In some good news, well at least for the time being, the House has done away
with the ANWR drilling tonight.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican leaders in the U.S. House of
Representatives abandoned, at least temporarily, a drive to open Alaska’s
National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling after concluding on Wednesday the
initiative was threatening passage of a huge bill to cut spending.“ANWR and OCS will be out” of the legislation, said House Budget
Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, an Iowa Republican.Besides the Alaska oil drilling initiative, the House spending-reduction
bill had also called for opening outer-continental shelf, or offshore areas,
to oil and gas drilling.The proposals had drawn opposition from Democrats and two dozen or so
Republicans in the House.The Senate approved the controversial ANWR proposal last week when it
passed $35 billion in spending cuts over five years. That measure estimates
the U.S. government would raise about $2.4 billion in leasing fees if
industry was allowed to develop the refuge’s 10.4 billion barrels of crude.Environmentalists have opposed expanding oil drilling to the sensitive
area in Alaska and some Florida congressmen have worked to kill the offshore
oil and gas drilling plan. Both projects have been a high priority of U.S.
oil companies.
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I can’t help but think there’s some other motive for this. It very well could
be an attempt to try and recover a little bit in popularity but with these
corrupt GOP leaders you never know.