Sen. Murkowski: Excuses to Block ANWR Have Officially Expired

Press Release

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today spoke to Fox Business News about the 10-year anniversary of the Senate vote that blocked the opening of ANWR. The excuse cited by most of those who opposed drilling in the ANWR coastal plain was that it would take 10 years to get the oil to market.

"When we talk about what we can do as a nation to increase our domestic production, we need to look north," Murkowski said. "If we had opened up ANWR in 1995, when Congress passed it and Clinton vetoed it, we'd have over a million barrels a day coming into the United States from the state of Alaska - domestic production that we're currently getting from Saudi Arabia."

"Where is our energy policy that says we as a nation can be more energy independent? We are so shortsighted when we say we can't tap into our own resources; we can't look to our northern neighbor and best trading partner -- Canada. We need to have a vision for energy in this country that says let's find more of what we have and use less."

Sen. Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, also wrote an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal on the topic:

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