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The House voted late Wednesday to allow oil drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge as part of a broad energy bill.
An amendment to strip the Alaska refuge provision from the energy bill failed Wednesday night 231-200.
The bill’s sponsors said oil from the refuge, as much as a million barrels a day, will be needed to help curtail the country’s growing dependence on oil imports. Opponents argued that the oil wouldn’t be available for a decade.
The bill calls for $8.1 billion in tax breaks over 10 years, most of it going to promote coal, nuclear, oil and natural-gas energy industries.
Senate Democrats have pledged to filibuster an energy bill that would open the refuge to oil companies.
