Author: Kim Kalliber

Tribal leaders learn from each other at energy conference

Colleen Keane, Navajo Times

When Roger Fragua took the stage during the Developing Tribal Energy Resources and Economies conference, he sent a message loud and clear.

“This is not the Department of Energy’s conference, this is your conference,” Fragua (Jemez Pueblo) told about 300 tribal and non-tribal energy leaders and companies from across the U.S. and Canada during the conference held June 10-12 at Sandia Pueblo casino in Albuquerque.

Facilitating the Tuesday morning panel, Fragua explained that the purpose of the conference was to help tribes increase their self-sufficiency efforts, explore energy policies, and resource development (which he said are needed more than ever as tribal populations are increasing with some populations doubling every 25 years).

“We deserve affordable utilities that everyone else has. Some of us are still stranded using expensive propane and wood; not all of us (in this country) have affordable energy resources,” he said.

In a landscape of dwindling federal funding and increased encroachment on sovereignty, the panel of eight tribal energy leaders, including Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly, strategized how to increase economies through natural resource and alternative energy development.

To develop resources, Fragua encouraged an expansion of tribal coalitions.

“Let’s get the family back together on where we are headed, not only on policy, but on coalition building that would include Hawaii and Canada. We need to pray together and stay together,” he said.

“We need to develop our own resources. We need to purchase from one another,” added panelist Tex Hall, chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations.

The conference also provided an opportunity for tribal energy leaders to learn from one another. Energy development in Hall’s community pointed out that new technology, using horizontal and lateral drilling, is helping to locate gas and oil deposits. The Bakken shale formation is partially located on tribal lands.

“We are currently in a boom. We are the number one gas producing tribe in the country,” he reported.

Derrick Watchman, chairman of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, also a panelist, said that learning best practices from other tribes is an important step towards self-sufficiency.

Recommendations by 72 Indian Nations and Others for World Conference on Indigenous Peoples

Darwin Hill

Statement Of Umbrella Groups National Congress Of American Indians, United South And Eastern Tribes, And California Association Of Tribal Governments, 72 Indigenous Nations and Seven Indigenous Organizations

Twelfth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
(May 28, 2013)

Agenda Item: 6. Discussion on the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples

Speaker: Darwin Hill, Tonawanda Seneca Nation

By the Navajo Nation, Yurok Tribe, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Tonawanda Seneca Nation, Quinault Nation, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, the Confederation of Sovereign Nanticoke-Lenape Tribe (including Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware, and the Nanticoke Indian Tribe of Delaware), the Crow Nation, Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, Nez Perce Tribe, Shoalwater Bay Tribe, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, the National Congress of American Indians, California Association of Tribal Governments (32 Tribes), United South and Eastern Tribes (26 Tribes), the Native American Rights Fund, the Indian Law Resource Center, National Native American AIDS Prevention Center, Papa Ola Lokahi, the Native Hawaiian Health Board, Americans for Indian Opportunity, and the Self-Governance Communication and Education Tribal Consortium.

This statement is made by 72 Indian nations located in the United States and acting through their own governments. Also joining in this statement are ten Indian and Hawaiian Native organizations. The indigenous governments making this statement speak for their citizens or members totaling more than 515,000 indigenous individuals. These nations govern more than 19 million acres of territory, and we own more than 16 million acres of land.

We believe that the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples is an important opportunity for the United Nations to take much-needed action to advance the purposes of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially to promote the implementation and realization of fundamental rights. Despite the shortcomings of the process, creative and effective action must be taken by the United Nations to press for implementation of the Declaration’s principles, since violations of indigenous rights are actually increasing in many parts of the world. Violence on a horrific scale is being inflicted on indigenous communities, and increasingly it is inflicted on indigenous women, as recently reported by the Permanent Forum’s own Study on the extent of violence against indigenous women and girls and by the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas.

Without adequate implementing measures by states as yet, the Declaration is having little significant effect in reducing human rights violations against indigenous peoples, and violations appear to be increasing in many countries. Some states profess support for the Declaration, but in practice they ignore the Declaration’s requirements. The increased incidence of adverse actions violating indigenous rights is apparently due in part to growing pressures from climate change, increased demand for energy, and increased competition for natural resources in indigenous territories.

