JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to go now to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and hear a bit of the testimony about Gale Norton, the nominee to be interior secretary.</s>SEN. FRANK MURKOWSKI (R), ARKANSAS: ... your staff working with our staff for the structure of this hearing, and I think that with the testimony that we're going to hear, we're going to be able to answer many of the questions that we have relative to this nominee. I want to commend our President-elect Bush for nominating the first woman; the first woman for the secretary of the interior. I think it's an outstanding nomination of a candidate who has certainly the knowledge, the experience to take on one of most challenging positions in the executive branch. Her responsibility is one, in my opinion, of balance. She is going to have to balance the protection of our nation's resources with the realism that we need to develop those resources using the best technology available. I think one of the themes that has been suggested is using fuels of today to get to the technology of tomorrow. Now, this is a balance, in my opinion, that swung dramatically out of...</s>MESERVE: We're going to take you away from the Gale Norton hearing for just a moment and take you back to the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings into John Ashcroft's nomination to be attorney general are resuming.
Senate Begins Hearings for Interior Secretary-Nominee Gale Norton