The people and economy of Alaska and the nation took a big hit when regulators at the Department of Interior canceled a host of oil leases in the state and later ruled to restrict oil and gas production on millions of acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
These actions negatively affect all Americans by limiting access to affordable energy sources. In fact, the United States has even started to look overseas to import foreign oil from unfriendly countries such as Venezuela.
President Joe Biden resorted to draining the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to mitigate high fuel prices, draining the reserve down to its lowest level since it was initially created in 1983. Just this week Biden announced yet another release of gasoline, totaling 1 million barrels, from federal storage sites to lower gas prices for drivers ahead of the summer.
The only good news is that Congress can fix this problem.
To its credit, the House of Representatives passed a bill at the start of May (H.R. 6285, Alaska’s Right to Produce Act of 2023) that would reinstate the canceled oil leases and nullify the agency’s rule restricting production in the National Petroleum Reserve.
Now the Senate should pass this bill. Alaska’s two senators, Republicans Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, have been leading the way by introducing the bill in that chamber (S.B. 3289). Even if Biden vetoes it, Congress would be sending a message to the Interior Department and the administration to stop playing politics with Alaskan energy.
In general, Congress needs to make sure critical energy sources are not being left in the ground. The U.S. possesses ample natural resources capable of bolstering domestic energy supplies, especially in Alaska. The state’s Department of Natural Resources claims Alaska is “relatively underexplored” compared to other states when it comes to oil and gas reserves. Alaska only has 500 exploration wells on the North Slope, way behind Wyoming, which has about 19,000.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “many of Alaska’s oil fields are mature [approaching the end of their productive life], and in 2023 the state’s oil production averaged 426,000 barrels per day, the lowest level since 1976.” Alaska is also rich in rare earth metals, which are essential to the manufacturing of modern technology. These resources, like much of Alaska’s oil and gas, are largely untapped.
The Alaska’s Right to Produce Act is not the only way Congress can put a stop to this attack on Alaskan energy, although it is the best option.
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Congress could block federal funding for these actions against Alaskan energy production. In addition, Congress could take a hard look at the Interior Department’s 2025 budget plans, currently being negotiated. As Murkowski stated during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, “if Interior is going to use its funding to make these kinds of decisions that penalize my state in this way, then I feel like what we need to be doing here is looking for ways to cut the department’s budget until the department gets the point.”
Congress needs to take action to remove the Biden administration’s obstacles to energy production, including in Alaska. This would bolster domestic energy supplies and mitigate unnecessary risks associated with relying on foreign sources.
Patricia Patnode is a research fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.