Oversight Hearing: Hearing on Promoting Onshore Oil and Gas Development in Alaska

DEMOCRATIC TOP-LINE MESSAGES

• Some places are simply too wild and too fragile to drill – the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is
  one of them.

• Contrary to Republican statements that there was a “War on Alaska” for the past eight years, the
  Obama Administration approved numerous major oil exploration and development projects in
  the Alaskan Arctic.

• The management plan for the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska is a thoughtful and balanced
  approach to allowing energy development in some areas while protecting others.

• Secretary Zinke’s order to create a new management plan for the NPR-A, and the proposal to
  open ANWR, is simply an attempt to let oil companies run roughshod over the Arctic,
  potentially destroying ecologically sensitive areas and threatening the subsistence practices of
  native Arctic villages in the search for higher profits and more oil to export.