In June, Alaska’s Congressional Delegation rebuked the Biden Administration for suspending all oil and gas leases for portions of the non-wilderness Coastal Plain (1002 Area) of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, pending the outcome of another environmental review. Last week, Congressman Don Young joined the online public policy platform, A Starting Point, to defend Alaska’s energy sector against misinformation. He was joined in the discussion with Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey.
Young talks about why the Biden Administration suspended oil drilling leases in ANWR:
“Biden did what, very frankly, the environmental community, which has his ear, what they wanted to do. I think we’re going to court over it, but we’re going to go ahead and drill and let them try and stop us from our areas that the state bought. There is a lot of oil there. We don’t know for sure how much is, but some estimates, but it’s reality. He just did something that I don’t think is correct, but it was a political decision made by interest groups that opposed it all the time.”
Young on how ANWR drilling would contribute to the U.S. energy production:
“It depends on how much oil is there. You think about the price of gasoline, now we’re more dependent on foreign oil than we were before January and that’s not healthy to the economy. We are, very frankly, a fossil-driven society right now and will be for a long time. There may be a change in time. Let’s not kid ourselves, I have an electric car, and the dependency on the barrel of molecules that are in a barrel to make other things. The plastics, which is bad sometimes. Pampers, you name it. I looked around my office the other day, the rug, my desktop, is all made from oil. There’s a huge demand for those molecules because they can be reconfigured into another form. That’s what the American public doesn’t think about.”
The Congressman talks on if the president unilaterally block oil drilling in ANWR:
“He does have the power not to allow leases, but when the leases were let already, is what I’m saying. I don’t think he has, and we’re going to court over that, I don’t think he has the power to stop it. I’ve also been one to study the government of the United States from the conception. The president was never to have the power that he’s utilizing now. If you want to lose this democracy of ours, just keep ignoring the fact that the transferring of power to the president. I don’t think he has the legal authority; we’ll find out in court about the leases and then we’ll win.”
The leases were issued in January, under the Trump Administration, pursuant to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which authorized responsible energy development in ANWR.
View the discussion here:
