Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have four requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: committee on agriculture, nutrition, and forestry The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. committee on commerce, science, and transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a subcommittee hearing. committee on foreign relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. select committee on intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, at 3 p.m., to conduct an open nomination hearing.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, earlier this month, when I was back home in Alaska, I had an opportunity to have a two-part field hearing in my role as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. What the committee was seeking to do was to examine the impacts of ex- typhoon Halong. This was a major, major storm that devastated much of western Alaska back in October of 2025. The committee looked to explore the various Federal responses, the mitigation efforts, but also recovery programs that are available for Tribal communities. As I begin my comments today, I want to acknowledge the ever-present reality of the environmental threats to our coastal western Alaska villages. This has been a problem, a challenge for us for some period of time. It was 22 years ago that I sat at a different field hearing in Anchorage. It was convened by Senator Ted Stevens at the time. He was, I believe, chairing the Commerce Committee. We heard testimony about the erosion and the flooding that was affecting coastal Alaska Native villages. Even then--22, 23 years ago--Senator Stevens and I heard about the challenges that were faced by these typically very small, very rural communities in our State. Even back then, many of these communities were considering relocation. It was from that initial field hearing that it was identified, the many threatened communities-- threatened by erosion, threatened by permafrost thaw. So I think it is important to try to understand why we have so many Alaska villages that face this threat. In part, they are in Alaska. We are an Arctic State. We are a State that is seeing the impact of warming more dramatically than any other place in the country. We are also a big, big State. But it also goes back to the way that many Tribal communities were established across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. We refer to this as the Y-K Delta. The Native people of that region are largely Yup'ik and Cup'ik people. They were historically nomadic people, and they moved with the seasons. They basically followed the subsistence resource, whether it was the game, whether it was the fish. But when the fall came, which is the time when we see stronger storms, storm surges, they would often move onto higher ground to avoid the worst of the storms' effects. But history moves forward, and following the purchase of Alaska from Russia and in line with the assimilationist policies of the time, the Bureau of Indian Affairs began to build schools, and this caused families to settle then around the schools. But the settlement locations were not chosen following good feasibility studies or a good, robust cost-benefit analysis. They didn't navigate environmental reviews or work through a lengthy permitting process, nor were they developed in conversation, in consultation with surrounding Native communities whose traditional knowledge about the land may have helped them avoid some ecological hazards. Then, with the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA; the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA; and so many of the other laws regarding land ownership and the environment, what we saw were the Yup'ik and the Cup'ik people were largely unable to relocate as they historically might have. As such, over time, many of these small Alaska Native villages have experienced more and greater natural disasters, and some of them have been extremely devastating. This is where I would like to speak about ex-typhoon Halong. It is now 7 months after this typhoon hit western Alaska, but that 7 months has not dulled the terror of that storm, which is still present with so many. The storm crossed over 100,000 square miles. This is an area roughly the size of Colorado. The people in the region--again, primarily along the coast, very exposed--experienced winds exceeding 100 miles an hour and flooding, a storm surge pushing the floodwaters up to 25 miles inland from the coast. So you think you are safe when you are inland but not so much when we have these extraordinary, extraordinary storm surges. There are two villages that were devastated--the Native villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. The damage there to homes and community facilities was so great that the residents had to be evacuated. They were taken either to Bethel or to Anchorage. When I say ``evacuated,'' they were evacuated by the hundreds in the belly of a C-130 that came in and landed in a mass evacuation of these small villages. There are pictures of hundreds--of hundreds--of Native families who are sitting on the floor of a C-130 and flying to safety because their villages had literally been swept away. I think it is important to keep in mind that Bethel, you know, is 150 miles from Kipnuk; Anchorage, 500 miles. So they are being evacuated from their villages to, in Bethel's case, a hub village, but it is still far away. When I say these villages were damaged, it was 90 percent of Kipnuk's community infrastructure that was destroyed or rendered entirely unusable. I was able to go into Kipnuk with several of the military leadership within less than a week after the storm hit. It was eerily quiet. Really, the only sounds that one heard was an occasional dog that was barking, because the people, when they were evacuated, were not allowed to take their animals. It was devastation like something I had not ever seen. Kipnuk is a boardwalk community, which means it is built on tundra- type land where the land is very wet, very marshy, very spongy, so there are no roads. You drive a four-wheeler along a boardwalk, and you walk around the boardwalk. The boardwalks had been lifted up and just tangled and tossed, driven into the sides of homes. Homes had been lifted up off of their foundations and had floated--not just floated a couple of feet but floated miles away. Think about what this does when it rips up boardwalks and when it lifts homes off of their very foundations. The communities' water source--gone. The boardwalks, which are their main roads--torn up, impassable. Again, homes were lifted up, ripped off their pilings, and drifted miles away. This all happened so quickly in the dark of night in October that most people were still in their homes. They hadn't been able to get the word to go to the school, where it may have been safer. These people were in their homes. Sewage