(View Hearing Live at 1:20 p.m. ADT here. Scroll down for details.)

TODAY’S THE DAY:

Alaska is the closest it’s ever been to achieving access to oil and gas on ANWR’s Coastal Plain

TODAY we ALERT our readers who happen to be in Anchorage to attend an Alaska legislative hearing to support BLM’s leasing program.

We hope many of our readers will join us TODAY at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office (LIO) at 1:20 p.m. for a public hearing on Senate Joint Resolution 7 (SJR 7), which advocates for the proposed oil and gas leasing program on the Coastal plain of ANWR. The LIO is on the 2nd floor of the Wells Fargo Building at 1500 W. Benson Blvd., on the corner of Minnesota and Benson. Parking permits are not needed to park in our lot for Legislative business.  WebsiteNOTE: The committee will be taking public testimony, so please spread the word and call in if you are unable to attend the hearing at your local Legislative Information Office. The call in number from Anchorage is 563-9085 and from elsewhere it is 844-586-9085.

SJR 7 passed unanimously out of the Senate Resources Committee on February 28th despite enviro-activist opposition testimony. Today’s hearing is before the House Resources Committee.  Let’s show up to stand up for Alaska in this final effort to keep Alaska on record in support of reasonable development.

Why is it reasonable? Alaska’s Constitution and statehood itself rests on the presumption that Alaska’s people and economy can survive by reasonably developing Alaska’s resources.  The principal wealth-producing resources are oil & gas.  Congress supported this reasonable development three times: first with passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, then with a coastal plain approval that President Clinton vetoed and finally with passage of last year’s budget act.  Now the question should be not, “if” but “how soon”.

We hear that last week’s Senate hearing was dominated by activists who opposed oil and gas development on the coastal plain, and across the North Slope.   Were they to prevail, of course, Alaska’s future would be crushed and the state would very likely again become a direct or indirect ward of the federal government.
Today, Alaska’s citizens should weigh in decisively.
For more information, check out this RDC fact sheet.  While today’s hearing concerns a state resolution of support for BLM’s ANWR leasing program, we thought you might find our testimony at a similar, recent Federal hearing of interest, here.
See you after lunch!
-dh