Martin Heinrich

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, nestled in the far northeast corner of Alaska is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--not ANWR, which sounds like some country in the Middle East, but the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the wildest and most untouched places in all of America. It is our land. It belongs to every single American. It is public land set aside by President Eisenhower to protect our amazing native wildlife.

I have been blessed to see this refuge with my own eyes. I have seen the critical habitat on the coastal plain where caribou drop their calves. I have met with Alaskans whose way of life is sustained by those same caribou. The Arctic Refuge is also home to hundreds of iconic wildlife species, including 200 species of birds that have called this landscape home since long before humans even stepped on the continent. But that is only part of the story. It is also deeply connected to the traditions and daily life of people who have depended on that wildlife for thousands of years.

Now, that said, the Arctic Refuge's future is increasingly at risk. In the past year, we have seen relentless attacks on the Arctic Refuge from both the Trump administration and my Republican colleagues here in the Congress.

Today, the Senator from Alaska is trying to force through another bill that would once again prioritize oil and gas over literally everything else, and he is doing so by using a procedural tactic to bypass the legislative process.

Now, let me be clear. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee has not held a single hearing on this legislation despite being chaired by the Republicans; nor have we reported it out of the committee.

But here is what I can tell you already. This bill is deeply unpopular. Even the oil and gas majors themselves don't want to drill in the Arctic Refuge. And that is because development in the refuge is complicated, it is expensive, and it carries enormous reputational risk for these corporations. So to incentivize drilling there, this bill waives revenue requirements, meaning that the oil and gas industry pays less and the taxpayer gets less.

I have been around long enough to remember a time when this same Republican Party promised the American people that they would get $1 billion--billion with a ``b''--from these lease sales in the Arctic Refuge. Right now, those lease sales have secured $9 million. They seem to be missing a few zeroes--especially when it is sacrificing priceless public lands.

I came to the Senate floor back in December when Republicans first overturned the management plan for the Arctic Refuge to warn that in order for drilling in the Arctic to be economical, oil prices would have to be at least $75 a barrel, just to break even on oil from the refuge.

Well, with full control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, my colleagues have managed to make that math finally work. Thanks to the war in Iran, today, oil prices are hovering near $100 a barrel. We all feel that at the pump. I guess the President finally got his energy emergency, and it is one of his own creation.

The reality is that oil from the Arctic Refuge won't solve the global instability that was caused by waging an illegal war in Iran. What it will cause is devastating impacts on that landscape, forever changing this landscape and the wildlife that depend on it, which is why his bill also waives all the environmental laws and deems environmental studies complete.

So there won't be an accounting of the impacts this development would have on the caribou, whose 1,500-mile migration ends there, or the hundreds of species that live there, like the polar bear and musk ox, or the people who rely on the area for subsistence, which is why this bill also prohibits future litigation on oil and gas authorization.

The bill does not stop with the Arctic Refuge. It would also ensure that subsistence rights and conservation on some of the most unique and special public lands in the western Arctic could never be evaluated again. It paves the way for a management framework where automatic approvals

of hundreds of fossil fuel projects are not only possible, they are guaranteed.

We could be discussing ways to lower electricity costs, how to bring down the price of diesel, but, instead, here we are again trying to drill in a national wildlife refuge.

I know there are some corners of the universe that believe this is part of a secret plan to promote New Mexico energy at the expense of Alaska energy. I want to be clear. I support oil and gas development in the right places. As the Senator from Alaska has stated many times, New Mexico does its part. But I don't support drilling everywhere. I asked the Biden administration to set aside Chaco Canyon for that very reason, and I especially do not support drilling in the crown jewel of America's National Wildlife System. Therefore, I do object.

Mr. President, I would ask for 2 additional minutes as well.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the motion to proceed to H.R. 9340.

Electricity demand, as we all know, is growing, driven in large part by hyperscalers and data centers. Tech companies have promised to pay their fair share and not make American households pay the extra costs, but it is not enough to take their word for it, and it is not enough to merely tell States to consider--consider--making utilities charge data centers for all of the costs associated with the generation, additional transmission, and distribution upgrades necessary to serve them.

States are already taking action. According to the Smart Electric Power Alliance, more than 30 States have adopted specific retail rate structures for large loads like data centers.

H.R. 9340 simply does not protect Americans from high utility bills. Let me be clear. This bill has no--zero--requirement that data centers actually pay for their own grid upgrades. H.R. 9340 might make some Members of the Senate feel good about voting on a bill that sounds like it does something about data centers. Let me be clear. This is nothing more than a messaging bill on the eve of an election.

Rather than voluntary pledges or vague suggestions to States, Congress needs to pass a law with real teeth. If voluntary pledges and suggestions worked, families and small businesses wouldn't already be staring down rate hikes right now.

So let's require data centers to pay for their incremental costs and prohibit by law passing those costs on to consumers.

I would urge my colleagues to vote no.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am actually pretty sympathetic to the land management challenges in the West that have come from a history of public land disposal and development, but I cannot support the approach this bill takes transferring public land to a State without a fair exchange for the public.

Under the bill, if the State of North Dakota transferred State land to a Tribe, the State could then select Bureau of Land Management public land to replace them. The public would not receive any land or compensation in return for the land transferred to the State.

What is more, the bill doesn't specify which public land would be transferred out of public hands. It would allow the State to select any BLM-managed public land in North Dakota that hasn't already been set aside.

Land exchanges are an important tool for western public land management. I get that. I have supported many land exchanges in New Mexico and many other States, but land exchanges need to include a public process to determine which parcels are being exchanged. They must be in the public interest and be of equal value for the public and the other parties.

I am willing to work with my colleague from North Dakota to find a solution to the State lands within Indian reservations in his State, but the solution can't be simply giving away our public land, especially when we don't know even which lands would be transferred away.

I hope we can work together to find a different path forward on this issue but as the bill is currently drafted, I must object.

Mr. President, this is like a three-legged stool where one of the legs is missing.

I support cleaning up the parcels inside of the Tribal reservations that currently do not belong to them.

But the public, who owns the Bureau of Land Management lands, also either need compensation or equal value. And this is simply a transfer of the public land of the United States of America that all of our constituents own, whether they are in North Dakota or New Mexico or Florida, without any compensation to the people of the United States.

Whether transferring public land to counties, transferring public lands to States, or transferring public lands to private entities, without an equal value for the public, is simply something I cannot support.

Mr. President, I look forward to working with my colleague from North Dakota on the issue. I think we need to find a path forward here. Tribal trust land is not the same as public land. Transferring lands from the Federal Government to the status State is not equivalent, and we need something that is fair to the Tribal constituents, the State, and the public that owns those Federal public lands.

Mr. President, I object.