Houses passes bill to protect domestic oil production, protect Iñupiat community

Indigenous communities are advocating for economic development projects in the North Slope, explaining that more than 95% of their tax base comes from resource development infrastructure.

The U.S. House passed another a bill to advance domestic energy production, this time in response to cries for help from an indigenous community living in the Alaska North Slope.

The bill’s cosponsor, a Democrat from Alaska, did not vote for her own bill. It passed with the support of five Democrats, including two from Texas who are strong supporters of the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.

The U.S. House has advanced several bills and resolutions to support domestic U.S. oil and natural gas production, supported by Texas Democrats. They’ve done so after the Biden administration has taken more than 200 actions against the industry, The Center Square reported.

One includes the Department of the Interior restricting development on over 50% of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), directly impacting the Iñupiat North Slope community.

The Alaska North Slope region includes a part of ANWR and National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA). Both are home to the indigenous Iñupiat community who maintain that the Biden administration is trying to “silence indigenous voices in the Arctic.”

The plan to halt North Slope production was done through a federal agency rule change, a tactic the administration has used to change federal law bypassing Congress. The rule cancels seven oil and gas leases issued by the Trump administration in the name of “climate change.” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said canceling the leases was “based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.”

The indigenous community strongly disagrees, saying they weren’t consulted before, during or after the rule change.

Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of Arctic Iñupiat, a nonprofit that represents a collective elected Iñupiaq leadership, says the administration’s mandate “to ‘protect’ 13 million acres of our ancestral homelands was made without fulfilling legal consultative obligations to our regional tribal governments, without engaging our communities about the decision’s impact, and with an incomplete economic analysis that undercuts North Slope communities.”

He argues the administration has overlooked “the legitimate concerns of elected Indigenous leaders from Alaska’s North Slope. This is a continuation of the onslaught of being blindsided by the federal government about unilateral decisions affecting our homelands.”

Restricting NPR-A oil production is “yet another blow to our right to self-determination in our ancestral homelands, which we have stewarded for over 10,000 years. Not a single organization or elected leader on the North Slope, which fully encompasses the NPR-A, supports this proposed rule,” he said, adding that they asked for it to be rescinded.

In response, U.S. Reps. Mary Sattler Peltola, D-Alaska, and Pete Stauber, R-Minn., introduced HR 6285, “Alaska’s Right to Produce Act.” The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing on the issue; members of the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and the Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation testified.

Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation president Charles Lampe said they “refuse to become conservation refugees on our own homelands and unapologetically stand behind the Alaska’s Right to Produce Act.”

The Kaktovik is the only community located in the ANWR. The North Slope Iñupiat have stewarded their ancestral homelands for thousands of years, predating the creation of the U.S. federal government, the Interior Department and the state of Alaska, they argue.

The indigenous communities are advocating for economic development projects in the North Slope, explaining that more than 95% of their tax base comes from resource development infrastructure. Tax revenue funds public school education, health clinics, water and sewage systems, wildlife management and research and other services that otherwise would not exist, they argue. Eliminating their tax base, will directly impact their lives and jeopardize their long-term economic security, they argue.

The House passed Alaska’s Right to Produce Act on Wednesday to reverse the rule change and establish the Coastal Plain oil and gas leasing program. It authorizes and directs federal agencies to administer oil and natural gas leasing on 13 million acres of public land in the North Slope.

The bill passed by a vote of 214-199 without the support of its Democratic cosponsor from Alaska, Peltola, who voted “present.”

Five Democrats voted for it: Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. of Georgia, Henry Cuellar and Vincente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. One Republican voted against it, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

After it passed, Harcharek said, “Since the Biden administration announced this decision in September, our voices, which overwhelmingly reject the federal government’s decisions, have been consistently drowned out and ignored. This administration has not followed its well-documented promises to work with Indigenous people when crafting policies affecting their lands and people. We are grateful to Congress for exercising its legislative authority to correct the federal government’s hypocrisy and advance Iñupiaq self-determination in our ancestral homelands.”

