People in the fossil fuel industry have criticized Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s track record of harming the Alaskan energy sector on Wednesday.
The Republican senator from Alaska has been called a RINO in the past, and now we’re seeing why.
In a speech at the Energy Summit hosted by Alaska Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, energy entrepreneur Harold Hamm and Matt Coday President of the Oil & Gas Workers Association discussed Murkowski’s tie-breaking panel vote in favor of her nomination for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The secretary was the one who led the Biden administration’s attack on the state’s energy producers.
The administration has enacted at least two dozen executive orders directed at Alaska and the state, putting at risk thousands of jobs in the energy sector by doing so.
In her decision to vote for Haaland’s candidacy, Murkowski acknowledged she’d “been more than a little disappointed in some of her responses” during lengthy conversations that took place with Haaland.
“The Biden administration picked [Haaland] because they knew that she was going to do everything that she could to shut down development, not only in Alaska, but on federal land everywhere,” Hamm stated in the summit. “I can’t understand anybody who would vote for her nomination.”
Hamm is among the most successful energy entrepreneurs of this century. He turned an energy company, Continental Resources, into the top oil producer which is listed through the NYSE.
“We need votes we can count on, that America can count on, for energy. A lot of times you don’t know where she stands and that’s not good. You have to have a clear-cut, ‘I’m here, I believe in American energy, believe in energy independence, this is good for America.”
Hamm is disappointed that we can’t count on the senator from Alaska to get the necessary votes.
Coday represents over 45,000 gas and oil workers in 33 states said that the decision to vote in favor of Haaland is “a slap in the face to every American who works in this industry.”
“We knew before the vote that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland would be against our jobs, that she was out to get our jobs, and she hasn’t disappointed on that front,” Coday declared. “And for Lisa Murkowski, for her to cast the tie-breaking vote to advance her confirmation, it’s really a slap in the face of every American who works in this industry.”
Maybe believed that when Murkowski won, she wase going to represent the oil industry and that she would be fighting to protect American employees of the oil industry. Each and every vote made by Murkowski shows that she’s not willing to go to DC and fight for the people who need her to do so.
Murkowski is not the only one who voted to confirm Haaland which has harmed the Alaskan energy industry. She also approved the Attorney General’s nomination Merrick Garland.
In 2021, the attorney general did not decide to contest a federal judge’s decision against the huge Willow Oil and Gas development. The huge energy project would have created thousands of new jobs and resulted in billions of dollars of investment into “The Last Frontier,” the name given to Alaska by its residents. Murkowski was a supporter of a federal court judge, who decided against the Willow project.
“She is and will continue to be a superb judge,” Murkowski declared after the vote.
Tshibaka was slammed by Murkowski in the summit over allowing non-elected and unregulated administrative state officials to destroy Alaskan energy.
“We are aware that federal agencies go through regulations, timeframes, the limitations on scope and the law frequently. They’re supposed to get completed within two years. Our average now is four and a half years or more,” Tshibaka stated. “Then agencies are given an official record of their decision, but it’s not definitive. They need to undergo the process two or three times, as our businesses do as does the Federal government, adding risks to the entire process which makes it expensive.”
Tshibaka pointed out that companies and investors alike are pulling out of Alaska. And Murkowski is the one to blame for all of this happening.
