Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s relationship with a key Alaska senator remained on thin ice yesterday, complicating Jewell’s efforts to boost agency funding and advance the Obama administration’s legislative agenda.
Jewell told reporters yesterday that she and Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have maintained “a constructive relationship.” That’s despite Murkowski’s public attacks on the secretary’s recent decisions to set aside Alaska lands and waters from oil and gas drilling and reject a key road. “Murkowski is a very strong advocate for her state,” Jewell told reporters after a 2½-hour budget hearing before Murkowski’s panel.
But Murkowski didn’t share the love. She blasted Jewell for “depriving [Alaskans] of jobs, revenue, security and prosperity” and being aloof to Alaskans’ need to access federally protected lands.
“The chairman is furious and bewildered,” said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon. “I don’t know how constructive it is when the secretary clearly has not shown a real interest in having a constructive relationship.”
Via eenews.net
