Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building to continue a hearing entitled ``Attorney General Nomination.''

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Employer Wellness Programs: Better Health Outcomes and Lower Costs.''

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 2 p.m.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD- 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 10 a.m. in room SR-253 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a subcommittee hearing entitled, ``Improving the Performance of our Transportation Networks: Stakeholder Perspectives''

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 10 a.m.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 29, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I will be opposing this amendment. I believe it is unnecessary. We already debated and dispensed with this just last week. We voted for the sense of the Senate amendment which called for a loophole within the oilspill liability trust fund to be closed. We set us on a path to work with the House on that. That amendment is now part of this bill. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his support in making sure we did adopt that. I think most of us believe this loophole should be closed, and I am confident that we will close it well before the Keystone XL Pipeline goes into operation. We have to remember, my friends, that before any oil flows through this pipeline which can be put into the oilspill liability trust fund, it has to be built. That is what this bill before us does. I want to make sure that we address this with the House. We will do so. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I would suggest that this amendment is designed to further delay this pipeline. It requires that a study be done by all Federal agencies with even a smidgen of review authority to determine whether increased greenhouse gas emissions are likely to contribute to an increase in more extreme weather events. It doesn't specify that the increased greenhouse gases that are under study are only related to the pipeline project. So, for instance, the President's deal to allow an increase in greenhouse gas emissions until 2030--if it caused the impacts listed in this amendment, it would stop the pipeline. That is not what we want to do. I am going to be urging my colleagues to vote no.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I think it is clear that the good Senator from California and I disagree on whether the Keystone XL Pipeline should proceed. It is apparent that we disagree on the reach of the section on permits as currently in the bill and also, more specifically, the substitute amendment we are discussing. I am willing to agree that the permits which have already been issued should not be affected. That was the intent of the provision within the substitute. I am going to be voicing my opposition through a loud ``nay'' and would encourage my colleagues to do the same. With that, I ask for the yeas and nays. I withdraw my request.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. It is my understanding that Senator Boxer is willing to forgo a rollcall vote, but she would like to speak to her amendment. I turn to Senator Boxer.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I call for the regular order with respect to the Boxer amendment No. 130.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we are here today because the Keystone Pipeline border crossing permit has been pending for years. There are no shortcuts at play. The Booker amendment, drafted as a savings clause, would withhold the approval the bill seeks to confer if there are any new circumstances, new information relevant to environmental concerns. That is the whole point here. The Keystone administrative record is already thousands of pages long. We have had 6 years of dos and redos. If this amendment is adopted, it begs the question as to whether there will ever be a decision. I think the obvious strategy of pipeline opponents is to drag out the approval process until everybody gives up on it; everyone walks away. That is certainly not the intent of those of us who support this bipartisan bill. We don't want to see an endless round of further considerations. I think the majority here in the Senate believes it is time to move forward. Let's not have continued delays. I urge a rejection of this amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the 60-vote affirmative threshold be vitiated, and I urge its adoption by voice vote.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, this is an amendment Senator Barrasso and Senator Cardin have been working on together. This amendment provides that the Federal Government must consult with the relevant Indian nations before modifying or breaking any trust or treaty obligation. This obligation is already required by Executive order. The Federal Government has been fulfilling its government-to-government consultation responsibilities on the Keystone XL Pipeline project for over 6 years. I think it is important for colleagues to recognize that this amendment does not create any new law; it is merely an additional guarantee that the Federal Government will live up to its existing obligations to consult with the Indian nations, which is a matter I think we should all be able to agree on. This is an issue Senator Barrasso has been working on with the Senator from Maryland, and they have indicated that they will accept a voice vote on this amendment. Amendment No. 245, as Modified I ask unanimous consent that Barrasso amendment No. 245 be modified with the changes at the desk.