President Barack Obama will visit Alaska in August, Sen. Lisa Murkowski told Alaska legislators Wednesday in a joint legislative session. And this trip, she said, appears to be a real visit, not simply a gas stop at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to fill up Air Force One as it travels between Washington and Asia.
Murkowski, during her annual address to the Legislature, said she had been told about the trip by Secretary of State John Kerry while discussing Arctic issues with him. She said that the White House considers Alaska to be among the states the president has visited, but that he’s never actually left JBER. “He’s never been off base,” she said.
Murkowski acknowledged Obama had met military families during those trips, but she wanted him to learn more about Alaska issues. Other than hearing from Kerry he’s going to be in Alaska with the president next summer, Murkowski said she didn’t know much about the trip.
But even as she announced Alaska would be playing host to the president, she ramped up the rhetoric to accuse Obama of trying to rid Alaska of the trans-Alaska pipeline — and all the benefits it brings the state.
“It looks like the goal is to shut down the pipeline,” Alaska’s senior senator said from the friendly floor of the Alaska Legislature, pointing to Obama administration decisions which she said would do just that.
“I have never been a good alarmist, but it is becoming harder and harder to conclude that this administration’s long-term plan is anything other than to starve our Trans-Alaska Pipeline System of new oil,” Murkowski said in the text of her speech provided to reporters.
She gave no reason why the Obama administration would want to do that but said, “It sure looks like their goal is to shut down our pipeline once and for all — to see it decommissioned and dismantled,” she said. She said she hoped Obama would not use his trip to Alaska to simply talk about climate change.
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