WASHINGTON — Today, Institute for Energy Research President Thomas Pyle issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s trip to Alaska:
“If ‘alarm bells are ringing’ in Alaska today, as President Obama puts it, it’s because for six years the president has engaged in a deliberate strategy to starve Alaska’s economy. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is running dry not because Alaska is running out of oil, but because President Obama is preventing Alaskans from developing their own natural resources.
“A possible death knell came earlier this year, when Obama’s Interior proposed a wilderness designation for more than 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s no wonder State Representative Benjamin Nageak, a Democrat and the only U.S. lawmaker who was born in ANWR, spoke out against Obama’s overreach. Instead of presuming to know what’s best for Alaska, the president would be better served letting Alaskans decide how to use and conserve their natural resources.”
For reference, here is what Alaska State Representative Benjamin Nageak said opposing President Obama’s ANWR decision:
“That is wrong. When you give the people the ability to enrich themselves you don’t lock up their lands so they don’t do anything else but just sit on it and nothing comes out of it except the renewable resources that we depend on. That to me is wrong.”
Click here to read IER’s Fact Sheet, “Pipeline Starved, Potential Untapped.”
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