Rex Lee Jim (left), Vice President of the Navajo Nation and Darwin Hill, Chief of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, participate at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Rex Lee Jim (left), Vice President of the Navajo Nation and Darwin Hill, Chief of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, participate at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Sadly, we cannot yet say that the Declaration has reduced the attempts to destroy indigenous cultures and societies, or the taking of indigenous homelands and resources, or the economic marginalization of indigenous peoples. Without effective implementing measures and without international monitoring of indigenous peoples’ rights, the purposes of the Declaration cannot be achieved.

Our greatest concern is for the physical security of our people, especially women, and of our homes. Our right of self-determination is our most important right – it is the right that makes all other rights possible – and it is also our right that is most at risk – most likely to be violated. Our lands and resources and the ecosystems where we live are most precious to us because they are essential to our existence. We believe that United Nations action is critical to addressing these rights and all of the rights in the Declaration.

We offer three recommendations for action that we hope can be adopted by the World Conference.

First, we recommend that the United Nations establish a new body responsible for promoting state implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and monitoring states’ actions with regard to indigenous peoples’ rights. At least four regional indigenous caucuses have now made the same or a similar recommendation. Such a monitoring and implementation body must have a mandate to receive relevant information, to share best practices, to make recommendations, and otherwise to work toward the objectives of the Declaration. Such an implementing and monitoring body would do more than anything else to achieve the purposes of the Declaration and promote compliance with the Declaration.

Second, we recommend a three-pronged course of action to address the problem of violence against indigenous women:

a. A decision to convene a high-level conference to examine challenges to the safety and well-being of indigenous women and children and to share perspectives and best practices.

b. A decision to require that the UN body for monitoring and implementing the Declaration (recommended above) give particular attention, on at least an annual basis, “to the rights and special needs of indigenous . . . women, youth, children and elders . . . in the implementation of the Declaration”; and

c.  A decision to appoint a Special Rapporteur to focus exclusively on human rights issues of indigenous women and children, including but not limited to violence against them and on changing state laws that discriminate against them.

Finally, we recommend that action be taken to give indigenous peoples, especially indigenous constitutional and customary governments, a dignified and appropriate status for participating regularly in UN activities. Indigenous peoples deserve to have a permanent status for participation in the UN that reflects their character as peoples and governments. This is a problem that has already been studied and examined within the UN system, and now it is time to take action at last so that indigenous peoples do not have to call themselves NGOs or depend upon ad hoc resolutions to be able to participate in UN meetings, processes, and events.

The full text of our recommendations is available on the web at www.indianlaw.org, and on paper in the meeting room.

We have begun conversations with states about these recommendations, and we look forward to speaking with as many state delegations as possible. We are also talking with other indigenous peoples and we are eager to hear the ideas of others. We are not inflexible about precisely what actions should be taken by the UN, and we hope that broad agreement can be reached about the general principle or idea of each of these recommendations. When the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples 2014 has decided to take action, then it will be necessary to create inclusive processes, with the full participation of indigenous peoples and indigenous governments, to elaborate these decisions and put them into effect.

We call upon all countries to make a commitment for action to implement the Declaration and to support these modest and workable recommendations for UN action.

Thank you.

Darwin Hill is Chief of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation.

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/14/recommendations-72-indian-nations-and-others-world-conference-indigenous-peoples

On Flag Day, U.S. Army Celebrates 238th Birthday

Sgt. William Smith, Army News

The U.S. Army recognizes itself as being formed on June 14, 1775, as the need arose for the militias to form one united army to face Britain’s seasoned troops during the Revolutionary War.

This year, Joint Task Force Carson honored and remembered all of those soldiers that have come before by having multiple cake cuttings and special lunches across the post opened to the whole Fort Carson community.

