The Cordova Times: Murkowski: My job is to make sure Alaska is successful
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, sees her job in the incoming presidential administration as making sure Alaska is successful, just as she did in the previous administration of the former and now incoming President Donald Trump – with whom she remains at odds.
In a couple of decades in the U.S. Senate, Murkowski said, she has been able to work with all presidents and she has figured out areas where she can work and opportunities where one needs to push back.
“At the end of the day it will be my job to make sure that Alaska will be successful,” she said. Given her well-known criticism of Trump, she acknowledged that “if that just means I need to approach things in a different way, I will do so,” she said.
The veteran U.S. senator, who wasn’t up for re-election this year, spent election day, Nov. 5, at the Nordic span in Girdwood, peacefully away from her phone.
In the upcoming Congress she will be back in the Senate majority again, mostly likely chairing committees like the Indian Affairs Committee and subcommittee for Appropriations in the Interior Department.
Murkowski said she thinks there will be greater opportunities for resource development in Alaska under the new administration and wants to see projects move forward to boost economic development in the state.
On the issue of benefits for women and children – given the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. having a role in health and welfare issues in the Trump administration – Murkowski noted the role he might play in programs is still undetermined. Kennedy has already said there are entire departments within the Food and Drug Administration “that have to go.” While he has repeatedly claimed that vaccines are linked to autism, he did say in an interview with NBC News on Nov. 6 that he wouldn’t “take away anybody’s vaccines.”
Murkowski, who has been a proponent of programs benefitting women and children, said she didn’t want to see health initiatives, like immunization, going backwards. She also referenced the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from the Matanuska Valley to Nome – which is rooted in the historic 1925 dog sled serum run to Nome to deliver diphtheria antitoxin to save the town from a deadly epidemic.
By press time it was still too close to call the U.S. House race between incumbent U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, and Republican challenger Nick Begich and the ballot measure on ranked choice voting. But last week Murkowski did make clear her support of Peltola and her opposition to the ballot measure to repeal ranked choice voting.
By: Margaret Bauman
Source: The Cordova Times
