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Murkowski explains her ‘Pollyanna’ optimism on energy bills
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate’s Energy Committee, is under no illusion about how tough it will be to steer legislation through a divided Congress.
But she’s convinced that there's an opening. Murkowski, in an interview with The Washington Post, explains why she’s hopeful that energy proposals won’t end up in the legislative graveyard that has been growing for years.
She notes that lawmakers will inevitably get “stuck” on some topics, but adds: “[L]et's agree that the partisan back-and-forth is not going to hold us back. We'll put together a good product. And my hope is that the House will embrace it accordingly. Signed, Pollyanna.”
Murkowski is promoting a wide-ranging energy “blueprint” that she believes can help inform smaller, discrete bills to move through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Sen. Wyden and I have already reached out to our counterparts. We got a good reaction from them. The four of us — (including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (Mich.) and Rep. Ed Whitfield, chairman of the subcommittee on energy and power) — have agreed that we'd like to have occasional breakfasts and talk. That's new territory, which is a good thing.
And why she’s optimistic:
I'm a firm believer that if you put together a good product that is just good policy, that is embraced by both sides so that it is seen as politically advantageous to the Republicans or Democrats, that even in this very polarized partisan world that you can advance legislation. I have to believe that or I wouldn't want to get up every morning.
Check out the whole interview here.