In keeping with tradition, the most junior soldier cut the cake alongside the most senior soldier on the installation. “I was nervous and excited about being the one to uphold that tradition,” said Pvt. Lorence Vigil, Abrams armor crew member and youngest soldier representative, Company D, 1st Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.

“I am honored and will remember it for the rest of my life.”

U.S. Army Col.(P) John Thomson, deputy commander of the 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson, and Command Sgt. Maj. Brian M. Stall, senior enlisted adviser, cut a cake in celebration of the Army's 238th Birthday, with the most junior Soldier, Pvt. Lorence Vigil, Abrams armored crewmember with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, at Fort Carson, Colo., June 13,. 2013. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. William Smith/Released)
U.S. Army Col.(P) John Thomson, deputy commander of the 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson, and Command Sgt. Maj. Brian M. Stall, senior enlisted adviser, cut a cake in celebration of the Army’s 238th Birthday, with the most junior Soldier, Pvt. Lorence Vigil, Abrams armored crewmember with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, at Fort Carson, Colo., June 13,. 2013. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. William Smith/Released)

The Army birthday means many things to many different soldiers. “What I would like for people to celebrate most, are the soldiers that are down range keeping us safe, and to remember all of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free,” said Spc. Pedro Berroa, computer detection systems repairer, Forward Support Company E, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. “(The deployed and departed soldiers) are not here to celebrate this great day with their Family and friends.”

Another soldier sees it as a time to reflect on those of the past, and be proud of where they are at now. “This Friday marks the birth of our proud Army, and stands to remind us of our humble roots,” said Capt. Antonio Salinas, commander, Headquarters Support Company, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 4th Infantry Division. “Regular men gave up their private lives, and created a conventional force, to defeat tyranny and ensure freedom.

“As warriors, we may all rejoice in our hardships of preparing for and executing military operations around the world,” Salinas said. “Many of us have the physical or mental scars to account for facing the enemy in battle, from the scorching deserts of Iraq to the unforgivable valleys of Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush. We honor the sacrifices of America’s first patriots by making sacrifices of our own today.”

For more information, including a listings guide to events happening across the U.S. today to celebrate the Army’s 238th, go to Army.mil/birthday/238. To read about the Army’s Twilight Tattoo celebration for the 238th, including a photo gallery, click here. To read President Obama’s Flag Day proclamation, click here.

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/14/flag-day-us-army-celebrates-238th-birthday-149902

Tribal partnership with utility keeps salmon eggs under water

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

A rainy April and a hotter-than-normal week in May have created a challenge for the steelhead fry expected to emerge in August.

The rain, combined with heavy snowmelt after a string of 80-degree days in May, built up in the reservoir of Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. In order to prevent an overflow that could scour out steelhead redds (nests), the utility released more water than usual, increasing the flow of the Skagit River. As a result, spawning steelhead dug redds in places at risk of being dewatered before the last fry emerge this summer, when flows are lower.

Water management in the Skagit River is guided in part by salmon spawning surveys conducted by biologists Stan Walsh of the Skagit River System Cooperative and Dave Pflug of Seattle City Light. The Skagit River System Cooperative is the natural resources extension of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes.

Based on data gathered by Walsh and Pflug, Seattle City Light will release enough water in August to keep vulnerable steelhead eggs under water.

“We haven’t had a steelhead redd dewatered in years,” Walsh said.

Walsh and Pflug have monitored salmon and steelhead redds between Rockport and Newhalem on the Upper Skagit River since 1995. They document new redds, note the condition of existing redds, and measure the depth of the shallowest redds to make sure the river’s flow stays high enough for those eggs to survive, but not so high that the eggs are washed away.

They also share data with state fisheries co-managers to help forecast runs sizes.

“Seattle City Light has been a great partner to the tribes in water management,” Walsh said. “They’ve gone out of their way to protect fish beyond what’s required in their license agreement.”

Unlike chinook, chum, pink and coho salmon, steelhead are repeat spawners, which means Walsh and Pflug don’t encounter very many steelhead carcasses. However, this year, they have counted more steelhead redds in this stretch of the river than they have seen in the past 18 years of surveys.

