Lisa Murkowski

I appreciate your time here today.

Working to get this right is something that I appreciate.

It takes me back to that roadless rule and how we still cannot get that connectivity on our Smartphones in so many places.

Making sure the Forest Service is continuing to modernize and to really make progress with the demand that is out there remains a priority of mine.

I think you have heard a little bit of the frustration from folks here today on the pace and scale of hazardous fuels management within the national forests.

I think we all want to see what this infrastructure package will yield, but on the same hand, you do not want our departments to basically be viewing that as this will be the fund and the source for ongoing maintenance and operations of…

The roadless rule is, as you know, just an extraordinary barrier to us in so many different ways, and exactly the reason why we need to roll that back within Alaska.

I hope you will continue to work with me and others from Tennessee and North Carolina to see that the Smokies receives at least the same appropriation as the western parks.

We lost lives. It destroyed half the economy of Gatlinburg and we would like your assistance in learning the lessons that we need to learn in order to avoid something like that happening again.

I strongly support such as opening of the '1002 area' of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for energy development.

I am not in favor of the wholesale elimination of, or drastic reductions to programs simply to 'hit a budget number.'

I think a new administration and folks that are working earnestly to address this will hopefully allow us to finally resolve the problem of fire borrowing.

PILT is absolutely essential for our rural areas to support roads, schools, and police.

I still believe this work should have been done before the Tongass Land Plan was amended.

Let me ask you about the sales prep. You know that we continue to receive complaints from the industry...

I hope to discuss this issue more in depth during our conversation this morning.

I think you have clearly heard that just about every Member who has been here this morning has raised this issue.

When we look at these proposed cuts, we see that it hits Alaska pretty hard with regards to that support for fire staff in leadership positions.

What we received through the State fire assistance and the volunteer assistance programs, as you know, Chief, is great support for us.

The discussion about the State fire assistance, that is also an area that I would certainly have concerns with.

I do not want us to be in this category of nothing will be allowed because we have a view within the administration that we are just not going to have new acquisitions coming forward.

If it is not a new project and you recognize it as something that has been committed to, how can we prioritize this so that we complete this land acquisition as was laid out over 2 years ago now?

So, why would these not be considered land acquisitions in process, since it is effectively the plan that was laid down back in 2015?

If we had waited for the administrative solution, we would be waiting a long while here.

I was not aware there was this process where those outside the country, those with H-2Bs, could come in and effectively be the fire crews.