Murkowski, Jewell tangle over threat of Interior Department budget cuts

Alaska leaders continued to pressure U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at a rare event in Northwest Alaska on Tuesday, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski saying that reducing the budget of the Interior Department is just one of the tools she has to control the agency. Jewell took the threat seriously, saying jobs in Alaska are on the line if that happens. One way to head off the Interior Department is by squeezing the agency’s funding, Murkowski said, a possibility now that Republicans control both houses of Congress and Murkowski is chair of the Senate Energy Committee that oversees Interior’s budget. Jewell said she hopes the Energy Committee and Murkowski recognize that the agency and its various departments play an important role in Alaska, including providing jobs. She said she hopes she can have a thoughtful dialogue with the committee about the budget. “I’m very hopeful she doesn’t hurt the men and women that are working hard on behalf of all Americans and Alaskans, who require the support from Congress to do our work in the various federal agencies, whether it’s the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey,” which is currently doing aerial mapping of Alaska. Murkowski shot back to say she is fighting for access to land. “Well, if budgets are reduced and people lose their jobs, then that is an outcome,” Murkowski said. “But the land is the land, and that’s what I am here to protect, and the people of the state of Alaska and their right to access the lands,” she said. “This is what we need to be fighting for. I’m not going to be fighting for some short-term job for a bureaucrat.”...more 

This little spat probably means nothing.  Here's what will happen:  The House will pass their version of Interior's budget and Murkowski will take the lead in ADDING MONEY BACK into the budget.  You just hide and watch.