President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department must “come in and help fix” a broken and dysfunctional agency, the Republican head of the energy committee told the nominee at a Tuesday confirmation hearing.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy And Natural Resources Committee, said if Rep. Ryan Zinke is confirmed, “we hope the cavalry is on the way.”
She then read him a laundry list of problems her state has voiced about how the Obama Interior Department has unfairly treated Alaska and other states.
The designation of national monuments by the Obama administration, for example, has been used as a way for someone in Washington to tell people thousands of miles away “what their life is going to look like.”
She said she needs the Interior Department to address the National Park Service’s overreach, address the future of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and prioritize cleanup of old oil and natural gas wells.
She also wants a more equitable exchange for Alaskans over land. She noted that 0.25 percent of the state’s land is in private ownership. She said a Trump Interior Department must recognize land exchanges between the federal government and private entities. Prior administrations have reneged on previous commitments to expand access to federal lands.
The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, warned against an Interior Department that would look to cede the authority of federal lands to the states as the wrong priority. She added that she would rather the agency examine the effects of climate change on the lands managed by the federal government, especially on the methods used to manage wildfires.
