WASHINGTON -- When Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski called for an end to the longstanding U.S. ban on crude exports last January, the Alaskan was entering uncharted territory.
No policymaker had seriously questioned the wisdom of the ban since it was imposed after the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.
So Murkowski set out to tackle it methodically and deliberately, eschewing bombast and loud press conferences for closed-door meetings with administration officials and white papers that examined every facet of the trade restrictions. She even drafted a roadmap for administration officials to undo the ban.
It was trademark Murkowski: tackling a thorny legislative issue with a slow and steady, knowledge-based approach that could take years to pay dividends. Murkowski first used the model as a newly minted lawmaker in the Alaska House to hike the state's taxes on liquor, beer and wine by about a dime a drink in 2002, despite well-funded opposition from Republican colleagues and the alcohol lobby.
And she's poised to follow it again now, as the new chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, a role that puts her in charge of big debates over the Keystone XL pipeline, oil exports, offshore drilling, renewable power and access to federal lands.
Already, Murkowski has led the Senate's first debate of the year -- a free-wheeling, weeks-long fight over legislation to authorize Keystone, with votes on more than a dozen amendments. Murkowski insists that's how bipartisan energy policy -- and good legislation -- is made.
Murkowski has already laid out an ambitious agenda for the energy panel, with plans to swiftly hold hearings on liquefied natural gas exports, electric grid innovation, offshore oil and gas development and nuclear waste. And she aims for the committee to craft a broad, bipartisan energy bill dealing with supply, infrastructure, efficiency and accountability.
Her success will depend on wrangling support not just from the many western Republicans on the panel, but also finding common ground with committee Democrats, including their highest-ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington. Cantwell is opposed to offshore drilling off the West Coast and has been vocal in criticizing oil and gas industry priorities.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Houston Chronicle, Murkowski said the proximity of their home states, their shared love of the outdoors and the economic ties between Washington and Alaska will serve as building blocks for consensus.
Colleagues, former staff and oil industry lobbyists describe Murkowski as driven to get things done and do what's right, even if it means crossing party leaders. She is congenial and well-liked by colleagues and staff on Capitol Hill, but that cloaks a steely core.
"She's willing to work with folks," noted McKie Campbell, who has known Murkowski for two decades.
"There are times when folks mistake that willingness to work across the aisle and the fact that she's an extremely nice person as a lack of resolve. They always figure that out to their chagrin down the road," said Campbell, now a managing partner with BlueWater Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based energy and environmental consultancy.
Murkowski collaborated on legislation with previous Democratic committee chairs -- including Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Bingaman, who retired in December 2012, said they had "a good working relationship," despite butting heads on setting a nationwide clean energy mandate and giving coastal states a greater share of revenues from offshore oil and gas production.
"She has strong views, and she is committed to those views," he acknowledged. "But she was willing to let the process work itself out and have votes on issues, and that's the way the Senate is supposed to work."
There is perhaps no greater display of her resolve than an ongoing battle over the Interior Department's decision to block construction of a road from the isolated Alaska community of King Cove through a wildlife refuge, which Murkowski says is essential to giving the natives living there bad-weather access to emergency medical care. Murkowski briefly blocked Interior Secretary Sally Jewell's confirmation over the issue.
Murkowski now appears poised to win this battle of wills, courtesy of Republicans' takeover of the Senate, which put her in charge not only of the energy panel that oversees the Interior Department but also the appropriations subcommittee that funds it.
"It's a little bit different relationship than it was in the 113th Congress," Murkowski said. "I'm hopeful that perhaps we will have a more workable arrangement."
Murkowski's views on energy are shaped by her roots as a third-generation Alaskan. Although she espouses an all-inclusive motto -- "Energy is good" -- her interests frequently dovetail with those of the oil and gas industry. And she has benefited mightily from their largesse, with maritime giant Edison Chouest Offshore, energy provider Constellation Energy and oil company ConocoPhillips the three biggest contributors to her campaign over the past two years. Political action committees and individuals associated with the oil and gas sector also have donated $537,131 to her reelection campaign over the past two years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
But she's also constantly pulled in another direction, by the threats a melting Arctic poses to native Alaskans who live off the land and sea. She admits "there is a tug of war."
"I come from a state where if we weren't sensitive to the land, if we weren't sensitive to our environment, the people who have been there for thousands of years won't be able to live off the sea and land as they have," Murkowski said.
That sensitivity sometimes puts Murkowski at odds with her own party. But for Murkowski, it's an easy calculation.
"I am allegiant, faithful to the people of Alaska -- period," she said. "Yes, I am a member of the Republican majority ... but I have always put the best interests of Alaska and Alaskans ahead of my party."
Murkowski's most visible break with many of her GOP colleagues may be on climate change. On Wednesday she joined just 14 other Republicans in a vote affirming that human activity contributes to climate change but voted against a Democratic proposal saying it did so "significantly."
Her views on climate change and some social issues -- including gay marriage and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexual service members -- have evolved during her 12 years in the Senate, a change Murkowski attributes both to constantly questioning the world around her and to the influence of her sons.
"I have some well-grounded fundamentals that define who I am as a person and that allow me to get a good night's sleep every night, but ... I think it's important to listen," she said.
Murkowski came to Capitol Hill under controversy in December 2002, appointed by her father to fill the seat he had just left for the governorship. Voters put her in office for a full six-year term in 2004.
But Murkowski nearly didn't make it back in 2010. After losing the Republican primary to Tea Party favorite Joe Miller, she launched a write-in bid -- a long shot effort so improbable that only one other senator had been elected that way, five decades earlier.
Murkowski prevailed, but the close call is a vivid illustration that the moderate Republican's right flank is vulnerable. Another primary challenge is expected when she faces voters next year.
Simply focusing on oil and gas policy could be a winning strategy -- though Murkowski's new fight for crude exports is unlikely to radically alter activity in Alaska. Oil harvested on the North Slope and carried through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is already exempted from the export ban.
Murkowski knows the debate over broader crude exports is set to play out over years, but 12 months after declaring war on the crude export ban, she is already seeing some success. The Commerce Department last year interpreted existing regulations to allow a light oil known as condensate to be exported, as long as it is minimally processed in a distillation tower.
The American Petroleum Institute's upstream director, Erik Milito, credits Murkowski with "driving the debate."
"It's important to take that first step and have a dialogue about it, both sides of the aisle discussing pros and cons ... and understanding what the facts really are," Milito said. "She will have a debate that's not about pointing fingers, it's about getting to solutions."
"You should never be afraid to take on the big issues," Murkowski said. "But timing with the big issues is important, and if the time isn't necessarily here, then (you consider) how to advance the conversation so it is right."