{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-ranking-member-heinrich-delivers-remarks-on-senate-floor-stressing-need-to-protect-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-blasts-trump-administration-for-relentless-ongoing-attacks-on-public-lands", "ICYMI: Ranking Member Heinrich Delivers Remarks on Senate Floor Stressing Need to Protect Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Blasts Trump Administration For Relentless, Ongoing Attacks on Public Lands", "2025-12-04", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "NM", "Martin Heinrich", "H001046", "www.heinrich.senate.gov", "heinrich", "https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2014 Yesterday, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, delivered remarks on the Senate floor stressing the need to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and urged his colleagues to vote no on a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval that will upend the management plan for the Arctic Refuge, risking one of the world's last great wild landscapes.\n\nVIDEO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee delivers floor speech on Congressional Republicans\u2019 Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution of disapproval undoing a resource management plan aimed at protecting the Arctic Refuge, December 3, 2025.\n\n\u201cSimply put, the Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of the American national wildlife refuge system, and it has been ever since it was set aside in 1960 by President Eisenhower to protect its wildlife and habitat values,\u201d started Heinrich. \u201cBut that\u2019s only part of its story. The Arctic Refuge is also deeply connected to the traditions and daily life of the people who have lived there for thousands of years \u2013 longer than this building, this city, or this country have existed. Because the Refuge is not just land. For wildlife, it\u2019s essential habitat.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Arctic Refuge is under threat from the Trump Administration\u2019s relentless attacks on public lands \u2013 attacks that put so-called \"energy dominance\u201d above every other use. Every other value,\u201d continued Heinrich. \u201cNow we could be discussing ways, ways to lower electricity costs, which are spiraling out of control. Or doing something about the skyrocketing health care costs in this country right now, but instead, we're talking about industrial oil and gas development in the beating heart of our greatest wildlife refuge, literally developing the place where the Porcupine Caribou Herd drops their calves every year.\u201d\n\nA video of Heinrich\u2019s floor speech can be found here.\n\nA transcript of Heinrich\u2019s remarks as delivered is below:\n\nMr. President, nestled in the far northeast corner of Alaska is one of the wildest and most untouched places in America \u2013 the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.\n\nI have been blessed to see this refuge with my own eyes, and I\u2019ve seen its towering peaks.\n\nI've seen the critical habitat on the coastal plain where caribou drop their calves.\n\nI've even seen its polar bears.\n\nAnd over the course of a year in the Arctic Refuge, you might also see one of the last great spectacles of migrating caribou, dueling musk ox straight out of the Pleistocene or rare spectacle eiders nesting on the coastal plain.\n\nIn fact, the Arctic Refuge is home to hundreds of iconic wildlife species, including 200 species of birds that have called this landscape home since long before humans stepped on this continent.\n\nSimply put, the Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of the American national wildlife refuge system, and it has been ever since it was set aside in 1960 by President Eisenhower to protect its wildlife and habitat values.\n\nBut that\u2019s only part of its story.\n\nThe Arctic Refuge is also deeply connected to the traditions and daily life of the people who have lived there for thousands of years \u2013 longer than this building, this city, or this country have existed.\n\nBecause the Refuge is not just land.\n\nFor wildlife, it\u2019s essential habitat.\n\nFor many people who live there and are sustained by its caribou. This place is literally their grocery store.\n\nIt\u2019s not just a reminder of the past \u2013 it\u2019s hope for the future.\n\nBut that future is at stake.\n\nThe Arctic Refuge is under threat from the Trump Administration\u2019s relentless attacks on public lands \u2013 attacks that put so-called \"energy dominance\u201d above every other use.\n\nEvery other value.\n\nToday, the Senate will vote on a Congressional Resolution of Disapproval to overturn the management plan for the Arctic Refuge.\n\nAnd instead of a targeted approach that emphasizes subsistence hunting and wildlife conservation, and a focus on Tribal consultation, a vote for this resolution will\u2014redundantly \u2014 open up the entire Coastal Plain of the Refuge to be leased for oil drilling without local input.\n\nI say redundantly, because the Trump Administration has already overturned this management plan.\n\nAnd Republicans in Congress have already passed legislation requiring this area \u2013 a national wildlife refuge -- requiring it to be drilled for oil, despite a complete lack of interest by legitimate industry players.\n\nNow we could be discussing ways, ways to lower electricity costs, which are spiraling out of control.\n\nOr doing something about the skyrocketing health care costs in this country right now, but instead, we're talking about industrial oil and gas development in the beating heart of our greatest wildlife refuge, literally developing the place where the Porcupine Caribou Herd drops their calves every year.