Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that S. 272, introduced earlier today by Senator Shaheen, is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on January 27, 2015, at 2:30 p.m.

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 27, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Fixing No Child Left Behind: Supporting Teachers and School Leaders.''

Ms. MURKOWSKI

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so that I may call up amendment No. 245 on behalf of Senator Barrasso.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we have a number of amendments pending on both sides of the aisle and there are other Senators who are working with us to offer them tonight. We will be working to set votes on many of these pending amendments tomorrow, with nongermane amendments set at a 60-vote threshold. So if there are other Senators on either side who have amendments they intend to offer, they should be coming down to the floor to talk with the bill managers and get those amendments pending. We do intend to try to get to the third reading of the bill before the end of the week. With that, I recognize the Senator from North Carolina, who is with us to offer an amendment.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I know the ranking member had intended to offer an amendment on behalf of one of her colleagues, and she is off the floor right now. I want to respect the understanding we had, but I also want to respect that the Senator from Vermont is here and I believe prepared to speak to his amendment. I just want to acknowledge that Senator Cantwell intended to offer a couple of amendments. I yield to my colleague.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, the amendment I am offering this afternoon is pretty straightforward. It would effectively release wilderness study areas if, within 1 year of receiving the recommendation, Congress has not designated this study area as wilderness. There has been a lot of discussion in the news of late with the President's announcement on Sunday that he is seeking to put an additional 12 million acres in the ANWR area--Alaska's North Slope-- into wilderness status, including the 1002 area which has specifically been designated for oil and gas exploration. I want to make sure people understand this is not just an ANWR amendment. This is about the wilderness study areas that we see that are currently on the books. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of the beginning of this year, Congress has designated 109.8 million acres of Federal land as wilderness. Just over half of this wilderness is in my State of Alaska. We have over 57 million acres of wilderness in Alaska. Ninety percent of the wilderness under the management of the Fish and Wildlife Service is in Alaska. As a practical matter, there is more out there. There are more acres that are proposed for wilderness designation. For example, the Bureau of Land Management manages 528 wilderness study areas containing almost 12.8 million acres located primarily in the 12 States in the West as well as Alaska. We also have the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has a wilderness study process through its land use planning to identify areas to be proposed as wilderness. There is some history as to how we got to dealing with these wilderness study areas. Areas that are identified by agency officials as having certain wilderness characteristics--as identified under the 1964 Wilderness Act--were classified as wilderness study areas. BLM received specific direction in the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 to inventory and study its roadless areas for wilderness characteristics. By 1980 the BLM completed field inventories which designated about 25 million acres of wilderness study areas. Since 1980 Congress has taken a look at some of these. Some have been designated as wilderness and others have been released for nonwilderness uses. The BLM has also taken it upon itself to designate wilderness study areas through its land use process. The point here is that once an area has been designated under the BLM or the Fish and Wildlife Service study regime, it effectively becomes de facto wilderness. The designation then limits and restricts the ability to do just about anything for fear that it might impair the suitability of the area for preservation as wilderness. Until Congress makes a final determination on a wilderness study area, the BLM or the Fish and Wildlife Service manages these areas to preserve their suitability for designation as wilderness. Even if Congress has not acted--because it is Congress's purview to do so--the agencies have designated it as de facto wilderness. My amendment says we are going to change this, and we have to change this. Congress needs to reassert itself into this equation. As the final arbiter of what is or is not designated as wilderness, Congress can and should make the decisions in a timely manner about the wilderness status. What my amendment does is pretty simple. If Congress doesn't act within 1 year to designate as wilderness an area recommended for wilderness, the designation is released. It just goes back to multiple use. That way the agencies are not managing areas to preserve a possible wilderness designation as an option for Congress. Instead, they can get on with looking at a broader range of options for how to manage that land with the local people and other interested stakeholders through the land-use planning process that applies to each of the agencies. Some may argue that Congress needs more time on this. I would say we have had plenty of time to review these areas. Some of the wilderness study areas have been pending since the 1980s. That is plenty of time to figure out whether they should be put in wilderness status. Congress needs to make decisions. I ask my colleagues to support my amendment and take a look at what is contained and not just think about the ANWR situation but think about the applicability within their respective States. I know that Senator Sessions was seeking recognition. As Members are seeking to come to the floor to get their amendments pending, we would like to allow them to have recognition. At this point, I believe we need some clarification from the Senator from North Dakota.