lagoons were breached and failed. They spilled massive amounts of human waste across the local environment, including across many of the key subsistence areas. Then, in the cemeteries, where the remains of their families are interred, the caskets began floating free in the waters. It is hard to describe the devastation. It is hard to describe even though, as we flew into Kipnuk, you could see across the wide, vacant tundra a random house catawampus over there. I could see small, white oblongs in the tundra that I couldn't recognize. It was only after I landed that I learned that those were caskets that had floated out and were now littered across the tundra. So 7 months beyond that event, people are still talking about the devastation to their communities. For those who were evacuated to Anchorage, adapting to life in our State's largest city has also posed its own challenges. As I have said, the people who were evacuated are now safe from the storm, but they are facing other threats that are equally challenging. Right after the event, I was there--again, it was about a week afterward--and I went to visit the two congregate sheltering sites there in Anchorage to visit the evacuees. I went up to one little girl--she was probably about 6 years old or so--and she was coloring. I went over to say hello, and she was supersweet. I said: What picture are you drawing? She showed me, and it was her house. She said: This is me and my family in my house. Then she kind of hugged my leg, and she said: Are you afraid of the dark? I said: No, I am not afraid of the dark. Are you afraid of the dark? She said: I didn't used to be, but now I am. I think about that little girl--and that storm is long gone--and the trauma that she shared, because I later learned that hers was one of the families that were drifting for hours in the dark, where their house was spinning around in the current until it slammed into something that ultimately stopped it. So that trauma for that 6-year- old--I don't know how that goes away. Anchorage is nearly 500 miles away and over 240 times bigger than Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. Kipnuk may be 800 people on a good day. That is probably being generous with the numbers. But Anchorage is an urban place. It is English-dominated. It is close to mountainous terrain. Everything is different from what these people know in their villages. It is impractical to live a subsistence lifestyle in Anchorage. Just a very quick case in point: Spring is the time of year when Native people who live out in these tundra villages will go out and gather eggs--seagull eggs, goose eggs. It is part of the spring harvest that just brings great delight to them and to their families. So when I was visiting with some at this hearing that we had a few weeks back, I said: What is the hardest thing about being here in Anchorage? They said: We can't get subsistence food. Right now, we should be gathering eggs. I turned to my team and said: There ought to be a way that even in a big city, you can have a subsistence harvest. Long story short: I was able to deliver 280 seagull eggs that had been collected off the top of tall buildings--not in the way that it is harvested, but they were given then to the elders of these villages who had been evacuated, with the permission of our Federal resource Agencies. But it was just one small thing that makes me think: We can try to put you in a safe place, but when everything else around you is foreign, it still becomes hard. The language barrier is a challenge. Accessing most social services in Anchorage requires at least a passing knowledge of English. For many of our conversations at our field hearing, we had interpreters who were translating to those who primarily speak Yuqtun. So there are challenges in terms of the gaps we have. Students have been transferred to local schools in the Anchorage area and to the Bethel schools. They are doing the best they can to adapt to urban life. But culture shock is very real, and we are seeing how it has taken a toll. We have heard that maybe at least one that we have confirmed but possibly two young people have taken their own lives since relocating to Anchorage. Others, we have heard, have fallen victim to substance abuse. Others are becoming homeless and ending up on our streets. I know there are strong social service organizations like the YKHC, the Southcentral Foundation, the RurAL CAP, the ANTHC, and the Anchorage School District. So, so many are doing their best to provide support to Halong survivors. But the truth is that the systems we have in place to support communities after disasters like ex-typhoon Halong were just simply not built to help relocate communities. They were not built to support evacuated people for long periods of time, nor were they provided with the flexibility to support people for whom English is a second language. So there were lots of different things that we looked at and said ``These are system failures here, so what do we do?'' because these are Alaskans who need help. From the time of the storm on, it has been my goal to ensure they have the help they need. Our field hearing was yet one more way to ensure people that they are heard and that their issues receive the Federal attention they demand. So the first part of our hearing was in Anchorage. We heard from elected Tribal leaders and representatives from the Native villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. Sometimes we just call them Kip and Kwig. Sometimes it is easier to say ``Kip and Kwig.'' But I will tell you, so much of what we heard on that first day was really heartbreaking. Lucy Martin, who is Kwig's Tribal resilience and planning assistant, described what it meant and what it felt like to be floating along the river in her home after it was detached from its foundation. Again, you are floating in a current. It is dark. There is nothing to see outside except dark. But what she did see were floating caskets of dead relatives going by her window. She said it was like living through a horror movie. In his recounting of the evening that the storm hit, Kipnuk chief Paul J. Paul just choked up. He had such a hard time describing being in the house with his family, in the dark, trying to be the strong adult, when his young granddaughter, his 6-year-old granddaughter, said: Grandpa--or Upa--can we sing ``Silent Night''? She wanted to bring some quiet to the horror they were living in as their home floated away. When I came before this Chamber last year after the storm--directly after it--I knew how resilient the people of Alaska were and how community members--the National Guard, the Coast Guard, everyone-- everyone worked tirelessly in preparation, rescue, and recovery efforts. I will tell you, no doubt about it, these communities are resilient, and we saw that on display in our field hearings as leaders recounted their personal traumatic