By Jessica Goad

Yesterday, the House Natural Resources Committee passed three bills to mandate and encourage oil and gas drilling in the West.  All of the bills throw open more public lands to drilling, mirroring the wishes of the oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Just two days ago, API released a report outlining its political wish list.  It included two provisions about drilling on lands that belong to American taxpayers:

We Are Calling For: The opening of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge – 1002 Area; portions of the Rocky Mountains; lifting of the drilling moratorium in New York, and timely review projects on federal land.

We Are Calling For:  The federal government to increase lease sales and adopt pro-access processes to improve development of U.S. oil and natural gas resources on public lands.

All three of the drilling bills passed by the Natural Resources Committee yesterday seek to open more lands for oil and gas development, increase lease sales, and streamline access — just as API has asked Congress to do:

-  H.R. 4381 from Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) requires planning for an “all of the above” energy plan on public lands and requires the ...

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