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside to call up amendment No. 166.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I wish to acknowledge my colleague from Alaska, and I appreciate the comments he made this morning in his first speech on the Senate floor and in choosing to clearly focus on the opportunities that we have as a State and the challenges we face. I do feel it is unfortunate that, as a State, it seems that our largest battle is against our own federal government. How unfortunate is that? I feel very fortunate to have him as a partner here in the Senate as we take on these initiatives that have such impact and are of such import to our State and to how we fit with the other 49 States. We have no shortage of issues to take up when it comes to Federal overreach and the impact it has on our Nation and our State and how we will be able to develop our resources. I look forward to working with the Senator in these different areas. I do have to comment, given where we are in the discussions here on the Senate floor about the Keystone XL Pipeline and what benefit that infrastructure will provide to this country by way of a resource that will help us with our energy security and truly helps us with our national security, is it not better to receive oil from our friend and our ally Canada than it is from Venezuela? To me these are subjects that should not even merit that level of discussion because it is just common sense. Yet this President and his administration have taken 6 years to get to a point where they may decide on this issue. It has taken 6 years to decide whether it is in our country's best interest to receive oil from a friend and neighbor rather than from those who would do us ill. And then in a stunning act on Sunday--in one breath--this administration has taken an area that has been identified as the greatest source of oil potential that we have in this country, outside of Prudhoe Bay, with an estimated mean average of 10.3 billion barrels, which could provide 1 million additional barrels a day that would come down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which my colleague has talked about, and would help us to provide our Nation with the resource we need and would not only help us from a jobs and energy perspective but also from a security perspective. On one hand, the President is saying, nope, I think I would rather continue to receive oil from Venezuela and Nigeria and all these other countries, and then on Sunday he just decides to put it off limits--the greatest source of oil we have identified in this country to date. Just this morning, the President released his 5-year lease-sale plan, which is putting off--not deferring but withdrawing--areas in the Beaufort and the Chukchi, which will limit our opportunity for the 23 billion barrels of potential in the offshore there. As my colleague has noted, the President has taken off half of the national petroleum reserve--the area we have designated for accessing our oil and gas resources. There is a move underfoot right now where this administration, I believe, is going to make the first production in NPRA and push it to a place where it will be uneconomic. We have a stunning situation. This administration says they want an all of the above energy policy, except maybe in Alaska. We can't do it in ANWR. We are going to push you off of NPRA, and offshore we are going to make it that much more difficult for you. We are going to put the throttle on Alaska's energy opportunities for this country. We are going to put the throttle on Canada and say: Don't run it through the United States--not down into the gulf coast where we have these refineries. What is he doing? He is putting our national security at risk with actions such as these. So when we talk about Keystone XL, this is more than just a pipe or piece of infrastructure crossing the border. We are talking about energy security and national security. Then we have actions from this administration this week that choke off Alaska's energy opportunities. This is why I need my colleague in this fight. Believe me, the Alaska delegation is prepared for it. It just causes us to wonder why. What are they thinking? What about energy security and national security for this country? We have the potential to be secure. North American energy independence is not a myth. It is real. But we have to have the will to make it happen--we certainly have the resources. We just need the ability, the opportunity to be able to develop them. So get out of the way and let us do that. My colleague from Washington and I have been working all morning trying to see if we can't identify a series of amendments that we might be able to move to this afternoon. We would like to give colleagues a sense of how we are going to be advancing through these additional amendments, get some additional amendments up pending, and really lay out that process. I think we have had really constructive conversation this morning, and I am encouraged. Obviously, we have a few more issues to work out, but I am hopeful we will be able to announce--hopefully in the short term--a glidepath that will give Members a little more certainty. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Point of inquiry: Do I understand that the Senator from Rhode Island wishes to make his amendment pending or just speak to the amendment?

