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U.S. House Democrats are positioning themselves to battle Republicans on the issue of increased domestic drilling, and may vote as early as next week on an expanded package aimed at boosting oil production in Alaska. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., on Thursday announced a new energy package that would include measures to speed the production and delivery of oil from federal land in Alaska that is currently home to limited drilling. The measure would also encourage the construction of a pipeline to deliver oil from Alaska to the 48 states in the continental...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Friday proposed keeping potentially oil-rich wetlands in Arctic Alaska off-limits to drilling because of their ecological sensitivity, a reversal of its earlier plan. The Bureau of Land Management proposed a 10-year leasing moratorium for 430,000 acres of wetlands north and east of vast Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmentalists and local groups hailed the decision. "This plan provides a balanced approach to energy development and wildlife protection, and forms a solid basis for the Bureau of Land Management to proceed with an oil and gas lease sale later this year,"...

Three conservation groups sued the federal government Wednesday hoping to block Arctic petroleum development through protections for a rare loon that breeds in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. The groups claim yellow-billed loons are threatened by industrialization in the 23 million-acre reserve that covers much of Alaska's western North Slope. "The yellow-billed loon is one of the rarest and most vulnerable birds in the United States," said Andrea Treece, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "If the loon is to survive in a warming Arctic, we need to protect its critical habitat, not open it up for oil development."...

The Interior Department is set to open a vast area of environmentally sensitive wetlands in Alaska to oil drilling, even as opponents point to corroding pipelines to the east at Prudhoe Bay as a reason to keep the area off limits. The tens of thousands of acres in and around Lake Teshekpuk on Alaska's North Slope are part of the oil-rich Barrow Arch that also includes the Prudhoe Bay fields that have kept oil flowing for decades. Environmentalists and some members of Congress oppose the lease sale. Federal regulators and a House committee are investigating inspection and maintenance programs at...

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is still planning to hold its National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska lease sale on Sept. 27, despite a court injunction temporarily prohibiting further action on the final environmental impact statement (or FEIS) authorizing oil and gas leasing in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area in northeastern NPR-A. The Sept. 27 lease sale includes both the Northwest and Northeast NPR-A Planning Areas. “We are proceeding with the lease sale,” Danielle Allen, a BLM public affairs specialist, told Petroleum News Sept. 21. Allen said that the sale still includes the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area. A coalition of environmental groups,...

Anchorage -- A judge on Thursday temporarily halted lease sales of more than 1 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska that environmentalists say are essential feeding and breeding grounds for caribou and migratory birds. Nearly 13 million acres of the reserve in northern Alaska are available for lease sale or have been sold to oil companies, most notably ConocoPhillips. The company hopes to augment waning crude stocks in the Prudhoe Bay fields east of the NPR-A. Environmentalists filed the lawsuit in hopes of cordoning off about 600,000 acres of the 23-million acre reserve from more exploratory drilling. The government...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressed confidence in an upcoming oil lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska when he visited the North Slope last week. "We're set to go forward," Kempthorne said after taking a helicopter ride over a section of the vast reserve. But that sale will likely have to wait. A judge on Thursday temporarily halted lease sales of more than 1 million acres in the NPR-A that environmentalists say are essential feeding and breeding grounds for caribou and migratory birds. Nearly 13 million acres of the reserve in northern Alaska are available for...

As federal regulators plan the opening of the 9.2 million acres in the southern part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas leasing, one Alaska industry group is urging them to broaden their outlook. The Alaska Miners Association is advocating that the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all activity in the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, cast a wider net in search of energy development opportunities. “For several decades, the mining industry has been aware of the mineral potential of the southern and western NPR-A, which is known as NPR-A South,” said Steve Borell, executive director of the...

Oil company FEX is moving ahead with plans for exploration drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska this winter. "We will be drilling three to four wells this winter," said Barry Nelson, spokesman for Talisman Energy Inc., the Calgary, Alberta-based parent company of FEX. Last winter, FEX drilled on its leases south of Cape Simpson, which lies roughly midway between Barrow to the west and the Alpine oil field to the east. Alpine is the westernmost North Slope oil field. Nelson wouldn't say where FEX will drill this coming winter. The company will use two drilling rigs in NPR-A this winter,...

DEFEAT: Challengers had tried to limit development on environmental grounds. A federal appeals court Wednesday affirmed a decision that clears the way for oil drilling in part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals backed a ruling by Judge James K. Singleton Jr. of Anchorage in January 2005 that rejected efforts by a coalition of environmental groups to increase wildlife protections in the northwest section of the 23.5-million-acre NPR-A. "We're certainly disappointed in the decision," said Stan Senner, executive director of Alaska Audubon. "We think BLM failed to consider a range of...

The Interior Department on Wednesday announced it will open hundreds of thousands of acres of wildlife-rich North Slope tundra to oil and gas drillers. The land is just north of giant Teshekpuk Lake in the northeast corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an Indiana-sized tract set aside in 1923 for its oil potential. The lake region is noted for some of the world's largest congregations of migratory geese, as well as caribou and other wildlife. But it also might harbor huge deposits of oil and gas. Naturalists fought hard to head off Wednesday's decision, which they say dismantles a long...

FAIRBANKS -- A federal agency is developing a use plan for a section of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The plan covers 9.2 million acres in the southwest portion of the 23 million-acre reserve, which encompasses most of the western half of Alaska's North Slope. The Bureau of Land Management has opened a "scoping" period in which members of the public can identify issues and suggest how the land should be used. A public meeting will be held Aug. 10 in Fairbanks. Meetings also will be held in 13 Northwest Alaska villages and in Anchorage between July 18 and Aug. 11....

Conoco Phillips Co. plans to spend about $700 million in Alaska next year on exploration and production activity, executives with the Houston-based energy firm said Friday. The planned spending is part of a $6.9 billion global capital budget that commits $1.4 billion for exploration and production in the North Sea and West Africa; $900 million for the Asia Pacific region; $900 million for the Lower 48 and Latin America; $700 million for Canada; and $400 million for Russia and the Caspian Sea region. The Alaska money will go toward drilling four North Slope exploratory wells this winter, plus work to...