Murkowski spends last day in D.C.
FAIRBANKS - Sen. Frank Murkowski was wrapping up business in Washington, D.C., today before he returns to Alaska to take the helm as governor.
Murkowski told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner he feels his 22 years in the Senate have been productive.
"I'm certainly going out of here very comfortable and satisfied with my contribution," he said.
Asked about his legacy during an interview last week, Murkowski mentioned several items, including legislation that created the regional citizens advisory councils to oversee oil and gas operations in Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, legislation that established the Arctic Research Commission and efforts to promote a gas line from the North Slope and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"We've built a foundation," he said of ANWR. "We built it up to the point where we got a presidential veto in 1995," referring to the year ANWR-opening language passed the House and Senate but was killed by President Clinton.
Murkowski also recalled a personally moving experience - his 1986 visit to Vietnam where he asked the foreign minister to help reunite two children with their mother, a Fairbanks woman who had escaped from Vietnam in the late 1970s. When Murkowski returned the next day, the government presented him with the children and asked him to leave the country.
He brought the boy and girl to Anchorage, where they were reunited with their mother.