Murkowski's Motives Draw Scrutiny

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has built a reputation in her eight years in Washington as a moderate Republican willing to engage with Democrats and environmentalists in the climate change debate.

But Murkowski, who last year took on a much higher profile in the GOP leadership, is now at the center of a storm by pushing to strip U.S. EPA of its ability to regulate for greenhouse gas emissions.

Murkowski insists that her efforts — which could come to a head on the Senate floor as early as Wednesday — are a check on unwieldy and costly rules that could hamstring the recovering economy. And while she is concerned about the effects that climate change is having back home in Alaska, she criticizes the Obama administration and Democrats for using the threat of EPA regulations to bully lawmakers into voting for a much broader global warming bill.

“Personally, I believe that’s a terrible way to pursue climate policy, and beyond that, a terrible way to govern this country,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor last month. “We’re being presented with a false choice that should be rejected outright. The majority and the administration are saying, ‘Don’t make us do this.’ My answer is, simply, ‘You don’t have to.’”

NY Times