experiences but at the same time advocated for their communities and urged what the path forward should look like for their communities and also for others that may be threatened. But here we are, 7 months after the storm, and it is clear that evacuees are just kind of in this limbo place. They have clearly expressed their preference to relocate, but they continue to grapple with a Federal response system that can only facilitate their assimilation to a community that they are uncomfortable with, Anchorage or Bethel--it is just not home; it is different--but also a Federal Government that says: We will help you, but you have to return to the site of the tragedy. So FEMA says: We are there for you, but you relocate where you are. You rebuild where you are. And in this case, it is a site that is now unstable, likely highly, highly contaminated. Lucy Martin, again, she described the ground there as ``like walking on a Jell-O pad.'' She also said it felt like walking on a waterbed. So how do you reestablish a home in an area like that? These should not be the evacuees' only options. But we know, firsthand in Alaska, how challenging it can be to actually help communities relocate. It was actually the very first bill that I ever got signed into law here in my time in the U.S. Senate, and it was a land exchange that authorized or helped to facilitate the relocation of the Western Alaska community of Newtok. They wanted to relocate because, again, low-lying, marshy, very much on the coast, threatened by just the land around them. And so they had voted to relocate to a new site 9 miles upriver, a new site called Mertarvik. And we introduced the land conveyance bill, the land exchange bill. It was signed into law by President Bush back in 2003. I wish that I could take credit for all the origins of this, but, quite honestly, they go back to the seventies and the eighties when Newtok community members first became alarmed by the nearby riverine erosion. But it took until 2019 for the first Newtok residents to actually be able to relocate to Mertarvik. And, to this day, the residents, now relocated, they are dealing with substandard housing, housing that perhaps went up too quick. I am not going to assign blame for it, but the housing is still a challenge. Community facilities that are still-- still--not what we would like them to be. It has been painstakingly slow, and that is probably the best way to describe this process. Relocation also requires local communities to work together and to engage with Federal, State, and regional partners for success. And my view on this whole issue of relocation, as hard as it is, is that we have got to figure out how we can be responsive to community needs, especially if these communities--like Kip and Kwig--have experienced a disaster so destructive that the environment around them has fundamentally changed to the point of being unlivable. So if relocation is a community's top priority, how do we respect that? How do we ensure that there is a path available for it? We also need to do a better job supporting all communities that are affected by natural disasters. So the second day of our hearing kind of underscored that. In Bethel, we heard more about ex-Typhoon Halong and about the effects of Typhoon Merbok. This was a 2022 storm that, again, had pretty much ripped through that entire region--through the Bering Strait, all the way down to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. And in between 2022 and 2025, they had a massive flooding event just this last year. So, again, consecutive disasters that are coming through these regions. And what we heard on the second day of that field hearing was a lack of rural emergency response infrastructure. There are barriers to accessing FEMA and State assistance, and the fact that there is no coordinating entity at the Federal level for disaster response and relocation efforts. We have, in the State of Alaska, a regional commission, the Denali Commission. It is well-positioned in Alaska. But truth of the matter is it lacks the funding to address every need associated with relocation. And utilizing the Denali Commission alone would not solve similar issues that are faced by lower 48 communities. After the field hearing on that same day--it was a long day, but it was an important day--we hosted a listening session for Tribal leaders and their designees. And what I heard was, even in the communities that were not hit by ex-Typhoon Halong or were just hit mildly, the effects of recent disasters and ongoing ecological changes are just dramatic in the region and are stretching into these out years, maybe decades into the future. We heard, for example, the Native village of Chefornak's Tribal President, Janet Erik. She shared that the community is combating a combination of riverine erosion, permafrost degradation, and overcrowding. And so Chefornak is not just sitting and waiting. They are pursuing a managed retreat strategy. They are building new homes on higher ground. They are putting them on pilings. They are putting them away from the adjacent river, while they are also working to remediate and remove buildings that are just literally close to falling into the waters there. In contrast, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok residents did not evacuate from Chefornak in the wake of Halong. Only about 10 homes sustained damage, and the community actually took in several evacuated families. So I think it shows that when you look at this through the lens of how can we be proactive to put ourselves in a safer situation like they were doing--in the process of doing in Chefornak--it can make a difference. But even there, in Chefornak, the sewage lagoon, the landfill were washed out, contaminating land where community members pick their berries, gather their greens, and hunt, as well as the waterways where they fish. And the land has changed. The waters have changed. An entirely new waterway has formed near the land along the road to the airstrip; and their boardwalks are sinking, again, due to the melting permafrost. So these are realities on the ground for Alaskans living in coastal and riverside communities. It is not a question of if the next typhoon will hit but really a matter of when. And, Mr. President, I know we all have disasters that impact our States and communities. You come from a State where you see tornados coming through that bring about massive destruction. And I think we have to appreciate what happens in our respective States and the challenges, then, that we all have in responding. Alaska's challenges, perhaps, are a little bit accentuated because our geography is so--so--massive and our communities are so isolated. When I describe an evacuation, it is not just getting in your car and being able to move to safety. You have to wait for a C-130 to be able to land and do a mass evacuation of your village in the situation