Lisa Murkowski

As the people of my State work to attract investment and create jobs, regulatory uncertainty is hampering those efforts and they need answers to questions about actions that the EPA is considering.

How long a public comment do you anticipate on that?

I'll lay this out more fully in my response to your letter which will be coming very, very shortly.

I fail to see what grounds the EPA might have for asserting that dredge or fill generated by a hypothetical mine... is any different from dredge or fill material generated by any other hypothetical development.

A preemptive veto, just like a preemptive approval, would be based purely upon speculation and conjecture.

What I would ask for you this morning is a commitment to have your senior staff with operational authority sit down with some of my senior advisers within the next few weeks or so to discuss where the EPA is on a range of these issues.

I think that the assessment would be flawed if it doesn't contain an answer to that question.

So it seems to me that you're presuming that there is an impact. I guess I look at it and say, it would be more appropriate to look at these impacts only if you do discover that there is a link between fracking and contaminated water first.

And then again, a list as to those significant rules that you expect to go final within that same timeframe, just so that we understand what it is that we're dealing with.

A lot of concern about the rush toward additional regulations coming out of the administration as we come to the end of President Obama's first term here.

More people ask me questions about EPA than any other Federal agency out there.

I remain apprehensive about EPA's handling of this matter generally.

My hope is that in addition to the questions that I had posed in my two letters to you, that we will not see a pre-emptive veto.

I do want the EPA to do its job in the regular order of things.

I truly appreciate that you've maintained this critical program while keeping the overall budget request below last year's level.

I had asked my Alaska staff to, as they meet with various community leaders, to just kind of keep a running list of some of the issues that are coming out of our communities.

This sort of talk isn't merely unjust and threatening to investors in energy projects, it hurts the EPA.

I am worried about the unintended consequences for other development should the EPA decide to take such action.

This legislation is urgently needed to continue administering our federal helium program to maintain a reliable domestic supply.

I am hopeful that Congress will be able to ensure the continued operation of the Federal Helium Reserve so that this important material may continue to assist doctors, patients, scientists, manufacturers and all Americans.

In 2002 the U.S. Senate decided against opening a small section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas production.

Long lead times should be a reason to approve drilling quickly, not to continue putting it off.

The rise in energy manufacturing driven by new technology is occurring on private lands, not federal lands.

I am, perhaps, a little concerned that we may be blurring the lines between our proper Federal role in overseeing the bulk power system and the historic State role in maintaining the distribution system.

But the concern that I have and I continue to raise is that this seeming inability to assess the cumulative impact of our regulations on the reliability aspect of the electricity sector is something that I think is extraordinarily…