Lisa Murkowski

I would like to have more conversation with your team about that.

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'.

I am very interested in seeing what is possible. And if we can move the dial a little bit on this issue, I am in for it 100 percent.

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

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

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…

Okay. So maybe you can work with us on some of this TA that we are looking for?

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.

This is new for us. And what we are seeing, it is traveling like wildfire, and what you look at, as you are as on the coast, or flying above, you can visually see the movement there.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the opportunity to be back at work here on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies;

The Tribe needs funding for facilities that would house the Trial, Appellate, Wellness, and Traffic Courts.

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 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 the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) creates a rural priority for subsistence based on where one lives.

I am somewhat confused then, as we look at the President's budget for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women activities.

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

Well, I really appreciate you saying that, because that is what folks are relying on.