\n\nNow, when Congress first debated whether to allow oil development in the Arctic, America's energy landscape looked very different.\n\nWe were importing significant amounts of oil, much of it from our political adversaries.\n\nOil prices were rising, and U.S. energy could not meet demand. Yet, even in that context, in those challenging years, for decades and across both political parties, Congress recognized the irreplaceable ecological and cultural importance of the Arctic Refuge.\n\nLawmakers on both sides of the aisle understood that some places are sacred.\n\nSome places are simply too unique to sacrifice.\n\nAnd together, they kept these lands closed to industrial development.\n\nIn fact, it was not until 2017 that a Republican majority reversed that longstanding commitment and opened this refuge to exploitation.\n\nThey turned their backs on the American people who own this refuge and embrace the development anywhere and at any cost approach.\n\nDoing so despite the fact that the United States was already experiencing record oil production on public lands and was on its way to being a net energy exporter.\n\nAnd now they have done it again in their Big Bad Bill.\n\nBut this time they want more and more.\n\nTo what end?\n\nWe know this hasn't worked before.\n\nWe know previous efforts to offer leases here have actually been a failure.\n\nNow, they told us that development of the Arctic Refuge would bring in a billion, billion with a B, a billion dollars to the Treasury, to pay off the tax cuts that were in the 2017 bill for billionaires.\n\nBut as we all remember, that came up a little short.\n\nIn fact, it came up $993 million short, to be exact.\n\nAnd it's because development in the refuge is so complicated and so expensive.\n\nIt's costly in time. Seasons are short. Days can be even shorter. There's not a lot of time to break new ground.\n\nThere are no roads, no infrastructure even remotely close to this part of the coastal plain.\n\nThat is why it\u2019s estimated that oil prices have to be at least 75 dollars per barrel just to break even on oil from the Refuge.\n\nCompare that to today\u2019s average cost of an oil barrel, which is hovering around $60.\n\nLegitimate investors knew these pitfalls.\n\nIn 2023, the six largest banks in the U.S., the five largest banks in Canada, and 29 other international banks all issued policies against financing drilling in the Arctic Refuge.\n\nThe banks. Insurers, too, followed suit.\n\nWhich is why the second justification they are using to do this just doesn\u2019t make sense: That producing oil in the Refuge will make gas cheaper for everyday Americans.\n\nYou can see from the math that this is not remotely true.\n\nIf construction and drilling costs are so high that a barrel of oil has to be almost $20 more expensive just to break even, what do you think that does to prices at the gas station when you fill up your car?\n\nDoesn\u2019t mean cheaper gas.\n\nThe last thing they\u2019ll tell you is that: We have to drill everywhere in America, because we\u2019re in a, quote, \u201cenergy emergency\u201d.\n\nThe truth is the only energy crisis in America is the one that President Trump has created himself.\n\nIt\u2019s the skyrocketing utility bills that Americans are facing because of Republican's relentless attacks on affordable, American-made clean energy.\n\nOpening precious wilderness to industrial development is not going to fix that \u2014especially when it\u2019s to drill for oil that costs so much to produce.\n\nDrilling in the Arctic Refuge is not going to make energy more affordable.\n\nIt seems to me, as I stand up here to speak about yet another attack on our public lands, that no place is sacred from this extractive-at-all-costs playbook.\n\nNot even Wildlife Refuges, Mr. President.\n\nWhat\u2019s next?\n\nAre we going to develop geothermal energy in Yellowstone?\n\nMaybe more uranium mining in the Grand Canyon?\n\nI think Teddy Roosevelt must be tired from rolling over in his grave.\n\nThe bottom line is that the Arctic Refuge is too unique, too globally important to develop.\n\nIt's a wildlife refuge for a reason.\n\nNow, proponents love to hide the fact that this is, in fact, a national wildlife refuge.\n\nThey call it all kinds of things so that they don't have to use the phrase Wildlife Refuge.\n\nThey'll call it the 1002 area. They'll call it ANWR. It sounds like someplace in the Middle East you would expect oil and gas production.\n\nThey don't want us to pay attention to how crazy a prospect developing one of our last remaining untouched landscapes is.\n\nThe Arctic Refuge provides subsistence fish and game for people who live in the region.\n\nIt serves as a seasonal home to species you might see in your own state, species like Arctic terns and all sorts of waterfowl.\n\nAnd it is a remarkable, vast and breathtaking wilderness that should inspire us to be better stewards of our wildlife heritage.\n\nThe Arctic Refuge is the crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System that belongs to every single American deserves our protection.\n\nSo I would urge colleagues to vote no on the CRA today.\n\nThank you, Mr. President.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-ranking-member-heinrich-delivers-remarks-on-senate-floor-stressing-need-to-protect-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-blasts-trump-administration-for-relentless-ongoing-attacks-on-public-lands"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0434179566800594, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}