Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
L48 Senators See Arctic Irony in Alaskan Views
Lawmakers fled Washington, D.C. ahead of a snow storm that closed government offices today. But scores of Alaskans packed into Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s hearing on Arctic opportunity. Sen. Al Franken used it as his opportunity to highlight what he sees as an Arctic paradox.
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Rep. Young’s Wolf Comments Raises Eyebrows
Alaska Congressman Don Young attended the only U.S. House hearing on this snowy day in Washington, and he created a stir with a comment about homeless people.
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Murkowski Seeks Lease Extensions for Shell
Last summer, Shell asked the government to extend its offshore drilling leases in the Arctic. Today, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski pressed Shell’s case to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in a Senate hearing. Murkowski says Shell needs certainty to continue to invest billions of dollars in its Arctic operations.
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Sullivan Jousts with EPA’s McCarthy
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan today engaged the head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy, in a testy exchange. Sullivan’s focus was the EPA’s proposed rule for the Clean Water Act. But first the senator extracted some crow from McCarthy for dissing gifts given to her when she visited Alaska last year. Sullivan says her reference to a jar of moose meat that could “gag a maggot” was disrespectful to Alaskans.
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Senators from Alaska, Maine form ‘Arctic Caucus’
Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she’s forming an Arctic caucus -- a group of senators that will meet to advance discussion among senators and staff about issues important to the Arctic and its people.
Jewell: No Plan Afoot to Declare ANWR Monument
President Obama infuriated Alaska’s political leaders when he announced in January he would ask Congress to protect more land within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, forever off-limits to oil drilling. Some, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, predict Obama will act on his own to bar development, by using the Antiquities Act to declare ANWR a national monument. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said today that’s not in the works.
Secretary of Defense Affirms Need For Arctic Emphasis
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter affirmed on Tuesday the need for a U.S. military strategy for the Arctic as Russia builds its military in the north.
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Alaska Senators Split On Homeland Security Funding Bill
The U.S. Congress tonight approved a one-week continuing resolution to avoid a partial shut down of the Department of Homeland Security. Earlier today, Alaska’s two Republican senators split over a bill that would fund the department for the rest of the fiscal year.
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Sen. Lisa Murkowski Skeptical Of Forest Service’s Tongass Plan
Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell defended his management of the Tongass National Forest today to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the panel, says the service isn’t allowing enough timber sales to keep what remains of the logging industry in Southeast Alaska in business.
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Air Force Officials Say F-35 Program Back On Track, Eielson Remains Preferred Location
The F-35 aircraft, the new fighter the Air Force wants to keep at Eielson Air Force base, has been plagued by cost overruns and equipment failures, but Air Force brass told a U.S. Senate Committee this morning those problems are in the past.
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Sec. Jewell on the Hot Seat in Murkowski’s Committee
Sen. Lisa Murkowski confronted Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The subject was the president’s proposed budget for the Interior Department. But Murkowski used the occasion to bash Jewell for recent department decisions blocking oil development on the North Slope.
Murkowski, Jewell Spar Over North Slope Oil And Gas Development
Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell faced off in a Senate hearing Tuesday morning in Washington.
Arctic Drilling Regs Require Relief Rig; Shell Sees ‘Critical’ Flexibility
The Department of Interior today released proposed new Arctic-specific drilling standards for offshore oil exploration. They would require an Arctic operator to have a well cap at hand, but more controversially, a rig on standby that can drill a relief well within 45 days if there’s a blowout.
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Alaska Tops Gallup’s Index of Well-Being
Gallup today released its annual Index of Well-Being, and for the first time, Alaska tops the list. The researchers who produce the Gallup-Healthways report say Alaska residents had the highest well-being in the nation in 2014.
The Gallup report doesn’t attempt to reconcile its findings with all those other lists that have Alaska at or near the top: Suicide rate, sexual assaults per capita and domestic abuse.
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Murkowski Concludes Obama Aims to Kill Alaska’s Pipeline
President Barack Obama has stopped in Alaska to refuel, but he plans to make his first real trip to the state in August, in the company of Secretary of State John Kerry. Or so says U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She let it slip during her annual address to the Alaska Legislature today, a speech aimed primarily at fighting the administration’s moves to shield parts of the Arctic from oil development.
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Murkowski Turns Sec. Kerry’s Gaze North
Sec. of State John Kerry’s agenda these days is dominated by the world’s hot spots: Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski met with him this week to move his focus to a cold spot: the Arctic. "The secretary is very focused on issues as they relate to climate, so that aspect of the Arctic, I think it’s fair to say, he is engaged, " she said after the meeting. "I don’t think that he has the bigger Arctic picture, the other Arctic pictures."
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Sullivan Stands With House on DHS Funding
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out February 27, unless Congress can resolve an impasse over immigration policy riders the House included in its funding bill. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan today stood with conservative lawmakers, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, calling on the Senate to pass the House bill.
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Senators Grill EPA Clean Air Chief over CO2 Rule
In the U.S. Senate today, the Environment and Public Works Committee took up a plan by President Obama to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The proposed EPA regulation would require a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide by 2030. Republicans call it federal overreach, and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan had more objections than time allowed.
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U.S. Senators Try Again to Kill Vessel Discharge Regs
Alaska fishermen have three years before the EPA is supposed to begin regulating deck wash, bilge water and other liquids discharged from small vessels. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski this week introduced a bill to permanently block the regulation for commercial vessels under 79 feet. Senate co-sponsors include Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, and California Democrat Barbara Boxer.
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EPA Administrator Insists Water Rule isn’t a Power Grab
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy today defended a proposed Clean Water Act rule to a joint committee of Congress. Republican critics charge is an egregious case of federal overreach, and the rule is of special concern in Alaska.
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