Lisa Murkowski

I have been asked to be the liaison to you to ask whether or not the Department would consider a more reasonable reporting time frame for tribes like we have done under the American Rescue Plan.

In Alaska, again, with small tribes, it is complicated, but most utilities are also small and simply can't afford the match.

So as you are working to advance this program, please understand that the reason they are allowing consortia in NTIA and through IHS is because this is what works.

That is what these consortia are able to do. They are able to build capacity so that these many, many much smaller and much less advantaged tribes, they are the most disadvantaged, they are the ones that need it most, and yet they have the…

Speaking about refining the procedures, of course you are familiar with the, in Alaska, the tribal consortia, and how they really are able to harness economies of scale.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have found in some agencies... an unwillingness to speak the language of the tribes.

We should be working together to try to figure out how we can solve some of these problems...

There shouldn't be any ambiguity to it. To us, that is legislative intent, and it is specified, so it should be easy.

So you don't consider that outreach, do you?

If you have greater resources, it would seem to me reasonable that this would certainly free that up. Would you not agree?

One of the challenges that we have in Alaska, just as it is difficult to get things in, you have to fly barrels of fuel in at the end of winter, it is equally difficult to get things out.

But we also have things like batteries out there, things that we really don't want to have sitting out there.

Most Native communities in Alaska still are relying on diesel fuel and heating oil.

So when they hear me coming to them and saying, we have tribal energy programs, we have a way to help you, believe me, they are interested.

But I will tell you, none of that is any good to a place like Alaska where the electricity is unaffordable and the service is unreliable.

But many of them are starting to feel like, is this a false promise? Is this a false promise here?

We are approaching April. This is the time of year we start hearing from our communities saying we have run out.

I want to underscore again using my State as an example, Alaska Native peoples as an example of why it is so imperative that we improve tribal energy development.

Fourteen percent, about 14 percent of households in Indian Country don't have electricity.

For far too long, we hear about these programs, we hear about the funding that we have put, outlined in legislation, in law with specific, specific set-asides for tribal interests.

But when it is our own systems that effectively hold them back, that is not fair to anybody.

We have a responsibility to support the sovereignty of tribal nations in energy development.

Well, know that we're paying close attention to Coast Guard.