So, as we move forward in this very difficult time I think for this body and for this country I want to urge us to a place where we are able to engag… - Lisa Murkowski

I think we need a rational, clear-headed, eyes-wide-open approach to energy and mineral development. We don't want to go backward on energy, and we can't be caught flatfooted on minerals. We have the resources. We have the highest labor standards in the world and the highest environmental standards in the world. Our energy workers and our miners will hold themselves to those standards. Instead of importing more from places like Russia and China, we need to free ourselves from them to the extent that we can establish ourselves as this global alternative. I have kind of taken that--actually, it is not something new. In the beginning of the 116th Congress, I prepared a white paper. We called it "The American and Global"--well, what we called it was a pretty cool title. It is a great little publication that should have gotten more notice, but like a good wine, it comes with time: "With Powers So Disposed, America and the Global Strategic Energy Competition." I outline in this a strategic energy initiative designed to sharpen and direct our tools of energy related to economic statecraft and to enhance the geopolitical position of the country.

Mr. President, I think we saw from the vote earlier today, we've seen from statements from several of our colleagues that it does appear that Judge Kavanaugh will be seated on the Supreme Court, without my vote. It is my hope, it is truly my hope that Judge Kavanaugh will share that same hope in rebuilding, maintaining a level of public confidence, that he will strive for that ideal every day. It's my hope that he will be that neutral arbiter, the umpire who only calls the balls and the strikes, that he will be that force for stability. I believe that Judge Kavanaugh is a good man. He's a good man. He's clearly a learned judge, but in my conscience, because that's how I have to vote at the end of the day, with my conscience, I could not conclude that he is the right person for the court at this time. And this has been agonizing for me with this decision. It is as hard a choice, probably as close a call as any that I can ever remember. And I hope, I hope and I pray that we don't find ourselves in this situation again. But I'm worried. I am really worried that this becomes the new normal, where we find new and even more creative ways to tear one another down. That good people are just going to say, "Forget it. It's not worth it." I'm looking at some of the comments that are being made, the statements that are being made against me, against my good friend, my dear friend from Maine. The hateful, the aggressive, the truly, truly awful manner which with so many are acting now is got to end. This is not who we are. This is not who we should be. This is not who we raise our children to be.

After Senator Stevens left the Senate in 2009, the Pentagon had tried to cut off the pensions of two dozen--just two dozen--elderly men who served in the Alaska Territorial Guard during World War II. Senator Stevens had worked very hard to get their service counted as military service and to grant them veteran status, and, not unlike the way Ted did things, he took care of it in the appropriations process, so it was an earmark. Over the Christmas holiday, the Pentagon kind of worked to reinterpret that earmark. Needless to say, Ted was gone, and this was an important issue to these 24 elderly veterans, and so I moved an amendment on the Defense appropriations bill to reverse it. I talked to John, and he was pretty skeptical at first because, he said, it was an earmark. But then he asked whether these Native Guardsmen, these Eskimo Scouts, had actually seen war, and I was able to share with him the story of those who had stood lookout on the homeland in the Aleutian Islands, the reminder that in Alaska, we were the only American soil that was occupied by the Japanese in World War II and that it was these Native warriors who were standing guard, standing lookout. So, long story short, John knew that supporting these elderly veterans was the right thing to do.