Dept of Interior Limits National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska Energy Production

You may have noticed that the cost to fill up your automobile's gas tank has risen this past month.  For more than 32 days, the price of gas has risen and continues to that path.  

The 44-cent jump in gasoline prices over the past four weeks was the largest in well over three years, according to AAA.“The 44-cent month-over-month increase is the most dramatic since June 2009. The largest increase on record was August 5-September 4, 2005 when prices jumped 75 cents largely because of Hurricane Katrina,” the travelers’ services group said in its weekly price analysis.

So, how is Team Obama managing this alarming trend? The Department of Interior is limiting, not expanding, the available land to produce energy - even that of a reserve specifically established by Congress for that very purpose.


On Thursday, the Department of the Interior finalized plans to lock up the majority of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) from energy production. The NPR-A was specifically established by Congress for oil and natural gas production and contains over 2.7 billion barrels of oil and 114.36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. 

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) Thursday released the following statement after the Department of the Interior finalized plans to lock up the majority of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) from energy production. 

“As gasoline prices continue to increase for the 34th day in a row, the Obama Administration has responded by locking up a majority of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which Congress specifically established for oil and natural gas production,” said Chairman Hastings. “Only in President Obama’s backwards worldview of anti-energy policies does it make sense to prohibit energy production in a place specifically set aside for energy production at a time when gasoline prices are skyrocketing and federal oil and natural gas production is declining.”

According to conservative estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 2.7 billion barrels of oil and 114.36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the NPR-A. Last Congress, the Natural Resources Committee passed bipartisan legislation to create jobs, expand energy production and lower energy costs by ensuring that oil and natural gas resources in the NPR-A are developed and transported in a timely, efficient manner.


President Obama has also decided, apparently, to continue blocking the construction of the Keystone Pipeline XL, though all studies continue to show it can be done in an environmentally friendly way.  So, if crude oil is not transported by a pipeline, how is it, you ask? By railroad.  And, who is a big winner here? Obama pal Warren Buffett.  

And of them, the biggest winner might just be the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Obama supporter and Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett. In December, the CEO of BNSF, Matthew Rose, said that his railroad was shipping about 500,000 barrels of oil per day out of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and that it was seeking a permit to send “crude by rail to the Pacific Northwest.” He also said the railroad expects to “eventually” be shipping 1 million barrels of oil per day.

How very cozy.