Murkowski backs Senate colleague

"We start over," Murkowski said, talking to reporters during a news conference at the Anchorage international airport named for her Senate colleague, Ted Stevens. "We start over with ANWR, and we do it in a manner that is not weakened. ... We are going to take this head-on and we are going to prevail with ANWR, and the reason we're going to prevail is because it's the right thing to be doing."

Murkowski described Stevens as a "legend" in Washington, D.C., as well as Alaska. And despite the weary, annoyed "goodbye" he bid to the U.S. Senate after the defeat Wednesday night, Murkowski said she is certain Stevens has no intention of quitting the Senate or the fight to allow drilling in ANWR.

"Sen. Stevens last night was very tired," she said,. "It was the end of a very difficult, very long fight. ... I think you also heard frustration with not only the process but frustration with those whom he believes very sincerely have not honored their word to him."

Murkowski said she sent a text message to Stevens early Thursday morning, telling him he'd done a great job. No more than five minutes later, she said, Stevens messaged her back.

"Here is a guy who's been working on this for 25 years, who's just been dealt a huge blow, and he's telling me, 'Don't worry. It'll be just fine. Hang in there. Don't give up.' ... This is not a man who's given up."

While Stevens was making national news on ANWR, Murkowski was in the thick of the fight over renewal of the Patriot Act, the federal law granting the government extra enforcement powers after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

She was one of four Republicans who joined with Democrats in the session's last days to filibuster against a House-passed version of the Patriot Act, and said she did so because she believes the House measure lacks assurances that the government won't abuse stronger terrorism-inspired powers in conducting warrant-less "inspections of personal records, whether they be medical records, library records, gun records. ..."

That "difficult decision" drew White House attention, she said.

Murkowski said she had a conversation with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, and that Vice President Dick Cheney called on the morning of the vote.

"I explained that when it comes to individual rights and liberties, this constitutional guarantee that we have sworn to uphold and protect, that we've got an obligation to get this legislation as good as we possibly can. Eighty-five percent isn't good enough when we're talking about our constitutional civil and personal liberties," she said.

The act was set to expire Dec. 31, an outcome Murkowski said she did not want to see. Under threat of the filibuster, the Senate voted to extend the act for three months. Thursday, the House voted to limit the extension to one month. The bodies later agreed on a five-week extension.

Murkowski said the "fallout" from the national controversy over about $450 million in federal earmarks for bridges in Ketchikan and Anchorage "is far beyond what anybody ever imagined." The so-called "bridges to nowhere" surface again and again in unrelated news stories, especially stories targeting Stevens, she said.

"It's assumed larger-than-life proportions."

Daily News reporter Don Hunter can be reached at dhunter@adn.com.