Lisa Murkowski

Thank you, Senator Udall.

Let me ask you about WOTUS.

I am pleased that the administration is reexamining the regulation and hopefully going to be coming up with a more sensible proposal.

I come from a State where we talk about the fact that we see our climate that has changed...

There is a backlog of State Implementation Plans at the Agency. Over 700 State Implementation Plans have been submitted to the Agency and not responded to by the EPA.

Part of what we have been dealing with the contaminated lands issues is there has not been anybody that has been willing to be lead agency.

Thank you. And you had mentioned in your comments just here your commitment to ensuring that we have clean lands and a level of enforcement for those that would degrade the quality of our lands.

I would like to restart those types of meetings with your folks, and I would like your commitment to that today.

Rather than focusing on the core mission of cleaning up the environment, the Agency has produced rule after rule using questionable legal authority.

For years, the Agency has overstepped its appropriate role.

The proposal is a stark change from the funding levels provided in the fiscal year 2017 Omnibus and represents a substantially different vision for EPA than we saw in the previous administration, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

They were stuck in the bottleneck of personnel decisions.

I have outlined some of the perhaps more unique issues in the State.

The purpose of the regulation is to move us towards cleaner air, but you cannot meet the requirements of the regulation.

The standards now that are put in place and required under this Executive Order 13777.

I have expressed concern for years that the Agency's work on the Waters of the United States rule was very problematic for the State of Alaska.

Rather than being treated as partners, States were often treated as adversaries simply because they had a different plan to comply with environmental regulations.

I don't think it's asking too much to say give us the time to fairly and critically analyze these numbers. And if you have -- if you're saying, well, CBO numbers don't matter, then let's look at the numbers that you do think matter. But it…

We are pioneering microgrids in Alaska that the rest of the world is paying attention to.

What are we doing here in the Congress, what are we doing in the Administration to really take that leadership role that I think the United States should as an Arctic nation?

We have some pretty awesome training area to show off.

I would appreciate that. I know that they would. We would certainly welcome you to Alaska.

There are oftentimes little rumors out there, little rumbles that things might be slowed down. And of course, this causes concerns from a lot of different levels.

It is just a reminder that the path to Air Force greatness often runs straight through Alaska and we appreciate that.

You know, the issue with King Cove and my 10 mile, one-lane gravel, non-commercial use road is a 25, a 30 year old debate.