Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, repeatedly clashed with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell over how the administration treats Alaska, and kept up the pressure at Tuesday’s hearing.
“I don’t want to make this personal, but the decisions from Interior have lacked balance, and instead of recognizing the many opportunities Alaska has with regard to resource production, you have enabled an unprecedented attack on our ability to responsibly bring these resources to market,” Murkowski told Jewell. “The president has withdrawn over 22 million more acres of Alaska from energy production just in recent weeks, and that has occurred on top of many other restrictions and regulations being imposed on us,” she said.
“When you take off all of these areas for any development at all, how do your states operate? What do you do?” Murkowski asked her colleagues. The budget request itself ignores funding cap agreements, imposes billions of dollars of new fees and taxes on energy production, and did not find realistic offsets for its new spending, she said. “In looking at this request, I do not see a substantive effort to work with Congress,” she said.
Jewell defended the budget request. “This is a forward-looking budget that provides targeted investments to grow our domestic energy portfolio, creating jobs here at home, to build climate resilience and revitalize our national parks as they approach their 100th anniversary,” she said.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee’s top Democrat, defended the department’s budget request. “In my view, this budget represents a balanced and forward-leaning proposal,” she said.
See Full Story Here
