021612 Sen Murkowski expresses her concerns about FY13 budget in opening statement

In her opening statement, Senator Murkowski expresses her disappointment in USDOE budget that "largely ignores" the debt crisis, and contains items that "have no chance of passage." While expresses support in R&D and geothermal, she has "heartburn" with the decision to reduce budget for renewable water power budget and "zero out" R&D efforts that "could help unlock massive volumes of unconventional resources" as well as "big ticket" items tied to the budget, including new and renewed tax credit programs. Now is the time to differentiate between those things that we might want to fund and those things we need to fund" and states that the overall doubling of energy spending :"concerns me."