of Kip and Kwig and some of the others. And we also know that what happens is these communities were in the news, certainly in Alaska when all this was going on--small community, big impact. But we have this tendency to just move from what we are seeing unfolding on our screens to the next disaster that has hit somewhere else. And the people who are living with that trauma and looking at the disaster still in their area, they can't look away. And I can't look away, you know, when arctic typhoons--arctic typhoon. Just think about ``arctic'' in the same space as ``typhoon.'' There were no typhoons when I was growing up in Alaska, regardless of where I was living. But we are seeing these phenomenons impact us growing more frequent. Mr. President, 50-year floodplain estimates are now being reached in closer to 2 or 3 years, and so it is just hard to move away from the growing reality. We have got an emergency response manager. He is an extraordinary professional, Bryan Fisher. He has been with the State of Alaska--30- year career in emergency services. And he testified to us in that hearing that out of 198 disasters that he had led the State response to, Typhoon Halong, he said, has been ``by far the most catastrophic.'' We know increased community threats from natural disasters, again, are not just a problem in Western Alaska or in Alaska in general. We have heard the stories from colleagues from North Carolina, from Tennessee, from Georgia who were here to talk about the devastation following Hurricane Helene and the challenges that those communities have faced with Federal disaster relief and recovery. There were also stories of Tribal communities in Southwest Washington State and Louisiana that face worsening extreme weather events and sea level rise. So after our field hearing, it is even more clear to me that the systems in place to protect our communities don't work as we need them to. Going back to my example of Newtok moving to Mertarvik, people want to view that relocation and say ``success, we have relocated a village.'' And I suppose it is if you want to consider the simple idea that the community wanted to move, voted to move, and they have since moved. But a closer look reveals many difficult, expensive lessons learned along the way. That relocation was a generation-plus in the making. Its great success is now arguably measured in the lives not lost during ex- Typhoon Halong. And I just think about that, and I think that we have got to have a higher bar than that. Success cannot be measured only in terms of life or death. It also must include the dignity afforded to communities that our constituents call home. So where does this put us? What do we do going forward? We all need to pay attention, show up for the people we serve and for each other. And in the coming months, my team and I will continue working with Alaska communities, the State, and other Federal Agencies to chart a path forward. And our goal is to establish a more nimble system for the communities facing environmental threats, one that works with them and for them. So a couple suggestions here: First, I think you need a lead agency. Back in 2004, witnesses from the State of Alaska expressed that this is just too much for the State to take on alone. That was true back in 2004; that is still true. And with the communities threatened across the country, there is a Federal nexus. And we will do better if we can pool experience and lessons learned and work from a centralized vantage point. Next, we need to take another look at the way that we have siloed community resilience away from disaster response. We need to ensure that all parties are communicating, they are pulling together on infrastructure hardening, predisaster planning and mitigation, disaster response, recovery, and relocation efforts. And we also need to ensure that these systems are easier to navigate. I hear this all the time. These systems have to be easier to navigate for the communities that--they are strapped for resources. So narrow grants that have to be pieced together--oftentimes over the course of years--are not the most cost-effective way to address the problem, especially for Tribal communities that are already struggling with low capacity. Right now, Tribal leaders like Janet and her fellow council members in Chefornak, they are being asked to choose between building new homes for families that have moved in with relatives since their old homes were literally leaning into the river or decommissioning and decontaminating old buildings that are also about to fall into the river. I do want to acknowledge, and we are very grateful for the $16.7 million that the BIA just awarded to Chefornak through the Tribal Community Resilience Program, but this is just a start because those are impossible choices that are facing too many of our communities. It is not just Chefornak. In the meantime, I promise not to look away and to keep bringing folks up to Alaska to see, to understand, to hear. As conversations continue about the best way to structure our disaster response system, I want to work with colleagues--both sides of the aisle, wherever you are--to address not only the unique needs in my home State, but of all our States and make sure that they are adequately addressed. Our disasters and the response to them may look different. I get that. But our people all deserve the same access to safety and disaster response. And I don't think--we just can't lose sight of that. I also want to acknowledge Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland. Assistant Secretary Kirkland and his staff showed up for the people of my State. He sat with me for hours as we heard from the people of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok when we had our field hearing in Anchorage, and then he travelled with me to Bethel as we heard from Tribal leaders across the YK Delta on these very important issues. As we listened, I was struck by some words from Charlotte Nayagak. She is from the Chevak Native Village, and she has worked on disaster recovery and prevention in the region for many years. She went up to the mic, and she had like 2 minutes to speak, but she started off by saying: Finally. Finally someone from out there, not just from Alaska--finally somebody is listening to us. We need this. We need this help. Finally somebody is listening to us. So imagine spending decades watching, as Charlotte described, the erosion of your land getting worse and worse each year, happening faster and faster, and just feeling like nobody from outside your community, nobody from outside your State is listening. We should all be listening. We should all be working together to provide a better future--even after the darkest disasters--for the people we serve no matter where they live. So I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to do just that.