WARNING: Alaska senator urges state lawmakers to back groups that favor drilling refuge.
JUNEAU -- The fight to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is not over yet, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told members of the Alaska Legislature on Wednesday.
Earlier this month the U.S. Senate voted 51-49 to include the project in next year's budget, clearing a major hurdle for drilling proponents.
"ANWR notwithstanding, the House and the Senate disagree on several very significant issues that could prevent a budget from passing," Murkowski said. "And if the budget does not pass, we do not have those ANWR provisions."
Murkowski urged lawmakers to support lobbying groups that advocate opening the refuge to drilling. She also encouraged state legislators to call senators who supported the ANWR provision and ask them to continue their support.
Murkowski identified Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mel Martinez of Florida and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania as critical to the ANWR vote.
"These folks stood by us and took a lot of heat, and I will tell you that they are hearing from those who are opposed to opening ANWR," she said.
Murkowski said opening the wildlife refuge and advancing other resource development projects such as a natural gas pipeline are vital for Alaska to brace for a time in the near future when federal funding declines.
"I'm not suggesting that Alaska has to go it alone," she said. "There's always been and will continue to be an important role for the federal government in Alaska. But we are entering a different phase, a different era."
She told reporters after the address that U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was able to boost federal spending in Alaska as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. But Stevens, who held the post for most of the last eight years, was required to step down from the position in January because of term limits.
Murkowski said the mammoth appropriations have resulted in "communities and individuals that are coming to the federal government for literally everything."
"There is a very appropriate role in the federal government in providing for assistance to the states," she said. "But it's not going to be possible for us as a federal government to build every community center, to be involved in every library and fund every truck that a nonprofit is looking for."