Kaktovik Mayor Nathan Gordon, Jr. said the administration “is regulating our homelands in a region they do not understand and without listening to the people who live here.” The new law is “a vital corrective measure that will prevent our community from being isolated and protect our Iñupiaq culture in the long term.”

The bill heads to the Democratic controlled Senate, where it is unlikely to pass.

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Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

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Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

Published on July 14, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

Energy

LNG Export Marks Beginning Of Canadian Energy Independence

Published on July 13, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Marco Navarro-Genie

Kitimat’s LNG launch ends years of delay, weak policy and lost opportunity. This is a strategic turning point for Canada

Last week marked a turning point for Canadian sovereignty. On July 1, 2025, the tanker Gaslog Glasgow departed Kitimat, B.C., carrying Canada’s first-ever commercial liquefied natural gas (LNG) export to Asia. More than a shipment, it signalled the end of our economic vassalage to the United States and a long-overdue leap into global energy markets.

LNG Canada CEO Chris Cooper called it a “truly historic moment.” He’s right. The cargo left just days after the Kitimat plant produced its first liquefied natural gas and entered operation. The $40-billion megaproject, the largest private-sector investment in Canadian history, is now a fully functional Pacific Coast export hub. It can ship up to 14 million tonnes annually, and expansion is already being discussed.

Yet this success didn’t come easily. Despite being one of the world’s largest natural gas producers, Canada lacked an LNG export terminal, largely due to political delays, regulatory hurdles and lack of federal support. That this happened at all is remarkable, given nearly a decade of federal sabotage. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ideological hostility to natural gas meant rebuffed allies, stalled projects and choked-off investment.

Foreign leaders (from Japan and Germany to Greece) practically begged Ottawa to green-light Canadian LNG. Trudeau dismissed them, claiming there was “no business case.” No one in his caucus dared contradict him. The result: lost time, lost markets and a near-complete surrender of our energy advantage.

But the business case was always there. Kitimat proves it.

The U.S. has been exporting LNG since 2016, giving them a nearly decade-long head start. But Canada has something our neighbours don’t: the Montney Formation. Spanning northeast B.C. and parts of Alberta, it covers about 130,000 square kilometres and holds enormous gas reserves. Montney gas, abundant and close to tidewater, trades at roughly half the Henry Hub price, giving Canada a significant cost edge.

Location seals the deal. Kitimat, perched on the Pacific, bypasses the congested Panama Canal, a major chokepoint for U.S. Gulf Coast exports, and offers a shorter, more direct route to energy-hungry Asian markets. This geographic advantage makes Canadian LNG not only viable but globally competitive.

In 2024, Canada exported about 8.6 billion cubic feet of gas daily to the U.S. via pipeline. With Kitimat, we finally begin breaking that one-market dependency. We also start clawing back the price differential losses that come with being captive sellers. This is how you build productivity, strengthen the dollar and reclaim economic independence from Washington.

The economic ripple effect is massive. The Kitimat build created 50,000 jobs at its peak, generated $5.8 billion in Indigenous and local contracts and left behind more than 300 permanent positions. Provincial revenues are projected in the tens of billions. In an era of anaemic growth, this is real stimulus and has staying power.

Predictably, critics raise environmental concerns. But this critique ignores global realities. Exporting Canadian natural gas to countries still burning coal is not a step backward—it’s a practical advance. Natural gas is up to 25 per cent cleaner than coal when comparing full lifecycle emissions (that is, from extraction to combustion). Global emissions don’t respect borders. If Canada can displace dirtier fuels abroad, we’re part of the solution, not the problem.

And this is only the beginning. Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG are already under construction. Atlantic Coast projects are in the queue. We must now defend this momentum against bureaucratic delays, activist litigation and ideological roadblocks.

LNG is not a climate villain. It’s a bridge fuel that cuts emissions, creates wealth and helps fund our national future.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).