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am here to speak this afternoon about the conflict involving Iran and more specifically, the role of Congress within it. At the outset, I want to reiterate something that I think gets lost in these discussions. The fact of the matter is, the Iranian regime is not an abstract adversary of America or anyone who supports free people and a more peaceful world. For 47 years, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has brutalized their own people in the name of preserving the power of their Supreme Leader. Protestors and dissenters are met with violence, imprisoned, and murdered in cold blood. At the same time, that same regime, through its proxies and networks, has killed thousands of Americans over the years. They have empowered groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shia militias in Iraq to orchestrate significant attacks that have destabilized the region. There is no doubt that the Iranian people would be better without the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is no doubt that the world would be a safer place without the regime spreading terror around the world. We now find our Nation at war with Iran, and I am not here to relitigate how we got into this conflict. The fact of the matter is, we are in it. But we owe it to our servicemembers and the Americans who are feeling the economic impacts of this war--we owe them a clear, thoughtful, rational plan for what comes next. Some 2 months later, the regime retains the ability to strike across the region. They continue to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. And while the administration may point to ongoing negotiations, events on the ground and the rhetoric coming out of Tehran tell a different story. If the United States steps back abruptly and prematurely, we almost certainly leave their critical capabilities intact, we risk a new set of leaders who are even more radicalized against us, and we all but invite retaliation against American military forces, our allies, and the American people. Those are not risks I am willing to take. But the answer is not a blank check for another endless war, nor is it open-ended authority for the administration, with no guardrails, no oversight from Congress, and no clearly defined mission. The answer, I believe, relies on careful, deliberate use of congressional power. And this is where I think we are falling short, because we are approaching the 60-day mark under the War Powers Act. So what comes next? The Constitution is clear on this point: Congress holds the power to declare war and authorize the use of military force. And yes, the President must have flexibility to respond to emergencies and imminent threats, and he does. And he does. But those are not ongoing military campaigns like we find ourselves currently mired in. In such conflicts, the President and the administration must explicitly state their goals, their plans, and the metrics for success, and if we don't press them to define those parameters, we may risk repeating history. One of the clearest lessons from the War on Terror is that the failure to think beyond the initial phase of military operations can lock us into a conflict that becomes more lengthy, more deadly, more costly, and more difficult to unwind, which brings me to a concern I have had from the outset of this conflict, and that is the lack of clarity from the administration, from their public statements to the classified briefings we receive as Members of Congress. When American servicemembers are deployed and lives are on the line, the administration owes Congress and the American people a straight answer about what we are trying to achieve. That is why I have been working with several of my colleagues on an authorization for the use of military force. This is an authorization, but it is also a restraint. It is not a blank check. It would not grant open-ended authority. Instead, it would seek to establish a framework requiring the President to come to Congress with clearly defined political and military objectives. It would require metrics for success, notice of any changes in objectives, and exit criteria. It would ultimately ensure that Congress is engaged. AUMFs should precede wars, not be enacted in their midst. That wasn't a choice for us here, but it cannot be used as an excuse to abandon our responsibilities. We are supposed to represent, engage, debate, vote, and when and where necessary, restrain the Executive. That is why we are supposed to be here in Congress, and that matters most in times of war. We have already lost servicemembers in the conflict--and God rest their souls--and there is still danger, and more servicemembers will almost certainly be put in harm's way even during an economic blockade. Now, I think there is a fair and legitimate question that some may be asking. We are looking at an AUMF. We just had a vote on a War Powers Resolution. Actually, we have had several votes on War Powers Resolution, and I have opposed each of them, including the one that we just took today. So why AUMF and not a War Powers Resolution? The War Powers Resolution we have voted on would have required the removal of U.S. forces from active hostilities. They would have halted operations that were already underway without any framework for what comes next, and that is just something I can't support. Iran has been targeting United States personnel, our allies, and our partners across the region. I don't believe that we can responsibly tie the hands of our military or walk away in the middle of an ongoing fight without a plan. We saw in Afghanistan in 2021 the dangers of withdrawing without a strategy. The President should have come to Congress before engaging in military action at this scale that we are seeing now, and that, regrettably, did not happen. So we are now in a position where Congress must step in--not to abruptly end operations but to define them. And that is the difference here. The War Powers Resolution has attempted to stop this conflict without establishing a path forward. An AUMF recognizes the reality that the U.S. military is already engaged and provides structure and clarity by requiring the administration to define what they are trying to achieve and the means of achieving it. It requires reporting to Congress, and it brings transparency where little has existed over the past 2 months. Now, I am not introducing an AUMF today, but if we pass this 60-day mark from the start of hostilities with still a lack of a credible plan and information from the administration, it is something that I intend to introduce once the Senate reconvenes here. So I want to close by saying as plainly as I can: I stand firmly behind our troops. As part of that, I do not take their deployment lightly, and I do not accept that we should engage in open-ended military action without clear direction or accountability. Congress has a role. Congress has to step up and fulfill that role, that obligation that the Constitution assigns to us. We owe it to the men and women who are serving our great Nation. I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to my defense fellow and my intern for the remainder of the Congress. They are Alexis Todaro-Wiegner and Caroline Moffett.