Fairbanks News Miner.  Congressman Don Young  (NGP Photo) has filed legislation that would toss out the recently completed managCongressman Don Young, NPR-A, Photo by Dave Harbourement plan for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
   …   The bill, HR1964, would nullify a plan adopted by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in February, Young said. The plan administratively withdrew about half the reserve from oil and gas leasing.  (See more on this story below.)

Alaska Dispatch by Pat Forgey.  "We’re in a process of evaluating how we want to adjust the capital program," says Matt Fox, ConocoPhillip’s executive vice president for exploration and development. "I’d like to see us adjust the capital program so we can completely arrest the decline in production in Alaska, or even turn it around."

Next Wednesday, May 22nd, the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources will hold a legislative hearing on four bills to protect and expand onshore energy production on federal lands in Alaska and elsewhere.

Subcommittee Hearing Notice – May 15, 2013 – Read more below:

H.R. 1964 (Hastings of WA, with Alaska Congressman Don Young), To amend the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 to direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, including at least one lease sale in the Reserve each year in the period 2013 through 2023, and for other purposes.  ‘‘National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Access Act.”
H.R. 1965 (Lamborn),To streamline and ensure onshore energy permitting, provide for onshore leasing certainty, and give certainty to oil shale development for American energy security, economic development, and job creation, and for other purposes.  “Federal Lands Jobs and Energy Security Act.”
H.R. 1394 (Tipton),  To direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish goals for an all-of-the-above energy production plan strategy on a 4-year basis on all onshore Federal lands managed by the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service,“Planning for American Energy Act.”

H.R. 555 (Johnson, OH), To amend the Mineral Leasing Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to conduct onshore oil and gas lease sales through Internet-based live lease sales, and for other purposes, “BLM Live Internet Auctions Act.”  

Our friend, Steve Borrell urges us to review this Fuel Fix article describing ‘unequal treatment under the law’.  It is a good preamble to the notes below.  -dh

Banghazi, IRS, AP: Government is the Problem
 
by Nick Adams
 
America is in debt.
 
Most notably, it owes its remarkable exceptionalism and the durability of its experiment to the men who founded it.
 
With a penetrating prescience, these men grasped better than any before them the true nature of man, and the circumstances under which he flourishes. Where every other Constitution in the world stipulates the rights of government, the American declares the rights of the individual.
 
Limited government is an American value.
 
Sadly, the greatest nation in the world has drifted from the spirit of that hallowed document, its authors and this exceptional value.
 
Countless administrations and agencies evidence a massively expanding federal government.
 
And this week, a trifecta of problems promptly arrives: Benghazi, IRS persecution and AP records seizure.
 
More salient examples of precisely what the founders of the magnificent America dreaded and insulated against cannot be conceived.
 
No citizen should fear any portion of the government in a healthy republic. No arm of government should be a weapon of intimidation or political retribution. And yet the IRS under Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Obama and possibly others has served not just as the pipeline of wealth distribution, but also for these exact nefarious purposes.
 
The matter of Benghazi is deeply perturbing. One thing has always been true about America: it never leaves one of its own behind. It is a message steeped in military code that has been reinforced ceaselessly in history and popular culture. Yet increasingly it appears this may well have happened on September 11, 2012.
 
Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods deserve justice, as do the American people.
 
More information on the legal basis must emerge before we can render a judgment on the Department of Justice (DOJ) seizure of AP record logs, but the threats the action poses to a free press and the newsgathering process are alarmingly clear.
 
This ‘scandal’ trio has the press corps in a lather not seen since the George W Bush administration.
 
Suddenly they find their skepticism dissipating; their backsides on the very same bleachers as conservatives. Suddenly, they understand, at least momentarily, what the fuss has been about. But it’s not enough. It’s shameful. For too long, the mainstream media has protected and disseminated liberal ideology to the detriment of the nation. Reporting on the Boston terror attack, and Benghazi prior to the emergence of whistleblowers and clear changes to talking points, by major US media, unmistakably revealed their automatic assumption: American guilt. Nothing could be more pernicious than this mindset; nothing more offensive or contrary to the American narrative.
In just days, voices that for years were derided and traduced were vindicated and recognized as visionary. Those voices had, and have, a prescience America’s founders would be proud of; they were, and remain, in keeping with a tradition of exceptionalism. Social reform to the limited government value of America will lead to its evolution to the moribund mediocrity of a European state.
 