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I wish to thank the Senator from Washington for her comments. I think it is clear that we have a great deal of work in front of us, but I think we also have a better idea of where some of that common ground may be as a result of the discussions this past month. So I am looking forward to advancing an energy initiative through the committee and, hopefully, through the full process, that will speak to the attributes of affordability, abundance, a clean energy supply, diverse and secure. We have a lot of work to do. In the comments I made, I thanked a lot of people, but I think it is important to recognize that the Senator from Washington and I would not have been able to do the job we did--managing this bill on the floor, working with other Members, working with staff on the floor and our respective staffs--if there had not been a very clear and a conscious decision that management of what was going to happen on the Senate floor was going to be a little bit different, that there would be an opportunity for debate, and some have described free-wheeling debate. What is free-wheeling debate? I think we have just kind of defined it here with the Keystone XL Pipeline. I don't know whether that is going to be the course for everything going forward, but this was a pledge that the majority leader Senator McConnell made when he became the majority leader. I think we have seen that play out in a process that has been respectful, where at the end of the discussion we can still agree to disagree on the bill itself, but the process that has gotten us through final passage has been one that, again, was respectful and did allow for full and civil discourse. I think that is what the Senate should be all about and I am proud to have been a part of it. With that, I know my good friend from North Dakota, the prime sponsor of this bill, is waiting to speak and I congratulate him for a phenomenal job. He and his staff--I should have mentioned his staff. Ryan and the others who have been working behind the Senator from North Dakota have been doing a great job. Senator Hoeven has been articulate, persistent, and really has done a phenomenal job moving this through the process. I congratulate the Senator from North Dakota, and I yield to him.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am very pleased that we are at this point after three solid weeks of debate. The Presiding Officer introduced this bill on January 8, 2015, and it is now January 29. After weeks of good, solid debate, we have officially passed our bipartisan bill to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. This legislation was not only important to pass so we could add more jobs, have energy security, and good trade relationships with our neighbor in Canada, but also we were able to return to what we call regular order in the Chamber. The Senate has been given the title of the world's most deliberative body. I think it is fair to say that in recent years we have not really worn that title very well. We have not been able to engage in the deliberation and debate that I think Members of the Senate and the public at large expect. What we have seen over these past few weeks was a return to regular order where a Member is free to call up an amendment, have it debated, and have it fall or succeed based on a process that has been long established in this Chamber. That is a good thing to see. Boy, did we have our share of ideas. By last count, I believe there were close to 250 amendments that Members had offered from both sides of the aisle. That is a lot of ideas. There was a lot of pent-up demand, if you will, on energy-related legislation. All in all, we voted on just over 40 amendments. I believe the final count was 41 amendments. We made a lot out of the statement that we have surpassed--with just this one bill in 1 month--all of the recorded votes that we had throughout 2014. In fact, we surpassed it with nearly three times more votes than we had in all of 2014. Senator Cantwell and I have been here in the well during this last vote, and we have received thanks from Members who said: Thank you for getting us to this point. We appreciate that. Good job. But I think we all recognize there were some points of very clear tension around here, and that is just part of the process. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and we were able to come back together. We were able to get the process moving forward and keep this bipartisan coalition in tact. I will just point out to the Members that with the help of the ranking member on the energy committee--with the exception of one night--we did it all during daylight hours. Not to get real personal around here, but we have gotten into a habit in recent years of not taking up votes until just about the dinnertime hour. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I call the family in for dinner, we kind of expect it is dinnertime. I am pleased that we were able to work with everyone's schedule and move through amendments in a fashion that was reasonable and structured. Yesterday was not exactly convenient with the numbers that we processed, but we did it. So I appreciate the great level of cooperation we have had. It is not easy to start out a new Congress in a new majority as the manager of the first bill brought to the floor, but I had a lot of phenomenal help. I wish to take a brief moment to thank those who have provided counsel and assistance to us. This is kind of like the Academy Awards for the first bill coming through the Senate. I would like to recognize my staff on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee who have done a fabulous job with every part of this process: My staff director, Karen Billups, Pat McCormick, Kellie Donnelly, Colin Hayes, Lucy Murfitt, Tristan Abbey, Kate Williams, Robert Dillon, Chelsea Thompson, Chuck Kleeschulte, Cathy Cahill, Chris Kearney, Mike Pawlowski, Chester Carson, Mike Tadeo, Isaac Edwards, Jason Huffnagle, and Brian Hughes, on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and on my personal staff as well. Our interns on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Samin Peirovi and Will Treadwell, also did a great job assisting my staff, including putting together binders, making sure we had the current amendments and the modifications that were in front of them. So they did a great job as well. I also want to thank the members of the natural resources team in the Senate Office of the Legislative Counsel. These folks are kind of the unsung heroes. These are the ones who helped prepare the more than 240 amendments that were offered to this bill. We never see these folks, but they are churning out amendments as quickly as we can move ideas to them. Gary Endicott, Heather Burnham, Christina Jacquet, Michelle Johnson-Weider, Deanna Edwards, and Heather Lowell. It is absolutely not possible to do what we did in moving this measure through--or any measure--without recognizing the work our floor staff does for us. I wish to thank Laura Dove and the entire cloakroom staff, including Robert Duncan and Chris Tuck. The Parliamentarians and the