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to speak about the SAVE America Act. Before I do that, though, I want to take a pause for maybe a little break in the conversation about elections to update people on Alaska's greatest sport, and that is the Iditarod. So just a moment here to update folks. Yesterday, Jessie Holmes came into Nome after 9 days, 7 hours, 32 minutes, and 51 seconds on the trail. This is a 975-mile trail that he accomplished with his extraordinary team, led by Zeus and Polar, taking him all the way to Nome. He ended up with 12 dogs in the harness that were happy and barking and hungry and still ready to go. Truly an amazing feat. Jessie--this is not his first winning the Iditarod. This is actually his second in a row. He is actually the fifth person in Iditarod history to win 2 years in a row. I visited with him at the ceremonial start, and we talked about his focus on the race and how much it meant to those in rural Alaska and the culture of rural Alaska and how as someone originally from Alabama, he had embraced that with an enthusiasm that is really infectious. So I am honored to be able to acknowledge his success and that of his team. I called him a couple times already--first to congratulate him just after he won, and then I called him again today because I read in the news that after this arduous 9 days on the trail, he was at the end of the Iditarod under the Burled Arch to greet every musher who was coming in. He has that much love for the Iditarod, that much love for his fellow mushers, and that much admiration for the teams that are on the road. There are still 24 mushers that are out there on the trail. We are wishing them the best and safety along the way. The weather there is not good, but these are men and women and canine athletes that will take the toughest test.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I want to thank not only the Senator from California but my colleague Senator Cortez Masto from Nevada as we have worked through this. Know that the Senator from California does have my commitment to try to address not only the matters that are on your specific docket today but, again, to try and find a better path forward for all the legislation that means so much to so many of us in our communities. And I thank you for the courtesy today.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we speak about the frustrations. There is always room for frustration around here. But I share the many concerns of my friend from California. Three of my bills and ones that he also cares about and more that I have cosponsored are also pending over there. And so this is not just the three of us sharing that we need to find a path forward, but I think it is also an effort and a need to find a path forward, working with the House to move these bills forward. In the meantime, here in the Senate, we need to keep doing our work, but we can't forget that we have the other body that we need to have a working relationship with, and passage of the bills requires just that. So I think, today, we want to get focused on outcomes, pushing to pass the bills where we can, however we can, whether they start with an ``H.R.'' or an ``S,'' not caring about who gets the credit but just making sure we are advancing some laws here. Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc; further, that the bills be considered read a third time and passed en bloc and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc: H.R. 2815, Cape Fox Land Entitlement Finalization Act of 2025 and H.R. 972, Sloan Canyon Conservation and Lateral Pipeline Act.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor with my friend and colleague from Nevada Senator Cortez Masto to seek unanimous consent to pass two noncontroversial bills as a bipartisan pair. The first is H.R. 2815. This is sponsored by Congressman Begich from Alaska. It is the identical companion to my Cape Fox Land Entitlement Finalization Act. And the second is H.R. 972, sponsored by Representative Dina Titus of Nevada. It is the identical companion to Senator Cortez Masto's Sloan Canyon Conservation and Lateral Pipeline Act. These are important bills to those in Southeastern Alaska and in Nevada. It probably won't make headlines out of those two areas, but they are very significant and important bills. After more than five decades, the Cape Fox bill will finally complete the land entitlement for the Native Village of Saxman in Southeast Alaska. The Sloan Canyon bill will facilitate construction of a water pipeline in the Las Vegas Valley. This is critical infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of people. These are House-passed bills, OK, so they can go directly to the President's desk to be signed into law. I mentioned that they are both noncontroversial. Their pairing is also noncontroversial. And there are no objections on the merits, on the substance, to either one of them. Both have had full process in the Senate over the course of multiple Congresses. So if these look familiar, it is because we have seen them before. Both these bills passed the Senate by unanimous consent at the end of 2024, so over a year ago. Our cloakrooms on both sides of the aisle hotlined them again 6 weeks ago, and so that is what brings us here today as we are still trying to move them. We have kind of gotten to a really difficult and frustrating-- frustrating, as much as anything--time in our process. People are wondering, and they are asking me--those in the Ketchikan-Saxman area: What is the holdup here? If everybody is supportive of this, why is it taking so long and proving so hard for Congress to agree on things? I don't have a good answer on that. I am not sure that there is one. But, again, we are trying to move noncontroversial bills through a process that requires support and consent on both ends of this building. And this end of the building has said yes, and things are getting stuck over on the other side. And rather than point fingers and call names, I want to unstick things. I want to have us know that we can move these bills that are important in our communities and in our regions and they don't get taken hostage, if you will, by the other body as they are trying to figure out how they gain leverage over something else here. That is not fair to the constituents that we represent. That is not fair to the lawmakers who are working very hard to try to advance their bills. So I appreciate the discussion that I have had with my colleagues here on the floor about a way, a process, a dialogue that needs to be had with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. So there are a few bills that we are looking at today specifically, but I think it goes to a bigger concern that needs to be addressed in a way that is going to work for other Members who are also trying to advance their bills into full passage by law. So my commitment to my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle and on the Democrat side of the aisle is let's leave from here and let's make the calls to set up the sitdowns with our colleagues on the other side--in the other body--to talk about how we are going to move these in a way that is fair and does not penalize the Members, the communities. We need to do right by our own process, and I would just suggest that we need to be doing more than we are so that we are not in a situation where we are waiting months and months and months to be able to see these matters resolved. Before I make any motion on these bills, I want to yield to Senator Cortez Masto.