Lisa Murkowski

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Tavenner, thank you for joining us in the committee today.

It's time we address the injustices faced by the Little Shell Tribe.

On October 10, 2013, Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced legislation, S. 1570, to provide advance appropriations for the IHS.

In fact, this summer Senator Lisa Murkowski called for a stop to this lengthy uncertainty, stating that the proposed Pebble Mine has promoted 'anxiety, frustration, and confusion' in many Alaska communities.

We are writing to urge you to use your authority consistent with the Antideficiency Act to responsibly manage the 2013 Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands crab fisheries.

Letter dated October 9, 2013 to Hon. Penny Pritzer

I view this agreement as an important step toward greater North American energy security.

You've also referred to or you've outlined it this way that we can either drill competitively or collaboratively and focus jointly on the environmental considerations, the safety considerations.

I do think that when you look at the map which shows you where the lease blocks are, you will see a production platform like Perdido which has capacity for 100 thousand barrels a day.

You know, you can't help but think about or I can't help but think coming from Alaska that when we talk about development in our oceans it--the issues are different.

I think it's important to know that on this first morning of the government shut down we're talking about how we, as a Nation, move forward toward energy independence, North American energy independence, energy security, working to make…

I think he tried to indicate that if this agreement does move forward what we do is we set in place a framework for joint development, making sure that that footprint is smaller, promoting common safety, environmental standards.

Yes, it is our expectation that BLM will consider economic impacts throughout the implementation of this bill and develop regulations for this and other provisions in the bill accordingly. I do not anticipate that the definition of…

It's incumbent upon us, as lawmakers, to review them, to address them and to deal with them.

I really do hope this is the beginning of good, respectful engagement and dialog on this issue.

Now, we're going to have to quit that. If we're going to solve the issue of fish-and-game management on the basis of sustained yield, we all have to give and we all have to take.

So when we talk about the concept of co-management, as long as everybody's talking and working with one another, I think that we can make some good headway there.

Protection of Alaska Native hunting and fishing will continue to be the Alaska Native people's number one priority until we see implementation on the ground of legislation establishing an Alaska Native priority and Alaska Native…

We commend Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, and this Committee, for introducing and considering legislation targeted to resolve unique problems and to address region-specific challenges.

It's not going to help if we move off to our respective corners and say, I don't want to deal with it because it's too big.

Legislative changes, I think we all recognize, are tough to achieve anymore.

I think it's probably fair to say that the response was unresponsive.

I think it is important that we understand what we're talking about here when we're talking about a subsistence lifestyle, and how Alaska Natives, rural Alaskans are feeding their families when you don't have access to a store.

Hopefully, we'll have a good number of you back with good, constructive ideas and a desire to do right by Alaska's people.

So that's the AFN recommendation, that the subsistence board should be restructured to include the chairs of each of the RACs.