WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, the Bush administration lifted a long-standing ban on drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay as a move to boost U.S. oil and gas supplies, The Washington Post reports. The administration also boosted royalties by a third for ultra-deep-water oil and gas drilling in light of the Democrats’ plan to roll back tax breaks for the oil industry.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the government would open 5.6 million acres in Alaska’s North Aleutian Basin for oil and gas development, the newspaper reports, notes the Post. He said the offshore drilling and the hike in royalty fees would “enhance America’s energy security by improving opportunities for domestic energy production, and will also increase the revenues that the federal government collects from oil and gas companies on behalf of American taxpayers.”

Bob Greco of the American Petroleum Institute, told the newspaper that “increasing access to those resources is an important step toward meeting our growing energy demand.”

Meanwhile, California Gov. Arnold Scharzenegger announced a plan this week that would require a 10 percent cut in the carbon content of vehicle emissions by 2020. California would call for oil companies to decrease the carbon emitted by their fuels by 10 percent by 2020.