'I've Got A Lot To Say And I Think You Know It's Not Good Feelings': Lisa Murkowski Reams Haaland

6 months ago

At Thursday's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) excoriated Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

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Transcript

00:00 my time to ask questions, but this morning I'm probably going to be talking more than

00:05 asking questions because quite honestly I've got a lot to say and I think you know it's

00:10 not good feelings. Right now the state of Alaska is looking at what is coming out of

00:17 the Department of Interior and they're not seeing a single thing that Alaskans are asking

00:23 of Interior that is actually advancing. It seems like every single decision coming out

00:30 of the department is working against Alaskans. You know it was a pretty tough week just a

00:39 couple weeks ago now. In one day, in one day the department closes off 13 million acres

00:49 of our petroleum reserve. In the same day you rejected the Ambler Access project and

00:56 the heartburn here, I mean it's not more than heartburn, the danger here is you, this is

01:03 a project that is literally guaranteed by federal law and you basically have rejected

01:09 that and closed that off. You released a major land plan where it took Interior 10 full years

01:14 to fail to meet the direction of a law that I wrote 20 years ago. It was to lift the PLO

01:20 public land orders in Alaska, but it took no time at all to close off millions more

01:26 acres in the state of Alaska. And again the kicker on all of this is you did it all on

01:32 the same day, one day, one day. We have actually come to dread Fridays in Alaska because that's

01:40 when we see the stuff coming out of Washington, D.C. that is burying Alaska and our economy.

01:49 These decisions are now piled on top of dozens of others, from your conservation rule to

01:53 the cancellation of the leases in the 1002 area to the looming kneecapping of the oil

01:58 and gas program in the area that you're mandated to carry out. You know when there's a lot

02:06 of history in Alaska, you know much of it. But when signing ANILCA, President Carter

02:11 promised the deal was 100% of Alaska's offshore and 95% of our onshore would be open to responsible

02:18 development. President Biden voted for that law. He voted for ANILCA, but his administration

02:26 led by your department has broken its promises to Alaskans again and again and again. And

02:32 we've kept our side of the bargain here. We've been working to do just that. Our environmental

02:36 record is second to none. We'll put it up against anyone out there. But now it's effectively

02:42 being held against us because Interior's decisions are punishing us for decades of responsible

02:48 development. And ironically, it undermines the President's own policies. He's talking

02:55 about all that he wants to do to advance the renewables and EVs. They all require critical

03:01 minerals. Well, where are we going to get the critical minerals? We have opportunities

03:05 in Alaska, and a road to those minerals could have been, hopefully one day will be, a way

03:13 that we're accessing that. But in addition to all of this, you're setting a precedent

03:17 for future administrations to ignore the law. We pass things in Congress, we put the laws

03:24 in place, and the administration does whatever they please. And it's doing nothing to protect

03:29 the environment because we know that our projects are going to have small footprints. We put

03:35 in place the strongest safeguards in the world here. You've heard it before, but the headline

03:40 is true. This administration is sanctioning Alaska. We're sanctioning Alaska while we're

03:47 boosting foreign resources. And you don't pay attention. You overlook the pollution,

03:53 the human rights abuses, the regimes that it enables, from Russia and Iran. And in the

03:59 meantime, you've got a president that seems to think that Willow is enough to sustain

04:04 an entire state. The administration here has effectively reduced Alaska to nothing more

04:10 than a debit card to pay off national environmental groups in an election year. And I know that

04:16 that's tough. I know that that's tough. But we can't look at it any other way. There is

04:22 no valid reason, there is no good excuse for Interior's decisions. The department needs

04:29 to follow the law. They need to follow the law, they need to consult with all Alaska

04:34 natives, all Alaska natives. And frankly, I think clean house at the BLM. I want you

04:44 to give this some thought because we're going to have an opportunity next week at Interior

04:48 Appropriations for me to ask more questions, to ask questions. But I want you to think

04:54 about this. What justifies this? What justifies this singling out of one state, of one state

05:01 alone to treat Alaska in this way and in this manner where you are effectively not only

05:07 locking up the resources, you are going against our statehood compact, you're going against

05:16 the laws that we have passed, and against policies that seemingly as an administration

05:27 you should support. It seems like we are the giving tree with more and more being taken

05:33 from us every year, but we don't know that there is that much more to give. So again,

05:39 I look forward to the opportunity in the Interior Committee or the subcommittee to ask these

05:46 questions. You probably won't be looking forward to it as much as I will, but I think Alaskans

05:51 deserve some answers.

'I've Got A Lot To Say And I Think You Know It's Not Good Feelings': Lisa Murkowski Reams Haaland

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