For Immediate Release: March 30, 2006
Contact: Annie Strickler, (202) 675-2384

                Arctic Refuge Drilling Stopped in the House
       Bipartisan Opposition to Including Arctic in Budget Prevails

Washington, D.C. -- The Sierra Club expressed cautious optimism as
bipartisan pressure to keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge out of the
budget prevailed in the House. The House Budget Resolution, passed out of
committee last night, does not include any instructions to the Resources
Committee. Those instructions, however vague, have in the past been the
green light for Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA) to stick Arctic drilling in
the budget. Earlier this month the Senate passed a budget which included
the controversial Arctic drilling provision.

"We applaud those in Congress who have refused to let drilling proponents
manipulate them and the democratic process," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club
Executive Director. "Although there are some still willing to do Big Oil’s
bidding, the drilling lobby and their allies will be hard-pressed to keep
Arctic drilling in the budget knowing that it is dead on arrival in the
House."

Earlier this year a group of 24 House Republicans sent a letter to House
Budget Chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA) asking him not to include "language or
mechanism" in the budget resolution that would assume Arctic Refuge
drilling revenues or "allows for the insertion of any provision that opens
the coastal plain of the refuge to oil and gas drilling and exploration."
The signers are the same Republicans that were on the front lines of this
battle last year.

Problems could arise when the House and Senate meet to conference their
different budget versions, and drilling advocates could reinsert Arctic
drilling as the complicated budget process moves forward. The Senate Energy
Committee is currently crafting legislation to authorize opening the Arctic
Refuge to oil drilling.  That language will be folded into the overall
Budget Reconciliation bill which must be passed by the entire Senate. The
conference report is then subject to a straight up or down vote in both the
House and Senate.

"Those leaders who have stood strong to keep Arctic drilling out of the
budget must continue to hold the line," said Pope. "It’s time for Congress
to put this bad idea to rest once and for all and focus instead breaking
our oil addiction with clean energy solutions."

As some in Congress continue to advocate letting the oil industry into the
pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, BP workers in Alaska are still
cleaning up a 200,000 gallon oil spill that went undetected for days. The
spill, now widely reported as the largest crude oil spill in the history of
the North Slope, casts doubt on the oil industry’s assurances of safe and
clean technology.

"In drilling the Arctic Refuge, the only winner is the oil industry. The
losers are the American people who would give away a pristine wilderness,
perhaps to a fate similar to the oil-stained Prudhoe Bay," said Pope.

Instead of drilling in the Arctic Refuge, we can start saving oil today and
curb global warming by making our cars go farther on a gallon of. Using
existing fuel-saving technology, we could save more oil by increasing fuel
economy than we currently import from the entire Persian Gulf and could
ever get out of the Arctic Refuge, combined.  The technology also exists to
develop renewable energy sources like wind and solar power while boosting
energy efficiency.

Yet in an announcement yesterday of new weak fuel economy standards for
SUVs, trucks and vans today, the Bush administration ignored the
opportunity and obligation to significantly cut America's oil dependence by
requiring automakers to use modern fuel-saving technology to reduce oil
consumption, curb global warming pollution, and save consumers money at the
gas pump.