Before the health-care vote, the senator received what she described in an interview with E&E News as "not a very pleasant call" from President Trump about her decision to cast her vote against moving the health-care effort forward. In the end, she also opposed the "skinny repeal" effort that went down in flames last night on the Senate floor.

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Before that vote, Alaska's other senator, Dan Sullivan, told the Alaska Dispatch News that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke separately called him and Murkowski to send a "troubling message:" Murkowski's "no" vote on opening the health-care debate would put Alaska's future with the administration in jeopardy.

“From my perspective, the sooner we can get back to that kind of cooperation between the administration and the chairman of the ENR Committee, the better for Alaska and the better for the country,” Sullivan told reporters on Thursday, referring to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, of which Murkowski is the chair.

What's at stake? Indeed, many of Murkowski's priorities as chairwoman run through the Department of the Interior. The longer-term ramifications for Alaska if the administration makes good on its threat could be serious.

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For more than two decades, Alaskan lawmakers have pushed the federal government to construct a 20-mile road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, which would connect the small village of King Cove to the larger town of Cold Bay. King Cove has no road out, so it relies on air and marine transport: the road would provide it access to an all-weather airport in case of medical emergencies.

But federal officials have resisted the idea on the grounds that fragmenting the 315,000-acre refuge could undermine the critical habitat it provides to a myriad species. In 1980, 95 percent of the refuge was designated wilderness, meaning it is off-limits to vehicle traffic.

The area features a three-mile wide isthmus with lagoons on either side, and is home to the endangered sea duck Steller’s eider as well as tundra swans, brown bears, foxes and other wildlife. Nearly every Pacific black brant in the world migrates through it.

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While federal officials have provided significant funding for both a hovercraft and telemedicine facilities, local residents have continued to campaign for a more permanent solution. According to Murkowski’s office, a total of 18 people have died in plane crashes or waiting to be Medevaced from King Cove since the refuge’s creation in 1980.

Murkowski felt so strongly about the issue that she temporarily held up former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s confirmation in 2013. While Jewell promised to take the concerns of King Cove residents under consideration, she and other Obama officials continued to resist building the road.

Last week, the House passed legislation approving the land exchange that would be required for the road’s construction; that bill is now pending in the Senate, and would need Trump’s signature to become law.

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Another one of Murkowski's priorities is opening up more federally controlled land in northern Alaska to oil and gas development. In June, Zinke issued a secretarial order beginning an oil and gas leasing plan for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A, and an assessment of reserves under both NPR-A and a stretch of coastal plain in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Were the phone calls legal? The nice-state-you-got-there tone of the Trump administration's phone calls had Democrats up in arms about the legality of such veiled threats. Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee said they planned to ask for an investigation. "Threatening to punish your rivals as political blackmail is something we’d see from the Kremlin," Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the committee, said in a statement.

​Interior's Office of Inspector General said they do not have any investigation open regarding the phone conversations, but that it has been asked to do so. "Yesterday evening we received a Congressional request and will now assess the complaints laid out in the letter," spokesperson Nancy K. DiPaolo said.

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But legal experts say members of a president's administration have some leeway in political sausage-making to downgrade the priorities of recalcitrant members of their party.

"I am unable to identify any ethical rule or legal obligation requiring a cabinet member to make a senator's priorities the same as the administration's priorities," said Jan W. Baran, a government ethics and lobbying expert at the law firm Wiley Rein. "Absent a specific law obligating certain executive branch action, the official need not do any favors whether for senators of his own party or those of an opposing political party."

But David J. Hayes, a former Interior Department deputy secretary under both Presidents Obama and Clinton, said Zinke's reported threat "deserves careful scrutiny" under U.S. law restricting members of the executive branch from lobbying Congress on pending legislation even if it turns out to be legal.

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"Based on my experience and understanding, cabinet officials have some leeway to lobby Congress under the Anti-Lobbying Act so long as they are acting 'within their area of responsibility," Hayes said. "Here, however, it appears that Zinke was lobbying for a health-care bill, not on an Alaska-related issue within Interior's area of responsibility. Even more troubling, as the basis for his health-care lobbying pitch, he reportedly put the discharge of his statutory responsibilities in Alaska in play."

Was it politically prudent? Given Murkowski's historic independent streak and stature in the Senate, threatening Alaska's senior senator seems ill-advised. After taking over the Senate seat of her father, Frank Murkowski, in 2002, she has survived by voting against the GOP when it suited the needs of her home state -- and leadership has often accepted that.

In 2010, after failing to secure her party's nomination against a tea party insurgent, Murkowski won reelection through an uphill write-in campaign. In 2016, she easily secured another term by a 15-point margin, even after calling on then-candidate Trump to drop out of the presidential race after The Post published the "Access Hollywood" tape that showed Trump bragging about groping women:

Murkowski is chair of both Interior's oversight committee and the appropriations subcommittee in charge of the department's budget.

