Sen. Lisa Murkowski has had a busy week. On Monday, she was leading a field hearing of the U.S. Senate\u2019s energy committee in Bethel. After a stop in Anchorage, she delivered her annual address to the Alaska Legislature on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Following that speech, Murkowski had a day of meetings with state and local officials. As the sun set behind the mountains of Douglas Island, she stopped at the Juneau Empire to talk about issues near and dear to Juneauites.<\/p>\n
\nOn Juneau Access:<\/strong><\/p>\n This spring, the Alaska Department of Transportation will finish its environmental assessment process for the road out of Juneau. A decision on the project – whether to continue it immediately, cancel it, or simply put it on hold – will be up to Gov. Bill Walker.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something the Legislature and the governor have got to reckon with,\u201d Murkowski said.<\/p>\n Walker late last year indicated his opposition to Alaska \u201cmegaprojects,\u201d expensive capital projects being considered across the state.<\/p>\n Murkowski said she isn\u2019t sure Juneau\u2019s road deserves the \u201cmegaproject\u201d label. \u201cIt\u2019s not on the same scale as perhaps the Knik Arm Crossing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n While the Juneau Access project will cost an estimated $574 million, 90 percent of that total will be paid by the federal government, and the state has already socked away much of the remaining $57 million. Last year, the project\u2019s manager said less than $4 million more is needed to start work.<\/p>\n She said she understands there is a \u201cdiversity of opinion\u201d on the Juneau road, \u201cbut having been a kid from Southeast and having lived here in Juneau for many years, I\u2019ve always figured there would be a time when there would be a road out of town.\u201d<\/p>\n In this case, \u201cI think it is a question of timing,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now, it\u2019s kind of a tough time for everybody who\u2019s looking for money.\u201d<\/p>\n On local power projects:<\/strong><\/p>\n Murkowski is chairwoman of the U.S. Senate\u2019s energy committee, and the comprehensive energy bill drafted by that committee includes \u201cstreamlined permitting\u201d for small and medium-sized hydroelectric power projects, Murkowski said.<\/p>\n With the country looking for renewable, clean energy, she said it \u201cmakes no sense\u201d to put obstacles in the way of hydroelectricity.<\/p>\n On the Coast Guard and Arctic icebreakers:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI am not taking my foot off the pedal here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n President Obama\u2019s draft budget for the next fiscal year includes $150 million for a new polar icebreaker, but that won\u2019t be enough to build a billion-dollar new ship, Murkowski said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got to make sure the funding commitment is there and it\u2019s robust going forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She also wants to make sure that funding for the icebreaker doesn\u2019t come at the expense of the Coast Guard\u2019s ongoing plans to modernize its fleet.<\/p>\n If the Coast Guard spends $1 billion per year on new ships, having to allocate $150 million of that sum to an icebreaker would hurt the service.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a national security asset,\u201d Murkowski said of a new icebreaker. \u201cLet\u2019s treat it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n On her election this fall:<\/strong><\/p>\n The last time Murkowski faced election, she was defeated in the Republican primary by Joe Miller of Fairbanks. She still came out on top in the general election, winning the first successful write-in campaign for the U.S. Senate since 1954. In downtown Juneau during that election, she topped Miller by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (but was behind Scott McAdams, the Democratic candidate). In the Mendenhall Valley, she topped both Miller and McAdams.<\/p>\n This year, \u201cit does feel different,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The world is more unstable and volatile this time around. \u201cThe times are much more serious,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n While the national presidential campaign sometimes gets \u201cawkward and uncomfortable,\u201d rowdy and rambunctious, \u201cit\u2019s not an unhealthy process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She declined to endorse a candidate in the March 1 Republican presidential preference poll.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not going to be a rah-rah campaign,\u201d she said of her own efforts.<\/p>\n She said she intends to discuss the seriousness of governing – \u201cThis is a serious business,\u201d she said – and promote the seniority she has earned since being appointed to office by her father in 2002.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a bomb-thrower. I\u2019m not one who says, by gosh, I\u2019m never going to compromise with anybody. … I think that\u2019s how I\u2019m going to be approaching my campaign,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On civility in politics:<\/strong><\/p>\n While the national headlines have been consumed by the insurgent candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, Murkowski said anyone who runs for office has \u201ca responsibility to be respectful of the fact that others may have different ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t be calling you dumb. I can\u2019t be calling you stupid. I can\u2019t resort to making it personal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of those who are in the news and putting their ideas out there are perhaps not meeting the \u2018mother\u2019 standard,\u201d she said, alluding to her sons Nicolas and Matthew.<\/p>\n On splitting the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI think that is a very strong idea,\u201d she said, but later added, \u201cIt\u2019s not going to happen this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Murkowski referred to a visit the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made to Anchorage for a lecture. \u201cHe made the case for splitting the 9th,\u201d Murkowski said. \u201cMy hope is that some of what he laid down there is carried forward in some sort of legacy for him. \u2026 You cannot burden a court with the volume, the sheer volume the 9th Circuit faces and hope to get good, consistent results.\u201d<\/p>\n In a press conference following her address to the Legislature, Murkowski said she supports giving confirmation hearings to whomever President Obama appoints to replace Scalia on the court, but she won\u2019t know if she supports giving that person an up-or-down vote until the hearings take place.<\/p>\n On using Alaska Permanent Fund earnings to partially resolve the state deficit:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis is about our future; this is all about our future,\u201d Murkowski said. \u201cIt\u2019s about our kids … it\u2019s about the state of Alaska going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n With reference to the Permanent Fund Dividend, she said, \u201cGov. Hammond was brilliant when he divined the dividend idea, but I don\u2019t want that brilliant approach that he integrated into our system – I don\u2019t want us to become so focused on that one aspect that we lose sight of … the Permanent Fund itself and what that allows us to do as a state.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she has not made up her mind about which Permanent Fund plan is right to address the deficit, but \u201cAlaskans need to be – they need to be paying attention to this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sen. Lisa Murkowski has had a busy week. On Monday, she was leading a field hearing of the U.S. Senate\u2019s energy committee in Bethel. After a stop in Anchorage, she delivered her annual address to the Alaska Legislature on Wednesday. Following that speech, Murkowski had a day of meetings with state and local officials. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":31778,"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-31777","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\/31777","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=31777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31777"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=31777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}