Lisa Murkowski

I would rather the people of Ketchikan and Prince of Wales be able to harvest timber, be able to have jobs in the small saw mills than figure out ways that we're piecing together Secure Rural Schools program funding.

Do you worry that not only the Chugach National Forest, but the others, the other eight, might start revising their plan under this new rule, and then as we saw before, the rule gets thrown out in court.

Well, I think we all know there's been a somewhat tortured history out there going through the courts.

We need to be able to find a way to work together to be able to move forward.

I'd appreciate that.

Thank you for your April 18, 2012, letter requesting additional clarification about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Bristol Bay watershed assessment.

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.

In light of the President's announcement last week of an Executive order creating an interagency working group...

This wrong-handed proposal coming out of the Administration could negatively impact our success here in the economy.

Adding more burden to that already difficult and complex structure is not going to make Alaska more competitive.

It's more than a little bit disconcerting to hear that the unifying theme is that there is no communication.

I was disappointed to learn that this year the Regional Ocean Partnership competitive grants support activities that contribute to achieving the priorities identified by Regional Ocean Partnerships while also advancing National Ocean…

We need more science and baseline information in order to effectively incorporate ecosystem-based management and decision-making.

However, I do not support national guidelines that dictate standards for ocean management.

I commend the resource management bodies here in the Alaska region, like the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for proactively developing and integrating ecosystem-oriented management approaches into their decision-making process.

I'm glad the President got the message and did not request CMSP funding.

I do believe that the concerns that have been expressed by a number of industries, state and local governments, I think we recognize this is yet another attempt by the executive branch to tell us how we can and how we cannot use our oceans…

The National Ocean Policy will be expensive and we recognize that.

So in other words in a country like the United Kingdom you were stacked up against other Nations like Angola and saying you are a bad investment opportunity?

I thank my colleague for the plug there on our energy bill.

I think your focus on spare capacity really goes to the heart of the matter.

Is there anyone other than the Saudis that have that ability to provide for additional capacity?

But you extend the life of conventional fuels. They're cleaner. They're safer. But they go on longer.

We need to build confidence about new supplies both North America and internationally.

I want to explore a little bit more on this issue on where we are with spare capacity.