Steve Heimel, APRN - Anchorage & Libby Casey, APRN - Washington DC
This morning Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is defending the Obama administration's new five-year offshore oil and gas lease sale schedule before the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. The American Petroleum Institute is already pressing for a more aggressive schedule, saying that domestic production is on the rise and needs to be encouraged.
Committee Chairman Doc Hastings is already on record as favoring more drilling, and this week is pushing to make opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain a part of the Republican deficit reduction plan.