statistics kept by the New York Times<\/a>, Murkowski has voted \u201cyes\u201d on 13 of 14 Trump administration cabinet appointees so far.<\/p>\nOn her one \u201cno\u201d vote, against Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Murkowski voted for DeVos in committee before voting against her on the floor.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Empire, Murkowski said it\u2019s been her principle to defer to the president\u2019s choice on cabinet members in committee so they can be subject to an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. She said she\u2019s gone against that principle only once, with Tom Perez, Secretary of Labor under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been the one situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Murkowski did oppose the nomination of a Trump cabinet nominee that never made it to a floor vote. Murkowski confirmed that she was one of several Republican U.S. Senators who opposed the nomination of Andrew Puzder for Secretary of Labor.<\/p>\n
Murkowski said she opposed his nomination because he employed an illegal immigrant for almost six years, failed to pay taxes on her employment, \u201cand didn\u2019t make steps to do that until after he had been named by the president to be part of his cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given that Puzder would have been in charge of wage and hour laws in the United States, \u201cthat to me was just too troubling, and it was not just me,\u201d Murkowski said.<\/p>\n
Murkowski did vote to confirm Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, even though Murkowski is a firm believer in climate change and Pruitt has in the past questioned its existence.<\/p>\n
Before his nomination, Pruitt was a fierce critic of the EPA, but Murkowski said she believes his comments were directed at EPA overreach beyond the law. She believes he will be a firm supporter of clean-air and clean-water regulations.<\/p>\n
Keep drilling<\/strong><\/p>\nMurkowski continues to support opening a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and she continues to support offshore drilling in the Arctic. Both actions are supported by most Alaskans, polls indicate, and Murkowski received a loud round of applause from legislators when she said she wants to \u201crestore throughput to our trans-Alaska Pipeline System,\u201d a phrase that means more drilling in the far north.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next several years hold much economic promise for Alaska,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After her address, Murkowski was presented with a copy of the Legislature\u2019s just-passed resolution in support of a road connecting King Cove and Cold Bay through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Murkowski is a longtime supporter of that road.<\/p>\n
Still a Republican<\/strong><\/p>\nMurkowski told reporters that even though she isn\u2019t following the Republican mainstream with regard to Planned Parenthood or expanded Medicaid, \u201cI don\u2019t feel that I am less of a Republican or more of a Republican\u201d because of those views.<\/p>\n
She said she will continue to do what she sees as best for Alaska, even if it isn\u2019t what\u2019s expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an Alaskan first and have always put that front and center, and so my politics \u2500 I think you\u2019ve probably noticed \u2500 don\u2019t always neatly align with the Republican party platform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or 419-7732.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In her annual address to the Alaska Legislature, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she does not support an effort to revoke federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and she is unwilling to reverse Medicaid expansion at the federal level unless the Alaska Legislature asks for it first. Murkowski, Alaska\u2019s senior senator, sought to assuage what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":2839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}