U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today issued the following statement after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its final rule for the regulation of hydraulic fracturing on federal lands.

“The energy renaissance is largely a story about state and private land, but vast resources remain inaccessible and untapped in federal areas, particularly in the West,” Murkowski said. “This administration has already taken unprecedented steps to block development in Alaska. Given its anti-development approach, we should expect this rule to make it even harder to produce oil and gas on federal lands. The fact remains: if Interior was half as interested in new production as it is in new regulation, our nation would be in a far better place.”

The combination of hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling is responsible for the unprecedented upswing in domestic oil and natural gas production during the past six years in the Lower 48. U.S. oil production has more than doubled – to 9 million barrels a day –

since 2008, but that increase has occurred almost exclusively on state and private lands as companies have avoided federal areas because of permitting delays and other roadblocks.

Murkowski is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.

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