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You can click here to watch the U.S. Committee on Natural Resources confirmation hearing of Sally Jewell, to replace Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is ranking member, and may put a hold on the nomination, over a longstanding rural access road issue on the western Alaska peninsula:
One senator has indicated she may put up a barrier to the confirmation however. Ranking senator, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has said she might hold up the nomination to ensure approval of an Alaskan road to connect a remote Aleutian village to an all-weather airport used for medical evacuations. The road would need to pass through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, a sensitive environmental area. The project has been denied for more than 30 years by the Fish and Wildlife Service. They said last month that they would again deny a proposed land swap that would enable the road to be built.
Here is a link to Jewell’s written statement, submitted before the hearing.
10 Comments
she seems timid here, maybe nervous
I’ve been watching most of the hearing – got up early. She is not against fracking; the coal state senators didn’t hear anything they couldn’t palate; the uranium backers weren’t stymied; and so on. Murkowski didn’t bring up her pet road. Yet. Nothing about wild horses yet, either.
The Murkowski road would be going through swampy terrain, wouldn’t it? I understand that any attempt at a road wouldn’t last very long and that this is more about setting a nasty precedent than anything else.
Even more complex than that. The controversy has been going on for over 20 years, to connect King Cove and Cold Bay. I’m agnostic on the road itself, but see what you imply in how it is going down.
More on Imbezek Road.
Also, the outgoing DOI Secretary, Salazar, has promised to release the review of Shell’s Arctic drilling plan by this coming Monday. Last month, his press secretary assured me it will not be issued late, even with Shell’s cancellation of 2013 drilling.
Al Franken speaking right now.
Jewel? I liked her early stuff, but her career has tailed off.
Watched about 20 min. Not impressed, lip service to keeping public lands public, ambiguous on climate change, enthusiastic (as you would expect a corporatist, rich from fossil fuels and finance to be) on “all of the above” and opening more public land to corporate denigration.
After watching for about an hour. It looks to me she has the ability to be a functionary for those who would have her placed in this office. In other words my view is MEH! Next.
Considering the makeup of both the House and Senate, nobody who openly talked like Rachel Carson would have a chance.