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to speak in strong support of the appropriations package that will soon be pending on the Senate floor. We overwhelmingly voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed last night, and so we are in a good place with these appropriations bills. As we were talking yesterday on the floor, we are appropriating again. This will be the second package of bills. As colleagues have noted in their statements before me, this package includes three bills for the rest of fiscal year 2026. This is for Commerce, Justice, and Science; for Energy and Water Development; and for Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. And as chairman of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee, I am really pleased to be able to share with colleagues the good work that our subcommittee has produced. I am proud of the bill that we have in this package. Ours is not an easy one to write. Within the Interior bill, we not only have management of our public lands, but we have oversight of the EPA, we have the arts, and we have the Indian health and Tribal programs. It is a challenge. It is complex. There are a lot of matters that reside under the Department of the Interior and the EPA. And, oftentimes, we don't always see eye to eye on the issues that are within this jurisdiction, and that certainly would extend to funding. There are some years that the Interior bill has proven absolutely elusive, where we simply could not overcome our differences, and we couldn't complete our work. But, fortunately, that is not the case this year. I worked closely with our full committee leadership, Chairman Collins and Ranking Member Murray, and I want to thank them for their leadership. They have kept us all to task, and their leadership--and I particularly commend my colleague from Maine, Senator Collins, for her just constant effort to keep us to task and really working so well with members of the committee. I also want to recognize and thank my ranking member, Senator Merkley. He has been a partner to work with on this committee. Again, we don't always see eye to eye on the issues, and one wouldn't expect us to. But we are able to work through those areas. And I also want to acknowledge and thank the other colleagues on the committee, as well as our counterparts in the House. I think we built a good bipartisan bill, and I think that the support that we have seen by way of the votes is proof positive of that. We had a 26-to-2 vote in committee last summer, and then, after weeks of bicameral negotiation, our colleagues in the House passed this minibus last week by a resounding vote of 397 to 28--so pretty strong; actually pretty powerful. And then, to have received the endorsement from the President with his statement of position endorsing this three- package bill was also very much appreciated. And, as I say, I absolutely appreciate the work that went into the CJS and the Energy and Water bills. I certainly support them. But, this afternoon, I want to direct my comments to the Interior bill, as we begin the debate. Overall, we prioritized fiscal responsibility, cutting a total of $1.9 billion. This is about 4.7 percent of our bill. That is substantive. And while we met that goal to cut our spending, we also met the needs and met Members' requests across its many accounts. We also reformatted. As we updated our priorities for this fiscal year, reflecting a new administration and the majorities here in Congress, I think that we restored balance in some of the key areas of our bill. And the result is we have a measure that will strengthen our energy security, our mineral security, and our national security. It will continue to facilitate clean and safe drinking water. This is a priority that so many of our colleagues have emphasized. It will protect our public lands, and it will ensure that we are as ready as we can be for the upcoming fire season. For example, we provide funding so that Agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, BLM, have greater capacity to issue permits for energy projects. We have included robust funding from mapping and minerals- related work at the USGS. We have also provided funds to bolster development and staffing out in our U.S. Territories. They are a long way away, most in the Pacific. They are very crucial, very key, but, oftentimes, they are overlooked or are possibly ignored. And so making sure that we have got the critical staffing that we need out there and the folks to make sure that we are poised in our quest to counter China. But I mentioned the cuts that we had made to this bill. Even as we cut back, we were able to do some important work when it comes to the priorities, like fully funding wildland fire management. We prioritized the removal of hazardous fuels. We took care of the firefighters who risk their lives to protect their communities, property, and the environment. As we have seen, year over year, that threat of fire from one end of the country to another is very real. So the effort here is a very important one. We continued to address the threats that are posed by natural hazards, like volcanoes--we just saw another eruption in Hawaii-- earthquakes, landslides, and tsunamis. My State has been particularly hard hit in recent years with deadly landslides. But there are other natural hazards that threaten lives and landscapes, and we worked to address them in this bill. When it comes to the Payments in Lieu of Taxes Program, or PILT, we fully funded it. This accounts for the Federal lands that reduce the tax base of counties and boroughs across the country. We also included substantial resources for our Agencies to manage and maintain our national parks. We hear from so many who love and embrace our national parks. We all love them. Sometimes, we love them so much that we forget that their care and their upkeep is also important. So we made sure we addressed the resources for our national