Senator Lisa Murkowski plans to become the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the next Congress, an aide said Monday.
The Alaska Republican will seek to replace current Chair Sen. Susan Collins of Maine as the top Republican on the powerful panel after Collins lost her bid for reelection, Joseph Plesha, a spokesperson for Murkowski, told POLITICO.
Murkowski’s ascent could elevate the veteran senator’s biggest legislative priorities —including on energy, the environment and defense — toward the forefront of committee business, though she would not hold the gavel. It would also give a key Trump administration antagonist a new perch from which to scrutinize White House spending moves and potentially restrict its agenda.
Senate Republicans are expected to make final decisions about committee leadership early next year. Murkowski, who is expected to get the ranking member slot as the most senior member of the committee next year, is reportedly facing a potential challenge from Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.).
Murkowski has been the top Republican on the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee for more than 15 years and often touts her bipartisan work on the subcommittee with ranking member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who is in line to become chair of the subcommittee. It’s not clear whether she will choose to continue to lead that panel, though she would be entitled to it.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is set to chair the Appropriations Committee in the next Congress. The two senators have a good relationship and are expected to work collaboratively — including on stopping the administration’s attempts to unilaterally withhold congressionally approved funding.
The federal government is currently funded through Dec. 11. Appropriators are expected to punt that deadline into next year, but Democratic efforts to use the spending fight to halt funding for the war against Iran could complicate the effort.
In an interview last week with Alaskan radio station KNOM, Murkowski said Collins’ departure “is going to be putting me in a position of higher leadership on the Appropriations Committee.”
She said she wants to help fix what she said has become “a broken process in the Congress,” while working to “do the job that people have sent us here to do.”
Asked about the concerns she is hearing from constituents, Murkowski named high prices and the impacts of a changing climate.
“People are seeing and coming to fear — coming to fear — the fall and what it may bring, and it’s not just here,” Murkowski said. “We’re seeing weather events in other parts of the state where people are feeling not only a vulnerability but an insecurity in being in their own homes, and what are we doing about it?”
She said she wants to address Alaska’s unique energy challenges and discussed the potential for battery storage, small modular nuclear reactors, wind power and “other renewable sources that are more close to where we are.”
