Lisa Murkowski

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Tuesday she could begin rolling back another of the Obama administration’s midnight regulations that sought to limit industrial activity and renewable energy development in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Murkowski, who is the Republican chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, had asked the Government Accountability Office, the government’s federal watchdog group, to determine if the Obama administration’s amendment to the Tongass federal management plan could be defined as a regulation and thereby subject to congressional repeal. The GAO confirmed to Murkowski late Monday that the amendment is indeed a rulemaking and subject to the Congressional Review Act. …”Every sector of the Southeast Alaska economy needs greater access to the Tongass, but this rule failed to provide it,” she said.