Alaska's Right to Produce Act of 2023
Floor Speech
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Mr. PFLUGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and my good friend, Mr. Stauber, for this bill.
Let's just call it what it is. It is not a big secret that the Biden administration hates American energy. Since day one, they have waged a complete and all-out war on domestic production.
If you take yourself back to 2019, then-candidate Biden said he would kill fossil fuels. I think they made good on that promise, and this is another example of that.
In September 2023, the administration canceled existing oil and gas leases in the Coastal Plain of Alaska, violating statutorily mandated lease sales and suspending operations crucial to Alaska's economy. These actions were taken despite bipartisan opposition in Alaska as we just heard from our colleague across the aisle.
H.R. 6285, a House Energy Action Team initiative, would reverse Biden's harmful anti-Alaska policies by reinstating mandated ANWR oil and gas leases and prohibiting a leasing moratorium in the Coastal Plain, and nullifying executive orders by the President.
Just last week, the administration denied permission for the development of the Ambler Road, once again, superseding ongoing conversations at the State level.
Alaskans should be able to decide what they want to develop, not the administration, but Alaskans who know Alaska.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the RSC HEAT staff for their work on this legislation and Representative Stauber.
Let me just respond to something that we have heard about Ukraine, about Russia, about the administration. Let me remind all Americans, Mr. Speaker, that it was this President in 2021 who refused to continue and to enhance the sanctions on the Nord Stream pipeline that would have helped all of Europe. It would have helped the Ukrainians more than anything.
If you want to talk about being strong and standing up to Russia, let's take ourselves back to that point where this administration failed to do that, and instead handed Putin a huge gift and decided to declare an all-out war on American energy. This is just yet another example of that.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
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