Murkowski opens door to Obama energy plan

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Tuesday said she is open to an Obama administration plan for energy infrastructure and suggested officials should work with lawmakers on drafting legislation.

The Obama administration released a plan last week calling for billions of dollars in federal spending to improve pipelines, electric grids, transmission lines and other energy infrastructure.

{mosads}“In many cases, the solution is new spending, adding up to potentially billions of dollars,” Murkowski said of the plan, noting that much of American energy infrastructure is owned and operated privately. “At the same time, I understand that advancing our energy infrastructure will require some federal funding, even within our constrained budgets.”

Parts of Obama’s plan would use federal funding to supplement state or private spending on infrastructure upgrades.

For example, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who tried to sell the plan in testimony before Murkowski’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, suggested the government could create a grant program for states that invest in energy reliability measures.

Murkowski said Moniz and the administration should follow up with lawmakers on legislative proposals.

“I think it’s going to be incumbent upon us — you and your team at the Department of Energy and here on the committee, and also in the House — to really figure out, how do we move forward on this, how do we make sure that this is more than just talk, because the need is so clearly there,” she said.

Murkowski’s response to the plan echoes those from her Republican counterpart on the House Energy Committee. In a statement last week, Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said, “we have already found areas of common ground where we will work together.”

The Obama administration has pitched the plan as both a way to handle the infrastructure strains of a growing American energy sector as well as a way to create jobs in a growing market.

Moniz told reporters on Monday that he expected to find some areas of common ground with congressional Republicans.

“I have no interest in having a wonderful monument on a library shelf as opposed to an implementation plan,” Moniz said Tuesday.