Issue Position: Oil

Issue Position

We must get the pipeline filled again. Fewer barrels through the line mean fewer jobs for our families; and since we have declined from a peak of two million barrels per day down to 575 thousand -- we've lost a lot of jobs.
There are reasons for this and it has nothing to do with a decline of oil up north. There are about 40 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil up there and we have the infrastructure and the expertise to develop it. So what's the problem? The problem is nonsensical, radical, left wing environmentalism.

Alaska is in the sites of these malevolent do-gooders and they are destroying our economy. The story of the company that spent 5 billion while waiting 5 years to get an air quality permit tells the tale. Unfortunately, their story is not the exception but the rule in Alaska. By the way, this permit takes about a month for companies drilling off shore in Louisiana and Texas. Other companies are aware of the hostile business environment up here and are moving elsewhere. In May of this year North Dakota surpassed Alaska as an oil producing state -- disgraceful.

Unfortunately, their attacks are not just on oil companies, they stop or slow everything we try to accomplish -- roads, mines, powerplants - everything. They intrude under the pretense of protecting the environment, but these environmental organizations are huge fundraising machines with extraordinarily high paid lobbyists and lawyers at the top. They exist to stand against capitalism and to fund huge litigation machines that are remarkably profitable for those involved. It's time we told these meddlers to back off. We Alaskans take care of our state because we love it and we don't need them to protect us from ourselves.

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