At the commencement speech to the graduating class of Ohio State less than a fortnight ago, President Obama made the following observation:
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.
 
"Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.”
 
Under the menacing shadows of Benghazi, the IRS and the AP, these words now return to haunt him.
Commentary.  (We intentionaly placed this Alaska issue next to a comment on overreaching government actions.  The subjects are different; the principles are in common.)
 
According to our friends at the Resource Development Council for Alaska, "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a revised assessment of the Bristol Bay region." The revised draft prematurely tries to inventory the effects of a large mining project on state — not federal — lands before a project submits its plans.
 
RDC notes that the EPA initiative is flawed because it cannot possibly know the development plan and mitigating measures a large mining interest will take until an entity has filed for permits.
 
RDC believes, "that any project … should be allowed to be vetted through existing permitting processes, and be properly evaluated through the National Environmental Policy Act."
 
We are also concerned that, should the agency continue to seek to determine the merits of a project before an advocate files plans for such a project, it will set a dangerous precedent for all natural resource work requiring EPA permit approvals.
 
The precedent could well enable a rogue EPA to use its power to conduct faulty "assessments" of oil and gas, mining, timber, road, bridge, or other human activities before advocates have even perfected their plans and filed complete permit applications with the EPA–or other agencies.  It could extend that power by announcing that the assesment had produced evidence that such and such a project should not occur.
 
Furthermore, the EPA’s threatening action to stop leaseholders of state lands to file permits for a project endangers the statehood compact among Alaska Citizens, the state government, the Congress and the Administration.  In short, we see this action as a "taking" or stripping away of Alaska statehood rights.  It is a "Taking" if the EPA uses this strawman "Assessment" to prematurely veto a project.  It is a "Taking" even if the project goes forward to the extent that the Feds, with Enviro-extremist and special interest encouragement, has (already) dearly cost the taxpayers of America, the citizens of Alaska, the State as a lessor and a company lessee of state lands.
 
We join with RDC in encouraging everyone to submit written comments by the May   31st deadline, discouraging the EPA from preemptively vetoing projects in the Bristol Bay area–or, anywhere else, for that matter.
 
"Tell the EPA to stop undermining existing regulatory processes and avoid setting a dangerous precedent for development", RDC urges.
 
This week, the current administration stands accused of ignoring or defying the "rule of law" with respect to three current crises it faces.  We believe that developing "assessments" before anyone files for a natural resources related permit that might affect that watershed is arbitrary and capricious regulatory behavior that provides more evidence of federal willingness to violate due process and the rule of law.
 
See RDC’s full Action Alert for more a historical perspective and direction for how to file your comment.  Please comment and then send your comment to us so that we may reprint it.
 
-dh
Yesterday, the House Natural Resources Committee approved H.R. 1613, the “Outer Continental Shelf Transboundary Hydrocarbon Agreements Authorization Act” with a bipartisan vote of 25-16.  The bill would lift the current moratorium on drilling along the maritime border and provide new access to an area estimated to contain as much as 172 million barrels of oil and 304 billion cubic feet of natural gas.  This will expand energy development, create new American jobs, lower energy prices, generate new revenue, and make America more energy secure. 
 
Congressman Doc Hastings, Resources Chairman, Photo by Dave Harbour“Approval of this legislation by the Committee is important to finalizing this agreement and expanding American energy production.  This bill would create jobs, lower energy prices by increasing our domestic supply, generate new federal revenue to help lower the debt and strengthen our economy, and make America more energy secure by opening up new areas in the Gulf of Mexico to exploration and development.  In addition, this important legislation would lay the framework for transboundary agreements with other nations that will allow America to fully utilize its shared natural energy reserves.” said Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (NGP Photo).

Rigzone: Washington Must Find a Way to Say ‘Yes’ to Offshore Exploration