ms. murkowski not consulted. mr. speaker, i ask you this. if we're talking about a rious issue, a serious issue and we're going to craft a serious response and we want to speak with one voice from this institution, might it be a good idea for there to be at least one conversation between democrats and republicans about how to proceed? might it be a good idea to have more than one conversation? might it be a good idea to put partisanship aside and actually do those things that i know my friend from maryland wants to do and i want to do arm in arm with him? we keep missing opportunities in this congress, mr. speaker, opportunities to make this institution stronger, opportunities to make this nation stronger. we're missing them. and we're creating scars along the way. what could be an operation in building trust has become an operation of building distrust. what could be an operation designed to heal i suspect is going to be an operation that brings more needless pain. we have a good bill in the intelligence re-authorization, mr. speaker. we ha

ms. wall, welcome. >> dear chairman murkowski, ranking member mnuchin, and members of the committee, this hearing represents an extraordinary bipartisan opportunity to explore how we can improve recreation infrastructure essential to outdoor pursuits on our public lands and waters. we thank you for your leadership on this issue. we're the largest coalition of the reaction trade associations representing over 50,000 businesses and covering the full breadth of outdoor recreation activities. together our industry accounts for 2.2% of the u.s. gdp, contributing $734 billion in economic output. increasing visitation and a growing deferred maintenance backlog negatively impact only the recreation industry but the visitors, jobs, and communities who rely on it. more than one billion of the backlog in our national parks is attributed to recreation assets such as campgrounds, marinas, and trails. while the national parks hold the largest share of the overall backlog, all land managements face needs that jeopardize outside access and enjoyment. this calls for a national commitment to the gray, green, and blue infrast

ms. murkowski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to my interns christopher brown it aiden coval, elizabeth mears, kalely spencer, and nicholas shock and clair baldwin. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i would ask consent to speak for ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president. so my colleagues have been to the floor here for the past little bit here talking about ver just road trips in their state, destinations, favorite destinations. so when you think about where's your favorite place, it's like saying which sun is your favorite sun. of course we all have our favorite places all around our statement but i got to thinking about road trips and i thought, well, road trips in alaska perhaps take a little bit of a different meaning than in other states. i come from a state -- we all know, we talk about it at that lot, senator sullivan and i, we com