WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday reiterated its commitment to speeding up lease sales and possible oil production in the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope.
But the announcement from the Interior Department, which followed on the heels of a similar pledge by President Barack Obama last month, wasn’t enough for Alaska’s Rep. Don Young and other Republicans in the House of Representatives, who also held a hearing Thursday about the petroleum reserve’s prospects.
Led by Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state, the Republicans complained that delays in federal permitting had held up the roads, bridges and pipelines needed to transport oil from the reserve.
“It’s unacceptable that the federal government is the obstacle to harnessing this energy — American energy,” Hastings said Thursday at the House Natural Resources Committee’s Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee.
