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Around this time eight years ago, when Republicans were desperate to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, the party tried to win over GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, effectively offering to shield her home state of Alaska from the punishments the party was eager to impose on the rest of the country.
The proposed carve-outs and schemes were even given memorable, albeit unflattering, nicknames: The “Alaska Purchase,” the “Klondike Kickback” and my personal favorite, the “Polar Payoff.”
Ultimately, it didn’t work, and the senator opposed her party’s gambit to gut the nation’s health care system. Eight years later, however, GOP leaders again proposed a set of carve-outs and schemes to benefit Alaska while trying to advance the party’s far-right megabill, and this time, Murkowski went along.
Three weeks later, the Republican senator doesn’t seem altogether pleased about the deals she struck. The Anchorage Daily News reported:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she feels ‘cheated’ after she won a concession in the recently passed tax and spending law to protect wind and solar projects, only to see the president and his administration issue recent orders that she said seem designed to quickly quash such projects. ‘I feel cheated,’ she said in an interview Friday. ‘I feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else.’
It’s probably worth backing up for a minute to review how we arrived at this point.
By Murkowski’s own admission, her party’s megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — was a mess. She told reporters she didn’t the like the bill; she considered it unfinished; she insisted the bill was “not ready for the president’s desk”; and she declared publicly that the legislation was “not good enough” for the American public.
Murkowski then voted for it anyway, hoping that House Republicans would make necessary changes. They soon after said they wouldn’t even try to improve the package, making the Alaskan’s gamble look even worse.
Murkowski did not, however, walk away empty-handed. As part of the backroom deals, her home state won a series of special breaks that were unique to Alaska.
What’s more, the senator thought she’d also negotiated an agreement to protect a 12-month window for solar and wind projects to continue to receive tax credits. As the Anchorage Daily News report added, she quickly learned otherwise:
[D]ays after the concession passed in the megabill, Trump issued an executive order that could lead to a rewrite of federal rules to limit the award of the tax credits for some solar and wind projects. ... Next, the Interior Department issued a directive requiring that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum personally sign off on even routine activities for wind and solar projects on federal land and waters. Some fear the move will slow or halt development even for projects on private land that need access from federal areas.
The senator told her local newspaper the White House’s policy “just pulls the rug out from underneath the deal” she’d made.
Whether Murkowski intends to do anything about this apparent treachery remains to be seen. Watch this space.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.