New Law in Seattle Could Help Natives Disproportionate Statistics

Indian Country Today Media Network

American Indians in the state of Washington are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system according to Chris Stearns, which has made it difficult to find a job upon release – not anymore. On June 10, the Seattle City Council unanimously (9-0) passed a new law that will allow people with criminal records to have a fair shot at getting jobs.

Stearns, chairman of the Seattle Human Rights Commission praised the passage that will prevent employers in Seattle from simply rejecting them outright or denying them work solely on the basis of a conviction (not an arrest) unless the employer believes there is a direct connection between the crime and the work sought.

“We are grateful to Council Member Bruce Harrell who took a chance on this bill way back when it was not popular at all but who saw the need for justice nonetheless. We are grateful to the women of Sojourner Place who came to the Commission over three years ago asking for help in changing the laws so they could be reunited with their children and start off a new life with dignity and hope. And that is what this new law is all about. It’s about hope, dignity, and redemption,” Stearns said.

“The legislation is important in making our local economy work for everyone, removing barriers to accessing jobs and creating a pathway for re-entry and success,” Harrell said in a Seattle Council release following the passage.

With the bill’s passage comes the banning of any ads by employers stating that people with criminal records need not apply.

“This bill helps create the opportunity for a real second chance by giving people with criminal records an opportunity to get their foot in the door, to meet a potential employer and to make their case for why they should get the job. It creates this opportunity while still allowing employers to use criminal history in hiring decisions,” Councilmember Mike O’Brien said in the Council release.

“The Commission believes that this bill is especially important for Native Americans because they are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system,” Sterns (Navajo) said. “For instance, Native Americans comprise only 1.5 percent of the total state population, yet they account for 4.3 percent of those in Washington prisons. While African Americans make up only 3.6 percent of Washington’s population, they account for nearly 19 percent of the state’s prison population. In Washington State 80 percent – 90 percent of all felony defendants are in extreme poverty at the time of charging. Native Americans have the highest rates of poverty nationwide (27 percent) and in Seattle (33 percent).”

The statistics are staggering and are not just connected to Seattle. According to a 2011 article at Crosscut.com, “an arrested Native American had a 4.1 times greater chance of getting prison time than a similar white arrestee. That chance was 7.2 times as much in King County (Seattle). Other ratios were 4.7 in Pierce County (Tacoma), 3.6 in Thurston County, 3.5 in Kitsap County, 2.7 in Snohomish County and 27.3 in Chelan County.”

“The new law gives all people looking for work, including those who have made mistakes, the chance to be considered on the basis of their strengths not their weaknesses. We are so proud of this law and what it says about Seattle’s heart,” Stearns said.

 

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/13/new-law-seattle-could-help-natives-disproportionate-statistics-149863

“Carbon farming” makes waves at stalled Bonn talks

Civil society organizations warn that if agriculture becomes part of a carbon market, it will spur more land grabbing in Africa. Photo: Patrick Burnett/IPS
Civil society organizations warn that if agriculture becomes part of a carbon market, it will spur more land grabbing in Africa. Photo: Patrick Burnett/IPS

By Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service, www.climate-connections.org

UXBRIDGE, Canada – U.N. climate talks have largely stalled with the suspension of one of three negotiating tracks at a key mid-year session in Bonn, Germany.

Meanwhile, civil society organisations claim the controversial issue of “carbon farming” has been pushed back onto the agenda after African nations objected to the use of their lands to absorb carbon emissions.

At the Bonn Climate Change Conference this week, Russia insisted on new procedural rules. That blocked all activity in one track of negotiations called the “Subsidiary Body for Implementation” (SBI). The SBI is a technical body that was supposed to discuss finance to help developing countries cope with climate change, as well as proposals for “loss and damage” to compensate countries for damages.

The SBI talks were suspended Wednesday.

“This development is unfortunate,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Figueres also said the two-week Bonn conference, which ends Friday, had made considerable progress in the two other tracks. A complex new global climate treaty is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015 with the goal of keeping global warming to less than two degrees C.

