Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) threatened to cut thousands of park ranger and natural resource management jobs across the country — including in her home state of Alaska — escalating an ongoing fight with the Obama Administration over its plans to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Murkowski, who has called the Administration’s recent plans to protect 12 million acres of wilderness in the Arctic Refuge a “war on Alaska,” is threatening to use her power as chair of both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and an Appropriations subcommittee to reduce the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) 2016 budget. The Alaska Dispatch News reported that Murkowski suggested “squeezing” the Department’s funding, endangering the jobs of federal workers employed by the agency, including at the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.