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I do know the Senator from Washington and I were hoping to get a plan and a proposal for colleagues so that they would better understand how we might proceed tomorrow. And because we haven't had that opportunity to do that as of yet, I would like the chance to consult with Senator Cantwell here. My concern is that if we start getting all these amendments pending right now before we reach some kind of a path forward, it could get complicated.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Objection.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls related to the cloture motions on Senate amendment No. 2 and S. 1 be waived.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his leadership on this issue. He has been persistent, diligent, and very articulate as we have moved through the process, and I appreciate that a great deal. I thought I was going to be spending the vast majority of my time this week going through each of these many amendments that Members have presented. As I mentioned, we have 140-plus amendments. But my attention on Keystone and the issues in front of us was dramatically pulled away because of an announcement by the administration which I learned of late on Friday evening, and which was the first announcement today. The fact is I am not in a very good mood right now. I am not in a very good mood, and I think it is probably true to say that most Alaskans are not in a very good mood, because folks back home woke up Sunday morning to the news that this President effectively declared war on our economic future in the State of Alaska. I know those are pretty hard words. It has been suggested by some in the administration that perhaps I am overreacting. Let me tell my colleagues, when our economic opportunities as a State, which lie in our natural resources, are denied us as a State and the promises that were made when we entered the Union--the compact we made--we are now not able to see those promises, then there is nothing else. There is no other way to describe it than that it is a war on our economic future. We have winter going on in Alaska right now. In my hometown where I went to high school, I think it was about 30 below this weekend. Up on the North Slope, temperatures are about 60 degrees below zero. It is pretty cold. The President, in his video where he made his announcement that he is moving to put the Arctic Coastal Plain in de facto wilderness, described the area in the North Slope as fragile, that the wildlife is fragile. I will tell my colleagues, the area in the coastal plain, the area in ANWR is an amazing place. It is a special place, as are so many places in Alaska. It is an amazing place. I am blessed to call it home. But the President decided on Sunday that this was the perfect day to announce his unilateral decision to manage the Arctic Coastal Plain as de facto wilderness. Now the coastal plain--and I don't have my maps, but we are going to be seeing a lot of maps of Alaska and ANWR coming up here. The coastal plain is the area on the very northern part of the State, and it is part of the nonwilderness portion of ANWR. People need to understand that ANWR is a huge area. It is 19.7 million acres. It is an area the size of the State of South Carolina. There are portions of ANWR that have been designated as wilderness and they were designated as wilderness back in 1980, along with other areas in the State of Alaska that were designated as wilderness. In fact, so much wilderness--close to 60 million acres of wilderness designated in 1980--so much so that there is actually a provision in the law, in ANILCA, that says, that is enough. Alaska has given enough, in the sense that more than half of the wilderness area in the United States of America is in Alaska. That is, Alaska has more than half of all of the other wilderness in all of the remaining 49 states. Alaska has more than half. So the sense was there will be no more wilderness declarations in Alaska. Yet, the President announces Sunday that, in addition to the coastal plain, effectively all of the balance of ANWR will be managed as wilderness. So what does this mean to a State such as Alaska? Again, history is going to be important in this discussion going forward because the area in the coastal plain--the 1002 area--and it is designated as such because of a section in the law--the coastal plain was specifically set aside in 1980 for further study of its oil and gas potential. So a decision was made back in 1980 where we had more than 100 million acres in Alaska that were turned into Federal law, but it was recognized that this area--that 1.57 million acres--was unique because of its resource potential. It was identified in law as such. And it said, We are going to reserve this. We are going to study it for its oil and gas potential. Then, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration did just that. They studied the coastal plain and they recommended that it be open to responsible energy development. Ever since then we have been seeking permission to open up just 2,000 acres on the coastal plain for that very purpose--for oil and gas exploration. We are not talking about opening up the full coastal plain. We are not talking about touching any of the area that was designated as wilderness in 1980. We are talking about a development that would have an impact on an estimated surface area of 2,000 acres in a 1.57-million acre area that has been set aside specifically for this. So when we think about what that means, we learn that 2,000 acres is .1 percent of the entire 1002 area. It is .01 percent of ANWR. When we put it into context, 99.9 percent of ANWR would remain untouched if all we were seeking to do was to access the 2,000 acres. We also know that if we were able to access this small area within the coastal plain that we can gain access to an estimated 10.3 billion barrels of oil. If we produce oil at that rate of 1 million barrels a day, it will last almost 30 years. Right now we have an oil pipeline in Alaska, the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, which bisects the State 800 miles from the North Slope down to Valdez, and it has been doing a fine job of providing resource to the country in an environmentally sound and safe manner. It is an engineering miracle. It is fabulous. What it lacks right now is more oil in the pipe. We are less than half full. So the State of Alaska is being aggressive in looking for