parks, our wildlife refuges, and, really, all of our Federal lands. One area of the bill that perhaps gets a little more parochial--but, obviously, an issue of very real concern--is a focus on invasive species. We don't happen to have Asian carp in Alaska. We want to keep it that way. I know that, in many parts of the South, Asian carp is a threat, an invasive species that needs to be dealt with. Up on the west coast, in Washington State and, now, unfortunately, in Alaska, we are seeing growing threats from this European green crab. We want to be able to knock those out. There is the spruce budworm that threatens landscapes everywhere, from Florida to Maine, to Washington, to Alaska. Whether it is green crab, Asian carp, or budworms, the reality is we are impacted in different ways. So being able to direct resources to push back on these invasive species is important. We also upheld our commitment to Native peoples. We have provided robust funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for the Indian Health Service, and for similar Agencies. I think we did really good work within the bill to advance some of the public safety and justice initiatives. We strengthened Tribal colleges and universities. We addressed the scourge of missing and murdered indigenous women and children. A focus on ensuring the safety of our Native peoples was a priority--but, really, not just the justice and safety, but so many of the other aspects of the well-being of Native people around the country. As it relates to the EPA, I think, again, we have a good story to tell here. We did scale back the overall budget, but we kept the priorities in the right place. We fully funded the Clean Water and the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Funds. That is a priority across the country. We provided robust funding for EPA's efforts in science and technology, in environmental programs and management, with Superfund issues, and, especially, for State and Tribal assistance grant programs. Overall, we addressed the priorities of dozens of Members of the Senate, whether it was programmatic requests for more parochial matters, like stream gages on the Ohio River, to the distribution of revenues from development off the gulf coast. We did instruct Agencies not to undertake certain activities that would waste taxpayer dollars and impose burdens, like the regulation of lead tackle and greenhouse gas reporting requirements for farmers and livestock producers. We also provided funds for America250. I mentioned that the Interior Subcommittee has oversight of the arts, whether it is the national humanities or an element of the arts. In our account, we also provided funds for America250. We recognize the importance of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of our Nation. We want this to be an anniversary that really brings us together, that celebrates the best of our Nation and reminds us that we are just so blessed to be Americans. I have spoken about so many of the broad national impacts of this bill, but for folks back home that may be listening: OK, what about Alaska? No surprise, Alaska is always first and foremost for me, and we paid attention to Alaska within this bill. In addition to the many things I have mentioned, from wildfire to natural hazards, to PILT, we were able to provide for the restoration of vital fish habitat. We were able to scrounge up some funding for my colleague from Alaska's Save Our Seas Act. This is very important legislation for us. We also added funds for the cleanup of contaminated lands, for airshed grants that will improve air quality in places like Fairbanks, for healthcare facilities and staffing in Native communities, and to begin to address the impending crisis of leaking above-ground fuel storage tanks. This is a matter for so many of our communities that rely for their power generation from just fuel that is brought upriver by barge. You have to have a place to store it. These storage tanks have been there for decades and need to be attended to. We also recognize that there is a staggering backlog in BIA's probate courts. This needs to be addressed, and we were able to make some incremental gains in that area as well. So there are many good provisions in the bill that add up to what I think is a good bill. It is certainly not everything that I wanted. They never are. I wish--I wish--we could have reached bicameral agreement to include some of the naming conventions that we were batting back and forth. We were not able to, in this bill, call Denali by its rightful name. This is North America's largest peak. ``Denali,'' in the Koyukon-Athabascan language, means ``the great one,'' and that is absolutely, positively, 100-percent fitting for this magnificent mountain. We are going to live to fight another day on that because nobody is going to take that mountain from us. I am certainly not standing down here. For today, I would urge the Senate to recognize the important bipartisan work that we have done with balance, with common sense, and with fiscal restraint as really our guiding principles here. I don't take for granted anything in this Interior bill. But we would not be at this place today without the members not only on my team but on Senator Merkley's team, and the broader Interior Appropriations staff. They have worked extraordinarily hard and extraordinarily well together. I want to thank the members of my team, led by Daniel Mencher, Sarah Jorgenson, and Anna Smith; and their counterparts on the minority side, Melissa Zimmerman, Ryan Hunt, Rishi Sahgal, and Anthony Sedillo. These folks worked day and night, around the clock, through Christmas, through New Year's, and they have produced a very, very strong bill. We overcame some long odds--again, some really long nights--to move this forward and to fund the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service, EPA, and related Agencies. But what we agreed to is going to help our people, our communities, our economy, our security, and our lands and our wildlife. It is something we should all be proud to support. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 299, H.R. 6938.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceedings.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the Journal of proceedings be approved to date.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the morning hour be deemed expired.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Monday, January 12; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume the motion to proceed to H.R. 6938; finally, that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motion with respect to the motion to proceed to H.R. 6938 ripen at 5:30 p.m.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to adjourn until 4:27 p.m. today.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to; the preambles be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.