House and Senate Budget Committee Open the Door to Arctic Refuge Drilling and Tax Cuts for Millionaires

WASHINGTON, DC -- Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate budget committee both passed budget resolutions that open the door to oil drilling in the sensitive coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.The resolution includes instructions to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to generate $1 billion over 10 years for the federal budget, instructions that will likely lead to  drilling for oil  and gas in the Arctic Refuge. Along with a House Budget that instructs the Natural Resources committee to generate 3.6 billion over 10 years through similar mechanisms.  By using the budget reconciliation process, protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge can be overturned by a simple majority vote. Additionally, the resolutions give massive tax cuts to millionaires, leaving middle class American families to pay for big corporations.

In response Sierra Club’s Executive Director Michael Brune issued the following statement:

“If budgets reflect values, then Congress is clearly only interested in democracy for the wealthiest few. But working families and the Arctic Refuge and the human rights of the Gwich’in who depend on it are more than just line items to be slashed for the benefit of the profits of corporate polluters and millionaires. We cannot allow corporate polluters to benefit at the cost of either the Gwich’in Nation, whose lives depend on the Arctic Refuge, or at the cost of working families and the middle class, who will be left paying for handouts to wealthy special interests.

“Congress must reject any attempt to undermine decades of protection for the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in addition to rejecting tax cuts for the rich that are paid for by everyone else.”