how we might not only fill up the pipe to help Alaska and to help the country and to bring about jobs and bring about revenues, but how we can do so in a responsible manner. We think we have some pretty high standards in Alaska, and we need to. This is extreme environment. It is tough working there right now, let me tell my colleagues. They don't shut down because it is cold. In fact, this is the only time of the year they can explore out there, because the environmental safeguards are such that we can't take exploration rigs out on the tundra in the summer where it might leave a mark. No. We wait until it is the coldest, the darkest, and the ground is frozen as far as it possibly can. So this is the time of year that we are hoping to be able to do more. But what this President is doing is not only saying no to that 2,000 acres we are seeking to access that will be bringing us a million barrels a day, potentially, for 30 years and allowing for jobs and a resource--no to that 2,000 acres--he would say no forever. He would not only say no to oil and gas development, but no to anything else. No road, no airstrip, no nothing. The President is saying the Congress has to make this decision, and in fairness, that is true. It is only the Congress that can make that decision to convert the coastal plain to permanent wilderness. But the reality is he has made this decision, and he has made it without us. What happens under this comprehensive conservation plan--this CCP--this area is now immediately treated as wilderness, with or without our approval. So that designation may not be there, but how is it being treated? It is being treated as wilderness. I would assert this is in clear violation of the ``no more wilderness'' clause--the ``no more'' clause in ANILCA. It is so frustrating. It is so infuriating to think that we acknowledged that some 30 years ago, when ANILCA was passed, and that recognition--when so much of the State of Alaska was put off limits to any form of development, to place it in wilderness status and to have the Federal Government agree that we had done our part, that we had contributed enough of our lands. The Presiding Officer is from a State that has wide open spaces. What do we do as a State if we have so much of our State--66 percent of the State of Alaska that is federally held? And we all know there are different aspects to Federal public lands. BLM lands mean something, Park Service means something, refuge status means something, and wilderness status means something else altogether. So when we acknowledged and the Federal Government acknowledged no more in Alaska, we thought that would be respected. We thought that might be respected. But, apparently, this President is going to choose to ignore it. My colleagues can tell this is an argument and a debate I feel very strongly about, and I feel very strongly about it because I have been living with it my entire adult life. For as long as I can remember, we have been talking about how might it be possible to look into these extraordinary reserves and resources that we know are in the 1002 area. There have been highs and there have been lows. Back in 1995, when it was my father and Ted Stevens who were working this issue, they were able to successfully get it through the Congress only to have it vetoed by President Clinton. And then 10 years later, it was Senator Stevens and myself who were able to get it so close; we were one vote shy in the Senate. The House has passed ANWR, I believe Congressman Young told me today, on 12 separate occasions. Now we are back yet another 10 years later. So maybe this is an issue that keeps coming back every 10 years. This wasn't the worst part of the news I was dealing with this weekend. At the same time I was given a heads-up that the administration was going to be releasing this CCP--this comprehensive conservation plan that will treat ANWR as wilderness--I was told that we are going to see the announcement of the administration's 5-year lease/sale plan. That is substantial for us. As folks know, we have been trying to advance the leases that have been sold in the Beaufort and in the Chukchi for some period of time, and it has been a tortured process, as many people know. But what we are told is that with the lease/sale that will be announced, portions of the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea will be indefinitely withdrawn from the next 5-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf which, again, is due to be released. I think it is important to know we have had deferrals off of our coasts in the Beaufort and the Chukchi, but these are no longer going to be deferrals. They are going to be withdrawals, which means that not only will they not be included in this lease sale from 2017 to 2022, but they will stay in place until such time--it is an indefinite withdrawal--as the next President, whoever he or she may be, should decide to change it. It is different than a withdrawal. What it then says to us is, okay, no, we are going to lock up ANWR permanently so that the resources that may be available to you--as much as a million barrels a day coming down through your pipeline to supply this country--no, put that off limits, and, oh, the offshore you want to try to advance, we are going to make it a little more difficult because we are going to take these areas and we are not going to include them in this 5-year lease sale. In fact, we are going to indefinitely withdraw them. This could have significant impact on our ability to access the estimated 23 billion barrels of oil of Alaska's North Slope. Again, when we are talking about how we are going to fill up that pipeline, we have been working toward those opportunities offshore. But there is a third gut punch to Alaska that is coming--a third. Remember, all these were supposed to be unveiled this week. What a week. First, close off ANWR permanently. Second, make the offshore that much more difficult. And third is in the area where all those who said no to wilderness, go over to the National Petroleum Reserve, that is where you should be accessing this oil. Well, okay, that is where folks are going. ConocoPhillips is trying to access some leases in the National Petroleum Reserve. These are leases that were awarded in 1998, so more than a few years to be working through all of the issues here. What we learned was that the terms and conditions of the mitigation that are going to be required by the Department of the Interior to allow