Lisa Murkowski

The process to determine Alaska's future was driven from Alaska, not from Washington, DC.

As someone who was born in Alaska when we were still a territory, I do have great sympathy for the desire of the people of Puerto Rico to resolve their political status. It took Alaska 92 years. . . . Puerto Rico has been working on it for…

We kind of lost that credibility at this point. Nobody believes that we're going to be----

I think that all of our communities have expressed an interest in considering moving forward with this process.

Let me ask the question since you mentioned 10 years. As I asked the Secretary whether or not the 10-year period within which we've outlined in the legislation is sufficient, is too aggressive?

But they're also looking for economic development opportunities and job creation.

But we're going to do everything we can because it seems to me to just allow this to go on and on and on as we heard in the discussion with Senator Risch, means that we have a solution that, at least, everyone agrees is unacceptable.

We chose the single administrator structure with an enhanced oversight board as a way to streamline the process and get the casks moving.

If we can get this resolved how do you see new development of new nuclear plants moving forward?

Is it your belief that given what we currently have with our used nuclear fuel and what we will anticipate in the future, that we will need more than one repository?

We know that there are provisions within this bill, there are certain segments that are not universally supported, some areas that were perhaps not addressed to everyone's satisfaction.

I want to thank you for your leadership on this issue, working with you, Senator Alexander, Senator Feinstein, in trying to come together over the course of many months to really find this path forward.

So we're talking real dollars here.

The Montana Wilderness Association strongly and enthusiastically supports the Heritage Act.

What I am willing to do is to change the guidelines so it includes Alaska wild caught fish. I think that's the simple fix here.

The reality is we've got some very serious, I think, reform when it comes to how we handle our maintenance issues within our parks.

Senator Murkowski, you so appreciate happening in Alaska right now.

We greatly appreciate Chairman Wyden's and Ranking Member Murkowski's recent agreement to include national park partnership funding.

I think it shows the level of interest among colleagues, and also the bipartisanship.

What I'm concerned about is that the Park Service and HHS doesn't understand that when you go with one certification...

The implications for not only the State of Alaska, that has a very strong, well-managed sustainable fisheries, is really quite concerned about the implications of this policy.

I think we need to recognize that there are other ways to acquire land rather than just the Federal dollars coming from the Treasury.

There is an expectation, I want to be clear about that, by the American public that their tax dollars are the principal source for maintaining the national parks.

We all recognize that when you are thanked, it goes a long way to feeling good about what you have done.

Senator Murkowski and I are also working on another bipartisan effort at this time on natural gas.