President Joe Biden and his administration have assiduously courted Sen. Lisa Murkowski, with some success. But their recent move on Arctic drilling puts the Alaska Republican in a tough spot heading into reelection.
On Tuesday, Biden signed an executive order suspending all oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, pending a deeper look at the environmental impacts of drilling in the sensitive region.
With Alaska’s economy dependent in part on oil and gas exploration, including annual checks to residents from drilling, it’s a sensitive issue for any statewide officeholder, and particularly for Murkowski, who faces reelection in 2022 after siding with Biden on several issues, including as one of six senators who voted last Friday in favor of moving toward a vote on a bill to establish an independent commission for investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
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Biden’s executive order freezes a potent political issue for Murkowski, a senator since getting appointed in 2002 by her governor father, and then three times winning elections for full terms.
Murkowski may have a harder time championing a provision she co-authored in a 2017 GOP tax cut law that opened a 1.5-million-acre coastal section of Alaska’s ANWR to oil drilling.
After the Interior Department announced Biden’s executive order, Murkowski defended the provision she helped write with Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young.
“The Biden administration’s actions are not unexpected but are outrageous nonetheless. Suspending leases in Alaska’s 1002 Area is in direct conflict with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” she stated.
“The Act specifically states that the purpose of the 1002 area of ANWR is oil & gas development,” Murkowski said. “The oil & gas leasing program established by the Trump Administration meets the legal mandates required including imposing a framework with a range of proven environmental safeguards.”
Republican lawmakers and oil lobbyists long fought against environmental lobbyists and their Democratic allies on Capitol Hill over whether a section of ANWR should be open for drilling.
Murkowski took a hit from her main Republican primary opponent, Kelly Tshibaka, who blamed the incumbent for enabling the Biden administration’s attack on Alaska’s oil industry.
“This is exactly what we expected from Joe Biden and his band of environmental extremists, but it should be especially distressing to Alaskans that Sen. Lisa Murkowski had a hand in this,” Tshibaka said in a statement. “She fought President Trump every step of the way, opposing his election in 2016 and his re-election in 2020, even though his policies were very beneficial to Alaska — including opening ANWR for ‘cleaner and greener’ oil exploration.”
Murkowski’s seat is pivotal to Republican hopes of reclaiming the Senate majority the party lost in early 2021. Democrats and Republicans each have 50 Senate seats, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties.
Murkowski has lost favor with her state party and party base over the years since her father appointed her to his Senate seat after he resigned from the Senate in December 2002 to become governor.
Murkowski nearly lost her seat in 2010 as a result of being defeated in the primary but launched a successful write-in campaign for the Senate seat in the general election.
The 2022 reelection cycle will no longer be a partisan primary, however. Alaskans hold an all-party, or “jungle,” primary followed by a ranked-choice ballot during the general election.
While this benefits Murkowski, she still faces an uphill battle. In the Alaska all-party primary, the top four advance to the general election.
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Murkowski will need Democratic votes as well as GOP votes, and Democrats are likely to field their own candidate in this election.
