House OKs oil drilling in Alaska refuge

The House voted late Wednesday to allow oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge as part of a broad energy bill that Democrats said would funnel billions of dollars to highly profitable energy companies while doing little to promote conservation or ease gasoline prices. The bill’s sponsors said oil from Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as much as a million barrels a day, will be needed to help curtail the country’s growing dependence on oil imports.