“Governments need to look up from their legal and procedural tricks and focus on the planetary emergency that is hitting Africa first and hardest,” said Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), an African-wide climate movement with over 300 organisations in 45 countries.

And where there is “progress” at the climate talks it is in the wrong direction, according to civil society.

“We’ve seen many governments in Bonn call for a review of the current failed carbon markets to see what went wrong, why they haven’t actually reduced emissions and why they haven’t raised finance on a significant scale,” said Kate Dooley, a consultant on market mechanisms to the Third World Network.

“If we don’t learn these lessons we’ll be doomed to repeat these environmentally and financially risky schemes, at the cost of real action to reduce emissions,” Dooley said in a statement.

In Bonn, two key African negotiators appear to be pushing the World Bank agenda rather than their national interests, civil society organisations claim. Those negotiators are also working for organisations receiving World Bank funding.

One appears to want African nations’ mitigation actions to be based on agriculture, they said.

The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and other organisations favour what they call “climate smart” agriculture. This is defined as forms of farming that are sustainable, increase productivity and with a focus on soaking up carbon from the atmosphere.

African environment ministers from 54 nations recently stated they were not obligated to use their lands to mitigate carbon emissions since Africa is not responsible for climate change. They also instructed African negotiators at the Bonn climate talks to focus on helping African agriculture adapt to a changing climate.

“Are these people serving two masters?” asked Mariam Mayet of the Africa Centre for Biosafety, which works to protect farmers’ rights and biodiversity across the continent.

“What is the World Bank’s level of influence over these individuals, and is there a risk that this is impacting on their actions and the outcome here?” Mayet told IPS.

In December 2011, more than 100 African and international civil society organisations sent a joint letter to African ministers asking for “no soil carbon markets in Africa”.

Globally, agriculture is a major source of global warming gases like carbon and methane – directly accounting for 15 percent to 30 percent of global emissions. Changes in agricultural practices such as reducing or eliminating plowing and fertiliser use can greatly reduce emissions.

Agriculture can also be used to absorb or trap carbon in the soil. When a plant grows, it takes CO2 out the atmosphere and releases oxygen. The more of a crop – maize, soy or vegetable – that remains after harvest, the more carbon is returned to the soil.

Civil society organisations warn that if agriculture becomes part of a carbon market, it will spur more land grabbing in Africa, with woodlands being used mainly for carbon sequestration instead of food production.

“There is a profound danger to agriculture here, with real potential for more land grabbing and expansion of monocultures in order to harvest credits,” Helena Paul of EcoNexus, an environmental NGO, previously told IPS.

Soils are extraordinarily variable and different climatic regimes affect how they function, said Ólafur Arnalds, a soil scientist at the Agricultural University of Iceland. While soils are a key part of the planet’s carbon cycle, we don’t know enough about soil carbon, Arnalds told IPS at a recent Soil Carbon Sequestration conference in Iceland.

That complexity does not suit carbon markets well and drives up costs of accounting and verification. However, Arnalds does believe that soils and agriculture have an important role in climate change and farmers should be compensated for their efforts.

Toxic waste spill in northern Alberta biggest of recent disasters in North America

An Apache Canada drilling rig in the Ladyfern region of B.C. Photo: Apache Canada
An Apache Canada drilling rig in the Ladyfern region of B.C. Photo: Apache Canada

Nathan Vanderklippe, The Globe and Mail

The substance is the inky black colour of oil, and the treetops are brown. Across a broad expanse of northern Alberta muskeg, the landscape is dead. It has been poisoned by a huge spill of 9.5 million litres of toxic waste from an oil and gas operation in northern Alberta, the third major leak in a region whose residents are now questioning whether enough is being done to maintain aging energy infrastructure.

The spill was first spotted on June 1. But not until Wednesday did Houston-based Apache Corp. release estimates of its size, which exceeds all of the major recent spills in North America. It comes amid heightened sensitivity about pipeline safety, as the industry faces broad public opposition to plans for a series of major new oil export pipelines to the U.S., British Columbia and eastern Canada.

