Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Land Management Relating to ``National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision''

Floor Speech

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Mr. BEGICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of S.J. Res. 80, legislation to disapprove of the Bureau of Land Management's 2022 Integrated Activity Plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

Let me be very clear. This is not an abstract policy debate for the people of Alaska. This is about whether the Federal Government will honor both the law and its commitments to the people who call Alaska home and whether America will choose energy independence over energy uncertainty.

The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, an area the size of Indiana, was set aside more than a century ago to ensure that the United States had a strategic domestic energy supply. Congress reaffirmed that purpose in the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act, directing the Secretary of the Interior to conduct an ``expeditious program of competitive leasing'' in the NPR-A, but the 2022 Integrated Activity Plan issued in the final stretch of the last administration turned that congressional mandate on its head.

It shut the door on 48 percent of the reserve, reducing available acreage from 18.6 million acres to just 11.8 million acres, and restricted infrastructure corridors across millions more. In effect, the plan attempted to create a wilderness area in a petroleum reserve, and it did so without listening to the people who actually live there.

Alaska is asking us to act.

The Inupiat people who live in the area have spoken, and they could not have been clearer. Through the North Slope Regional Trilateral--the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, the North Slope Borough, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, we have heard that the Biden administration's 2022 plan imposed ``sweeping restrictions that curtail responsible development, undermine congressional intent, and disregard the well-being of the people who depend on these lands for both subsistence and livelihoods.''

These communities are located in an area nearly the size of Minnesota with no highway connections, extreme transportation costs, and a cost of living among the highest in the Nation. Oil and gas development funds their schools, their public safety, their utilities, their clinics, basic services that most Americans assume that their local government can provide. On the North Slope, that stability exists because responsible development exists, and we have a duty to ensure that it continues.

Alaska's business community stands with them. The Alaska Support Industry Alliance, representing 547 companies and 35,000 Alaskan workers, warned that the 2022 plan jeopardizes the jobs and investment that their families depend on. National organizations from the National Federation of Independent Businesses to the American Exploration & Production Council to the American Petroleum Institute have also voiced their support for reversing this restrictive rule, and the administration itself has made clear that restoring access to the NPR-A is a priority.

President Trump's Executive Order No. 14153, Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential, directs the Secretary of the Interior to review and rescind the 2022 decision and reestablish a balanced framework consistent with the 2020 plan.

This statement of administration policy strongly supports this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, Alaska is ready to power America. We are ready to help lower energy costs for families and small businesses. We are ready to strengthen national security by reducing our reliance on foreign nations. The people who live in Alaska's Far North, the people whose ancestors have called the region home for 10,000 years, are asking us to restore the balanced, lawful management framework that they helped shape.

S.J. Res. 80 does exactly that. It restores congressional intent. It restores certainty for Alaska's communities. It restores America's strategic energy reserve.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting S.J. Res. 80, and to stand with Alaska, with energy workers, with the Inupiat people of the North Slope, and with an American future grounded in abundant, affordable, secure energy.

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