the porcupine caribou. There are no roads and fewer than 500 people living in or near the refuge.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, expanding ANWR and opening the door to drilling in a 1.5 million-acre region of the refuge. However, there was a snag: Drilling would require an environmental impact study and approval from Congress.
Leaving the fate of oil drilling in ANWR to lawmakers has let this issue drag out for decades as support and opposition to drilling waxed and waned. Environmentalists have managed to successfully persuade Democrats (and some Republicans) to defend it.
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Cantwell was more blunt: “With another Republican Congress comes another attempt to turn over this iconic national wildlife refuge to the oil and gas industry,” she said, adding that she’s “going to fight tooth and nail until this attempt fails too.”
Last month, Cantwell said the current effort to open ANWR to drilling mimics past attempts where the provision piggybacked on vital legislation, including budgets and military spending authorization.
“When are they going to stop holding us all hostage to vote for the Arctic Wildlife Refuge being opened, when in reality, oil companies today aren’t interesting in drilling there at this price?” she said, standing in front of activists in bird and polar bear costumes.
For Trump, this is part of his idiotic idea to reverse everything that President Obama had accomplished.
From 2013.
Strike Three: Feds reject Alaska governor’s assault on the Arctic Refuge
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell just doesn’t want to take “no” for an answer, but he must be getting used to it, because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has once again turned down Parnell’s request to search for oil on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In May, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell became the first to shoot down Parnell’s proposal to begin 3-D seismic testing. In early July, Parnell asked again, and USFWS Regional Director Geoffrey Haskett quickly informed the governor that his plan is not allowed under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Unwilling to accept this decision, Parnell decided to go over Haskett’s head.
Parnell had Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan ask for a reconsideration of Haskett’s decision. That request was also rejected – this time by USFWS Director Dan Ashe -- for the same reason: Oil exploration in the coastal plain of the refuge would be illegal.
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