In northern Alberta, not far from the town of Zama City, the leak of so-called “produced water” has affected some 42 hectares, the size of 52 CFL fields, in an area less than 100 kilometres south of the Northwest Territories border.

“Every plant and tree died” in the area touched by the spill, said James Ahnassay, chief of the Dene Tha First Nation, whose members run traplines in an area that has seen oil and gas development since the 1950s.

Apache spokesman Paul Wyke called the spill “salty water,” with “trace amounts” of oil. The Energy Resources Conservation Board, Alberta’s energy regulator, said it contained roughly 200 parts per million of oil, or about 2,000 litres in total. But information compiled by the Dene Tha suggests the toxic substance contains hydrocarbons, high levels of salt, sulphurous compounds, metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials, along with chemical solvents and additives used by the oil industry.

Produced-water leaks are considered easier to clean up than oil spills. But the Dene Tha suspect this is a long-standing spill that may have gone undetected for months, given the widespread damage it has done. Apache and the Alberta government say its duration is under investigation.

The leak follows a pair of other major spills in the region, including 800,000 litres of an oil-water mixture from Pace Oil and Gas Ltd., and nearly 3.5 million litres of oil from a pipeline run by Plains Midstream Canada.

After those accidents, the Dene Tha had asked the Energy Resources Conservation Board, Alberta’s energy regulator, to require installation of pressure and volume monitors, as well as emergency shutoff devices, on aging oil and gas infrastructure. The Apache spill has renewed calls for change.

“We don’t believe that the government is doing enough to ensure upgrades and maintenance of the lines,” Mr. Ahnassay said.

The Apache spill took place in an area rich with wetlands. Though the Dene Tha suspect waterfowl have died, the company said it has seen no wildlife impacts. The spill has not reached the Zama River, although the Alberta government said it has affected tributaries. Water monitoring is ongoing.

Neither Apache nor Alberta initially disclosed the spill, which was only made public after someone reported it to a TV station late last week. The National Energy Board, by comparison, sent out a news release Tuesday after a spill of five to seven barrels of oil at an Imperial Oil Ltd. refinery in Sarnia, Ont.

Bob Curran, a spokesman for the ERCB, defended the late release of information, saying it took 10 days to determine the size of the spill.

“The second we knew the volumes, we put out a news release,” he said. Asked how it could take so long to determine the severity of a large spill, he said Wednesday: “We didn’t know it was over 42 hectares. We found that out last night.”

Environmental groups have long criticized the government for being slow to notify the public when things go wrong with the oil industry, the province’s financial lifeblood. “This latest spill should call into question the provincial government’s decision to hide the pipeline safety report they received last year and the failure to follow through on the public pipeline safety review the Minister of Energy promised last July,” said Greenpeace campaigner Mike Hudema in a statement.

A spokesman for Energy Minister Ken Hughes said the province trusts its energy regulator to decide when to release information based “on a process of established science and protocol.”

Apache said in a statement that it has halted the leak and “taken steps to contain the release as the company continues to map, sample and monitor the impacted areas.”

Rep. Hastings calls for pro-energy bill passage in House

www.UPI.com

WASHINGTON, June 13 (UPI) — U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., hailed the approval of three bills by the House Natural Resources Committee as vital to ensuring U.S. energy security.

The Offshore Energy and Jobs Act (H.R. 2231) would open up parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to energy exploration.

The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska Access Act (H.R. 1964) would ensure “timely and efficient” development of the reserve area explored by the federal government from 1944 to 1981.

The Native American Energy Act (H.R. 1548) would eliminate “burdensome and duplicative” regulations on energy development on tribal lands.

Hastings, who chairs the panel, accused the Obama administration of keeping the energy sector away from vital natural resources.

“By doing so, it is blocking the creation of over a million new American jobs and forfeiting hundreds of millions of dollars in much needed revenue,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “These bills will unlock our American energy resources on federal lands and waters.”

The White House has said oil and natural gas production has increased every year since Obama took office in 2009.

The measures passed largely along party lines in the Republican-led committee. Energy blog FuelFix said the Senate, controlled by Democrats, is unlikely to follow suit.