Conoco to proceed with the alternative that would allow for a short road to access the pad, those mitigation costs and other requirements are going to be so much that the project will no longer be economic. Think about it. Years in the process and the permitting and the cost that goes into it, years to get there. I don't think most people know--do you realize how much oil is produced on Federal lands in Alaska? It is a real easy answer because it is a big fat zero. There is none. There is no oil that is produced on Federal lands. We have been trying to make it happen. We have been going to the National Petroleum Reserve because we have been put off limits with ANWR. It hasn't been made permanent wilderness. We haven't been able to access it because that too takes permission from Congress. So the whole area where our State has these resources--these reserves, ANWR to the east, Beaufort, Chukchi offshore, National Petroleum Reserve--Alaska--what this administration is doing is saying this ``all of the above'' strategy for an energy plan for America, we are starting to think in Alaska that means everybody but Alaska. I just can't articulate the anger, the frustration. As I tried to convey my thoughts to the Secretary, I said, I am just not sure if this administration doesn't care about Alaska and its people at all or whether you even think of us. But I have come to the conclusion that they still view us as a territory, a place where you could come in and do what you will because you are a territory. Well, we are not a territory. We are 1 of the 50 States. We are one of those stars on that flag. Last time I checked, we had just as many rights as any other star on that flag. What is coming at my State and the arrogance with which this administration is treating us is unacceptable, and it will not stand. Everybody wants to know, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? I am going to make sure that people understand who we are, that people understand that there are human beings who live in the 1002 area. You are going to take an area and declare it wilderness. People live there. Children go to school there. Yes, we actually have a polar bear watch to make sure the kids don't leave their homes early in the morning to go to school when it is still dark, and there might be a polar bear out there. Things are different in Alaska, but we still live there. We still want a quality of life for the people that is not unlike what we would have here. We don't want to have communities where we still have no sanitation facilities, where people are hauling their human waste in a bucket in the corner of the house and dumping it in a lagoon. We don't want to be in that situation. But you know what, it seems as though we have to get permission to do anything, and that permission is routinely denied. Or if it is denied, they delay it indefinitely so that it adds to your cost. We pay more for our energy. We pay more to keep warm in the State of Alaska than you do anywhere else. You might say, of course, it is colder up there. You know, back here it is going to be cold in New York. There is nobody in New York who is paying $10 a gallon for fuel like the people in Kobuk are paying. There is nobody in Massachusetts who is going to get hit by this storm and it is going to be cold and is paying $7.50 for fuel like the people in Fort Yukon are paying. We live there because we want to live in Alaska. It is an amazing place. We make a lot of sacrifices. But one of the sacrifices that we won't make, one of the things we will not give up, is to be treated like some second-class citizens, to be treated like a territory that has no rights. So when we are full participants and we say there are special places in Alaska that should be wilderness--and we signed off on that in 1980--then negotiate with us. Talk to us about what happens next. But I made the statement--again, it is harsh words, but I have suggested that this administration is one that is willing to negotiate with Iran, but they are not willing to negotiate with Alaskans. Those days are over. Those days are over. We have some issues to deal with in front of us right now as we move through the legislation in front of us. We have been focused on energy for a good couple of weeks-plus now. I am glad of that. I am glad we are going to be able to work through a process where we can move through some of these amendments. But know that the words I have spoken tonight on the floor are words that come from my heart as an Alaskan. This is not about politics. This is not about me being able to wield some muscle because I have the gavel in the interior appropriations committee. This is about Alaska as a State and our rights as a State. This is about a compact that was made with the State of Alaska, about how we would be able to use and access our lands, how we would be able to care for the people who call Alaska home. This is pure passion that drives my comments, and my comments will be echoed not only by the full Alaska delegation, as small as we are, but by our Governor, by our legislature, by our elected officials, by people who live all around the State, including the people who live in the coastal plain in ANWR. This is serious, and Alaskans are going to take this very seriously. You will be hearing a lot more from us. With that, I thank my colleagues for the indulgence of time. I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Reserving the right to object.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I am seeking clarification. Is the Senator from California asking that these respective Members have an opportunity to speak to amendments or to get their amendments pending?

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Coons.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we continue to talk to Members on both sides of the aisle to set up a path toward passage on this bill that will include some amendment votes on pending amendments and others that are waiting in the queue. We will look to set some of those votes tomorrow after lunch.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 11 a.m., Tuesday, January 27; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; and the Senate resume consideration of S. 1. I ask that the time until 12:30 p.m. be equally divided, with the Democrats controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half. I further ask that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 41, submitted earlier today.