I received your response on Monday the 20th.

So very important this morning, and I appreciate your leadership in this oversight role.

If the State of Alaska and Alabama and Wyoming refuse to pay, as the Governor's letter certainly suggests, I mean, what do you do?

I think that oversight role is important. And I worry that we might lose some aspect of that oversight with this expansion that we're talking about.

I appreciate that you have included these funds at a time, as the chairman has noted, of very, very tight budgets.

It's almost as though we're watching 'Groundhog Day' all over again.

I do have some concerns over a number of rulemakings that the EPA is working on, and their impact on the national economy.

One of the things we're proudest of is our volunteers in the park.

They found that the EPA is using what they consider to be some overly optimistic forecasts that overstate the benefits of regulation and understates their cost.

I guess the simple question is whether or not you feel that the State should be held financially responsible for the Federal Government's responsibility to take care of the legacy wells.

You can understand how the public feels when they just feel that there is this barrage of regulations coming at them.

The President has asked, he says we want to, again, make sure that we are doing things in the right areas.

I would like to pick up a subject that we have had a lot of discussion on here in this Appropriations subcommittee with our colleagues from the EPA, and that is the situation in the community of Fairbanks, Alaska with the particulate…

I believe that this situation teaches a larger lesson about the failures of the agency's current forest management policy.

Is the Agency looking at an extension to give the community more time to meet the new standards before this penalty phase begins in 2016?

We cannot operate unless we have the information.

I would certainly hope that at a bare minimum there is no effort to collect late fees and penalties.

I worked with Secretary Salazar on the agreement involving the King Cove road reflected in the Secretary's memorandum of March 21.

I don't think is a good option either. So again, we need to figure out how, you need to figure out, working with us, how we deal with this.

If you hear a Senator asking about bats, you may wonder, 'Well, why is he talking about bats?'

This will be, of course, the first of many opportunities to sit down and work together on issues that are clearly important to our Nation.

I need to hear from you that you would agree that it's not the State of Alaska's responsibility to clean up the Federal Government's mess.

We're not going to start with Alaska.

Senator Murkowski, I hope that you or your staff will have the time to look into this regulation.

I honestly believe it's possible for you to set a policy agenda at the department that is beneficial to all parties.