Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have two amendments that I want to
speak to very briefly this evening that I hope we will have an
opportunity to consider tomorrow when we move to a very accelerated
process. One of them relates to lands and one relates to water--our
oceans and how we move about on our oceans.

The first amendment I would like to speak to is an amendment that
would establish a neutral reserve fund for land sales, transfers, and
exchanges.

Before I get to describing that, I want to take just a couple of
minutes and speak to the overall budget itself in comparison and
contrast to that submitted by the President. The budget before us is a
stark contrast to the President's request, which simply pretended that
sequestration didn't exist, never came remotely close to balancing, and
would have led to the return of trillion dollar deficits by 2025.

The Republican budget we have in front of us, as compared to the
President's request, while far from perfect--believe me, far from
perfect--does present a very significant choice between a direction on
energy that takes us backwards and a proposal that we see laid out in
this Republican budget that gives us a clear choice when it comes to
the future of our energy and natural resources policy.

The President's budget featured tens of billions of dollars of tax
hikes and fees for our Nation's oil, gas, and coal producers. It would
have stripped away offshore revenue sharing, which is a matter of
fairness and should be expanded to all coastal producing States.

I know that is an issue the Chair and I agree on.

The President's budget also ignored basic responsibilities such as
cleaning up abandoned legacy wells that the Federal Government drilled.
They drilled these years ago, decades ago, and while we have seen major
spending increases at most agencies and departments, in the one area
where they are obligated to do the cleanup, we are not seeing that
addressed. The President's budget would have done nothing to promote
resource development even in places where there is overwhelming public
support for it, such as my State of Alaska, which has seen restriction
after restriction placed upon it by this administration. I have had an
opportunity to speak many times on this floor about that.

Instead, the President sought new programs to subsidize the high
costs of his regulatory plans, and he has tried to find ways to avert
the serious consequences, such as the weakening of the reliability of
our electric grid that will consequently fall on its weight.

Ultimately, the President's budget would have led to lower energy and
mineral production in our country. It would have lowered energy and
mineral security. It would have led to fewer jobs, lower revenues,
higher prices, and higher dependence on others. It would have lavished
subsidies as it deepens our debt. It takes us in exactly the wrong
direction when we talk about our energy future, our energy security.

The President's budget would have done nothing to turn around the
negative trends we are seeing in production on Federal lands either.
His energy proposals are about as balanced as the budget that he
offered.

As we have seen increased oil production around the country, we have
seen the benefits that it has yielded in terms of lower prices, we have
seen the jobs that it has created, and we have seen the opportunities
for us. Yet this oil production is not happening on our Federal lands.
It is going gangbusters on State and private lands. Natural gas
production has outright declined for years on Federal lands, and the
President's regulators are now hard at work to ensure that coal follows
suit.

We talk a lot about the conventional fuels--fossil fuels--and it is
important to recognize that we are seeing similar patterns on Federal
lands when it comes to other energy sources. The President talks a lot
about increasing generation from our renewables. I agree. It is
something we need to move towards. We are seeing increased renewable
production, but are we seeing it on our Federal land? It may come as a
surprise to the Chair and to others in this body what we heard from
representatives of the wind industry.

My staff asked what percentage of wind projects are actually on
Federal land? And surely, given the commitment we have to renewable
energy, one would expect that to be a high percentage. The answer back
was hardly any. Some 98.6 percent of wind projects are apparently on
State and private land--98.6 percent. Not even 2 percent are on Federal
land.

That stat shows what we mean and why we are right when we say it is
incredibly hard to develop any type of energy on Federal lands.
Secretary Jewell said as much in front of our committee. She said: It
is just hard to do so on Federal lands.

So I am glad to be here as the chairman of the Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources to affirm that we have a better way forward.

The energy revolution--renewable and petroleum--in this country has
been on State and private lands. That is a fact. So I have filed an
amendment that would complement language that is already in the
resolution by focusing on sales, transfers or exchanges of land with
State or local governments.

The budget resolution already contains language for land acquisition
and conservation efforts. So nothing in the language that we have
included in this amendment actually sells, transfers or exchanges a
specifically identified piece of property. Any legislation enabled by
this spending-neutral reserve fund will have to go through the process
and be voted either up or down in regular order.

The language does specify what cannot be considered, and that is any
land that is located within a national park, within a national preserve
or a national monument. Those would continue to be protected.

This language would provide balance by enabling the types of
exchanges, sales or transfers with States or local governments that are
often used to craft balanced, comprehensive land policies, such as we
did in the lands package on NDAA that we passed last Congress.

When we have an opportunity to consider this amendment, a vote for it
is really a vote in support of--as a priority of this Congress--
comprehensive approaches to land policies to facilitate economic
development, empower States, and improve our conservation systems.

I would encourage Members to take a look at what I have offered here
this evening and what I hope we will be able to take up for a vote
tomorrow.

The second matter, very briefly--and I know the Senator from Colorado
is here as well, and others wish to speak tonight--is an amendment I
have offered just now that I hope we will have a chance to vote on
which focuses our priorities as a nation on what is happening in the
north.

We are an arctic nation. Now we are by virtue of my home State. But
it is not just Alaska. We are an arctic nation, and as such we have
responsibilities, we have obligations. There is activity happening in
the north country that is without question.

What is also without question is that as an arctic nation, we are
woefully behind in certain infrastructure related to our Arctic. What
do most people think of when they think of the Arctic? Ice. How do we move through the Arctic Ocean filled with ice? An ice breaker. And it is not just for commerce, it is from a national security perspective, it is from a research perspective. It is for all
those things that, again, would allow us to be a leader as an arctic
nation.

This is not easy for us, because ice breakers don't come cheap. But
it should be a priority for us, as a national asset, for an arctic
nation.

I won't go through the list of what other nations have in terms of
their assets, but suffice it to say our neighbors to the east in Russia
have over 30 ice breakers. The ice breaker capacity our Canadian
friends have is six.

But it is not just arctic nations that have arctic capacity through
their ice breakers. It is nations such as China. Think how far away
China is from the Arctic. India is considering building an ice breaker.
Think how far away they are. It begs the question: Why, as an arctic
nation, are we not stepping up? So I am challenging my colleagues:
Think broader.

I invited all Members of the Senate to join the Arctic Caucus and
understand again what it means for you and your respective States, the
benefits, but also the obligations.

I look forward to the discussion on the issue of how we build out our
arctic capacity and our infrastructure, and I also look forward to
further discussion on how we can do more to ensure the opportunities we
have for our economic development and our energy security can continue
on the lands we are blessed to have as a nation, and the opportunities
that will be made further available if we are able to move forward with
the ideas I have proposed this evening.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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