The RSC is a fiscally conservative House Caucus of 115 House Republicans that bands together on major legislative issues to promote a conservative viewpoint.  Each year they release a budget resolution influenced by their conservative values. 

The RSC, like many legislators before, has used the ANWR issue as a funding mechanism through the regular oil production taxes imposed by state and federal governments nationwide.  ANWR’s 10-02 is mostly federal land and thus any leasing or production taking place on those lands will generate taxes for the government.  The most likely scenario would be a 50-50 split of oil tax revenue between the State and the Federal Government in the 10-02.  In 2005 the Office and Management and Budget estimated lease royalties from ANWR’s 10-02 could top 6 billion and production tax revenue could range between $105-$289 billion (depending on the price of oil) over the life of the field.  That money would be used in the RSC Budget plan to decrease the national debt and balance the budget by 2019.

As a budgetary tool the ANWR issue is political candy as it allows for massive generation of tax revenue without Congressmen having to tax constituents.  The oil industry is taxed on production regardless of where it operates and this is a regular cost of business that has, from the beginning, been a part of the corporate balance sheet.  Oil taxes provide for perhaps the largest single source business tax revenue stream in the nation without having to deduct from individual citizens.  For politicians the political fallout from this at election time is practically zero, whilst the benefit to the national economic health is tremendous. 

In both the US House and Senate the ANWR issue has generally been supported more by Republicans than Democrats.  This is a quite different situation than in the Alaska State Legislature where there is almost unanimous support for the issue amongst both parties and it is not considered a partisan issue.  The strong partisanship towards the issue on Capitol Hill has essentially staled the ANWR issue for over 30 years.  ANWR as an issue, often generates 15 or 20 bills each Congress, but many never reach a vote.  Individually the House has passed an ANWR provision 12 times and in the Senate 3 times but only once did a provision pass both bodies (in 1995), and that was vetoed by then President Clinton who exclaimed “it would take 10 years to develop” and thus was not a good idea. 

A copy of the main points of the RSC FY2011 Budget

Library of Congress listing of the legislation