Murkowski Response
Dear Editor: We are writing in response to two Letters to the Editor urging Alaskans to thank Senator Lisa Murkowski for joining a bipartisan “Climate Solutions Caucus.” On the surface this sounds very nice, a bipartisan caucus in these polarized times. However, actions speak louder than words.
What we are NOT thankful for is Senator Murkowski’s work to support the timber industry in Southeast Alaska by urging the Forest Service to choose Alternative Six, which would fully exempt the Tongass National Forest from the 2001 National Roadless Rule. This would put over 9 million acres of the Tongass National Forest at risk for new logging roads and old-growth clearcut logging and release lots of stored carbon, increasing climate change.
Nor are we thankful for her work in attaching a rider to a tax bill (!) to open ANWR to fossil fuel exploitation at the expense of migrating caribou, breeding birds and against the wishes of the indigenous people.
And finally, we are not thankful for her work in swapping lands in the Izembek Refuge to create a road bisecting this refuge for breeding Brant geese, opening the way for illegal hunting and other activities that cannot be monitored in this remote area.
None of these actions are solutions to climate change and in fact aggravate climate change. So this Caucus is smoke and mirrors for which we will not be thanking Senator Murkowski.
Mary Barrett and Jeff Arndt, Sitka
