Lisa Murkowski

I am hoping that you are going to be able to provide us a little bit more of a plan.

I had mentioned in my last question there, Chief, the Southeast Alaska Sustainable Strategy, $25 million spent so far and, it is always described as quote, 'An initial investment'.

We can't be in a situation where we have got an impasse like this; would you agree?

There is a common sense, straightforward solution here to getting communities off diesel power generation.

So do you think then that we need to address this language that limits it to these Federal lands that are either bordering or adjacent to, because it is not just Alaska, it would be throughout the Lower 48, where you have got some…

I want to discuss the issue of opportunity between the Forest Service and many of our tribes, specific to tribal co-management.

It is nice to have Senator Fischer on.

But I do want to impress upon you that right now the community leaders, the mayors of the Borough of the Kenai Peninsula, as well as within the Anchorage area, they are coming to me, not for more in appropriations, because they are not…

It is inconceivable to me; I mean when you talk about 1.6 million acres of a beetle kill, seems to me that our communities would be eligible for more than one of these Community Grant Programs.

It has been observed on roughly 193,500 acres statewide, more than 98 percent of those acres mapped in 2021.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thought that we were going to be a little more competitive, perhaps, in the Community Wildfire Defense Program Grant.

It was around a lot earlier than that, but I think that was when we started really mapping it.

I have long said that I do not believe that we have to choose between a healthy forest and a healthy economy.

GLRI funds have been effectively deployed to protect safe clean drinking water supplies, clean up toxic sites, protect wetlands and shorelines, hold off invasive species from entering the Great Lakes, and safeguard aquatic resources.

Recently, Senator Murkowski joined Senators Sullivan, Whitehouse, and others in authoring a letter to the Department of the Interior.

Thank you Chairman Jeff Merkley, Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski, and Members of the subcommittee for your leadership to reduce pollution in rivers, improve clean water access, safeguard public drinking water supplies.

I appreciate that. But our situation here is, at the end of 2022, the unobligated balance for IHS was $6 billion.

I appreciate that. Again, we certainly, I am certainly hearing from the Native leaders about the need to prioritize Tribal participation within the conservation of the Cooperative Management.

I would hope that you would agree that this proposed move is a reorganization that is defined by the Committee's reprogramming guidelines, and so therefore would be subject to Appropriations' Committee approval.

How do you respond, though, to just the reality that that the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) creates a rural priority for subsistence based on where one lives.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Assistant Secretary, we have had a conversation in other committees as well, about the budget proposal to shift the Office of Subsistence Management, OSM, from Fish and Wildlife to BIA.

What is the rationale between--with just enacted levels when it comes to MMIW across the country?

I am glad you heard it directly. I am glad that you were impacted by it.

As you well know we have a public safety issue in the State of Alaska, some have described it as a crisis.