Lisa Murkowski

A lack of promises made and promises unfulfilled. A little bit of a pulling the rug out from underneath us.

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

The hope is that we can reach agreement on the contours of the exchange in the coming year.

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?

I hope we are able to reconcile that. Let us know if we can be helpful.

We have a trust and treaty obligation. That absolutely includes health care, education, housing, and so forth.

Domestic supply matters to our energy security and also matters to our mineral security.

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 ought to not be this hard.

If we want to be competitive in the global market, a producer and not just an importer, we cannot afford for it to take 10 years to permit a mine on our public lands.

I have been interested in and believe me there is a lot of excitement about the prospects for the Alaska Long Trail.

It is nice to have Senator Fischer on.

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.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the opportunity to be back at work here on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies; and to kick off our hearings with the Chief of the Forest Service.

I have had subsequent conversations and I will share with you, they are somewhat confused. They don't know who to believe anymore.

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

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

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…

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

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

They are excited about it in ways that you can't even imagine.