clerks really worked hard. Also I wish to recognize on the Democratic side of the aisle Gary and--everybody has just done a phenomenal job and we so appreciate it. I truly must say the opportunity to start with this first bill and to be working with my ranking member, Maria Cantwell, on this effort, knowing that she was just getting her staff in line as we moved to this bill--the staff director on the ranking side I don't even think had officially been brought on--and it was full on. They have done extraordinary work, working with us. I want to recognize Angela Becker-Dippmann and Sam Fowler and all the rest of the team because they were extraordinary. I also want to recognize Barbara Boxer and her staff as well. There was so much that needed to be coordinated. I thank my ranking member for her patience, for her partnership, and for really the very good-faith efforts she has made as we have worked to get this bill to a conclusion, and offer a continued gesture of wanting to work together with her. I want her to know that I will be with her this weekend rooting for the Seahawks at the Super Bowl. So yet one more area of her operation, but a grand thanks to my ranking member and my partner on this bill. With that, I thank the Chair and I yield the floor to Senator Cantwell.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation which has been proposed in the past by the Alaska Congressional Delegation to officially restore the traditional name of the nation's highest peak, currently Mount McKinley, to its traditional Interior Alaska Athabascan name, Denali.' I am joined in sponsoring this bill by my colleague from Alaska, Senator Dan Sullivan. Since passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980 the Alaska Delegation has been trying to change the name of the tallest mountain in North America back to its Alaska name. In 1980 Congress did change the name of the national park and preserve where the mountain is located to Denali National Park and Preserve, from its earlier name of Mt. McKinley National Park. But unfortunately the name of the peak itself continues to refer to a President who never set foot in Alaska. While I have great respect for President William McKinley and great respect for the wonderful State of Ohio where he was born, the peak at 20,230 feet has always been called by Alaska's first Athabascan residents as Denali, meaning ``the high one.'' It is simply fitting in this day and age of greater awareness of Native history that the mountain return to a name that honors its Native ancestry. Already there are a number of towns and institutions named in honor of the 25th President. He has a monument for him at his birthplace in Niles, OH, and another on McKinley Monument Drive where the McKinley National Monument is located, not far from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. There is McKinley Heights in Ohio. There are more than 20 schools in Ohio named for him. There is a county in New Mexico named after him. There are literally hundreds of streets, libraries and other institutions and businesses named for him nationwide. There is no danger than Americans will not remember and honor the assassinated President. But no official in the territory of Alaska actually named the nation's tallest mountain after the former President. That was done by a prospector William Dickey, who took it upon himself to name the peak in 1896. The Alaska State Place Names Board in 1975 took official state action to rename the peak, restoring its traditional name of Denali. I clearly believe that there is every reason for this Congress to follow Alaskans' desires and the desires of Native Americans and restore the name to the English translation of what it has been called for millennia, on Federal maps and documents. I hope that this Congress will finally agree to this name change.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation which has been proposed in the past by the Alaska Congressional Delegation to officially restore the traditional name of the nation's highest peak, currently Mount McKinley, to its traditional Interior Alaska Athabascan name, Denali.' I am joined in sponsoring this bill by my colleague from Alaska, Senator Dan Sullivan. Since passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980 the Alaska Delegation has been trying to change the name of the tallest mountain in North America back to its Alaska name. In 1980 Congress did change the name of the national park and preserve where the mountain is located to Denali National Park and Preserve, from its earlier name of Mt. McKinley National Park. But unfortunately the name of the peak itself continues to refer to a President who never set foot in Alaska. While I have great respect for President William McKinley and great respect for the wonderful State of Ohio where he was born, the peak at 20,230 feet has always been called by Alaska's first Athabascan residents as Denali, meaning ``the high one.'' It is simply fitting in this day and age of greater awareness of Native history that the mountain return to a name that honors its Native ancestry. Already there are a number of towns and institutions named in honor of the 25th President. He has a monument for him at his birthplace in Niles, OH, and another on McKinley Monument Drive where the McKinley National Monument is located, not far from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. There is McKinley Heights in Ohio. There are more than 20 schools in Ohio named for him. There is a county in New Mexico named after him. There are literally hundreds of streets, libraries and other institutions and businesses named for him nationwide. There is no danger than Americans will not remember and honor the assassinated President. But no official in the territory of Alaska actually named the nation's tallest mountain after the former President. That was done by a prospector William Dickey, who took it upon himself to name the peak in 1896. The Alaska State Place Names Board in 1975 took official state action to rename the peak, restoring its traditional name of Denali. I clearly believe that there is every reason for this Congress to follow Alaskans' desires and the desires of Native Americans and restore the name to the English translation of what it has been called for millennia, on Federal maps and documents. I hope that this Congress will finally agree to this name change.