Sen. Lisa Murkowski has a new role as chairwoman Senate subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency budgets: Mediator.
The Alaska Republican said the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee is “unique,” and not necessarily in a positive way. The panel hasn’t even marked up a spending bill in a year, in part because of fights over EPA regulations that Republicans want to handcuff.
But Murkowski said she has no interest in passing a “messaging” bill that would endanger support from Democrats needed to pass it.
“I’m going to have to spend a lot of time working through some of these issues. You’re going to have folks that will want to load this particular bill with a lot of different, clever ideas as to ways they can either make things happen or stop things from happening,” Murkowski, who also chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told reporters Thursday.
No doubt Republicans will try to load the spending bill with policy riders aimed at handcuffing EPA rules, such as the proposed carbon emissions limits on power plants. The decision to join the subcommittee by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who campaigned on blocking the rule, hinted at potential fireworks.
“You can guarantee that I will continue to fight back against this administration’s anti-coal jobs regulations on behalf of the Kentuckians I represent in the U.S. Senate,” McConnell said of his new spot on the subcommittee.
As majority leader, McConnell controls the floor process and can shape the spending bill there, but his distaste for Obama’s EPA runs deep. McConnell has said the agency’s policies threaten coal-mining jobs in his state, and said of the proposed power plant rule, “whatever we can think of to try to stop it, we’re going to do.”
Pressing too hard through the appropriations process, however, could spoil support from Democrats when Republicans take aim at the EPA power plant rules. A handful have criticized the administration on the proposed rule, but those cries aren’t at the decibel level or number as, say, those of Democrats who support building the Keystone XL pipeline.
While Murkowski will try to keep tempers tame, her own could flare when handling the Interior budget.
The Obama administration’s decision last month to protect 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge incensed the Alaska delegation. The Republican lawmakers said it violated a 1980 congressional deal that set aside a portion of the area for future oil and gas development.
Murkowski’s beef with the administration and Interior more specifically goes further than that. Interior’s 2013 decision to block a land swap that would have permitted building a 10-mile road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge has left Murkowski’s relationship with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell icy.
Murkowski didn’t rule out using the spending bill to reverse the Interior ruling.
“We have many options in front of us … We shall see as we move forward with appropriations,” she said.
Alaska lawmakers have fought for years for the road, which would be used for emergency medical evacuations for the remote native Aleutian community of King Cove. The department said building the road would disrupt the habitat for wildlife and threatened and endangered birds.
