October 27, 2005

I commend the House Committee on Resources for taking an important step toward increased energy independence today. By passing a measure that instructs the Secretary of the Interior to move forward with developing the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the Committee also endorsed a key part of the Teamsters' jobs agenda.

ANWR development will quickly create thousands of jobs with strong wages and benefits. The impact of job growth will go well beyond Alaska and contribute to many states' economies.

For decades, skilled American labor—union labor—has successfully performed the many tasks involved in developing energy on Alaska's North Slope. Along with our brothers and sisters in more than a dozen other unions, the Teamsters stand ready to fill the jobs that ANWR will create and get to work developing more American energy for American consumers.

I would like to thank Chairman Richard Pombo for diligently promoting this important jobs issue over the past two years and, in particular, for his strong commitment to ensuring that this work will be done under a Project Labor Agreement. While Senate rules prohibited the inclusion of a PLA in its ANWR provision, I look forward to working with Senators Ted Stevens, Lisa Murkowski, Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka to pass legislation that will remedy that situation.

I would also like to recognize the Inupiat Eskimos for their generations of stewardship over this land. Many of their leaders have traveled to Washington, D.C. this month to support the development of ANWR. As the only native peoples who live in ANWR, they have done a great service to their people and to the 75 percent of Alaskans who support ANWR development.

With oil remaining above $60 a barrel and no immediate relief in sight, the continued financial burden affects all American industries. Working Americans—especially the hundreds of thousands of Teamsters who start their day by turning the key to a truck—need the energy, the relief and the jobs that opening ANWR will provide now.