WASHINGTON — Twelve House Republicans have come out against the latest GOP-led effort to open up a 1.5 million-acre swath of Alaska’s fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. (In a separate statement, however, Costello urged Congress not to include changes to the refuge in the tax plan.) Rather, it highlights the decades of bipartisan support for protecting the area and notes the Trump administration’s push to allow seismic testing and other activities in the coastal plain, a move the group says “could threaten imperiled species and fragile habitat.”Opening the coastal plain is on the Trump administration’s fossil fuel-centric wish list. The Senate is expected to vote Friday on its tax proposal. The Senate budget plan included a provision that required the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Murkowski chairs, to come up with $1 billion in additional revenue over the next decade to help pay for tax reform.

Source: Huffington Post December 01, 2017 21:11 UTC