U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today issued the following opening statement at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the LNG Permitting Certainty and Transparency Act (S. 33): 

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 “I want to recognize that Sen. Heinrich, as well as Sen. Barrasso, who are the lead bipartisan sponsors of S.33, the “LNG Permitting Certainty Act,” will also have short remarks. So I’m going to keep my comments brief this morning.  I congratulate them and their co-sponsors: Sens. Capito, Gardner, and Hoeven – members of this committee – as well as Sens. Bennet, Udall, Toomey, Kaine, and Heitkamp. I appreciate the work that tall of you have done to get us here.

“I have long argued that exports of liquefied natural gas should be expedited from the United States to our friends and allies overseas. I made the case in Energy 20/20 two years ago and again in two white papers: The Narrowing Window: America’s Opportunity to Join the Global Gas Trade and A Signal to the World: Renovating the Architecture of U.S. Energy Exports.

“Know from the start that I fully support this bill. It is truly the culmination of years of legislative work here in the Congress. I remember Sen. Richard Lugar, who introduced in December 2012 the concept that exports for NATO members should receive expedited treatment over at the Department of Energy. As proposals came forth, more and more countries were added to this prospective list – Ukraine, Japan, India, and eventually the entire World Trade Organization. Just yesterday we voted on Sen. Cruz’s WTO amendment as part of the ongoing Keystone XL debate.

“Last year, legislative activity turned to the approval process over at DOE. We saw proposals to give the department a time limit for authorizations – these licenses – a with the clock starting at various points – after FERC final authorization, after pre-filing, and so forth. Many colleagues co-sponsoring this current legislation were involved in those efforts, as was our former ENR colleague, Sen. Mark Udall.

“I think we would all recognize that this legislation in front of is, S. 33, is a compromise. It is imperfect, but it is the result of serious work by very serious people coming together to try to address an issue. I thank my colleagues for all their efforts to come together on this one.”

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