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On Thursday, Murkowski exercised some of that oversight power by postponing a vote on six Trump administration nominees, including three to the Interior Department.

A spokesperson for Murkowski, Nicole Daigle, said the meeting was postponed "due to uncertainty of the Senate schedule."

On the subject of Murkowski, see another good read from my colleague Elise Viebeck on the increasingly aggresive barrage of insults she and other female lawmakers are receiving from male lawmakers.

Juliet Eilperin and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.

POWER PLAYS

-- OOPS (again): On Thursday, the Energy Department sent out yet another ill-considered tweet:

In that tweet, DOE's press office shared an op-ed in The Hill by Ross McKitrick, who is skeptical of the scientific consensus around climate change. While the op-ed itself focuses on the advocacy from the American Meteorological Society, it's not hard to imagine the many department climate scientists itself feel uncomfortable to see such a political take coming from one of the department's official social media account.

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Earlier this week, the same Twitter account shared an op-ed written by Perry calling for repealing and replacing Obamacare. That tweet, which may have run afoul of lobbying law, was deleted. But this latest tweet is drawing more ire online:

From the account of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats:

From Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology:

The Sierra Club weighed in:

-- Hit the lights: The House passed an amendment to a spending bill Wednesday that would block Energy Department rules to phase out the production and sale of incandescent lightbulbs.

Bloomberg reported that the amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.) called on lawmakers to “preserve the free market,” as the rules, first issued under President George W. Bush “will take away consumer choice when constituents are deciding which lightbulbs they will use in their homes.”

The lightbulb regulations, InsideClimate News reported, “are expected to save an estimated 1.5 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2030—enough power to meet the needs of every U.S. home for a year, worth around $195 billion at today's average retail electricity price. The CO2 savings would top 700 million tons, according to deLaski's group—equivalent to one year's emissions from 204 coal power plants.”

-- Union calls on Congress to keep DOE funding: The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents more than 1,500 employees at the Energy Department, sent a letter to House lawmakers in opposition to proposed funding cuts at the department, including the elimination of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and deep cuts at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). "None of these funding limits are in the public interest," the union wrote.

-- “Funding for energy storage research is expected to get a small boost when the House passes its annual energy and water development spending bill Thursday evening,” reported Morning Consult. “The House on Thursday voted 235-192 to pass a “minibus” spending bill that includes $37.56 billion for energy and water development — $3.6 billion more than the White House request. The appropriations bill would then head to the Senate, where similar legislation calls for $38.4 billion in funding for fiscal year 2018. House lawmakers on Wednesday adopted an amendment offered by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) that would shift $10 million from the Energy Department’s administration account to its Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability for energy storage systems demonstrations. Despite the small dollar amount, Gallagher said it’s a sign of bipartisanship on the issue.”

OIL CHECK

-- This week, the Center for Media and Democracy released a cache of chemical industry documents that, the research and advocacy group argues, “lays out a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment." Dow and Monsanto are among the companies the report focuses on. The trove of 100,000 document can be viewed here, but for a thorough summary of them read Sharon Lerner's rundown in The Intercept.

THERMOMETER

-- This massive new wind project is proof clean energy is doing fine under Trump: "One of the nation’s largest power companies, American Electric Power, announced plans on Wednesday to purchase what it said would be the biggest U.S. wind farm in the state of Oklahoma, a strong signal of continued growth for renewables even under the Trump administration," The Post's Chris Mooney writes. "The project, in cooperation with the Chicago-based developer Invenergy and GE Renewable Energy, will consist of 800 2.5-megawatt GE turbines that, collectively, will have the capacity to generate over 2 gigawatts of electricity. The total investment in the project will be $ 4.5 billion, and AEP projects $7 billion in customer savings over a 25-year time frame."

-- Update on the kids' climate lawsuit: An appeals court has ordered a temporary stay on a landmark climate lawsuit against the Trump administration brought by a group of 21 children. The court has halted proceedings in a rare move, writes Chelsea Harvey for The Post, as it considers a petition filed by the Justice Department to request a writ of mandamus, which could stop the case from moving forward. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the stay on Tuesday and notes that “the petition for a writ of mandamus and all other pending motions will be addressed by separate order.”

The temporary stay follows trial date set by a U.S. magistrate judge for the landmark case for Feb. 5, 2018. The case was initially filed under President Obama and brought by 21 children and young adults between ages 9 ad 21, who argue the federal government violated their constitutional rights to a healthy climate by allowing the emission of greenhouse gases.

--How is climate change related to the Arab Spring? A cycle of global food insecurity, including a severe drought in Russia in 2010, contributed to the otherwise political factors that led to the wave of uprisings, writes Elizabeth Winkler for The Post. She details a report by London-based think tank Chatham House that looked at how climate change could threaten the global food trade.

Winkler writes: “Imagine the following frightening-yet-plausible scenario: What if the next time Russia’s wheat harvest is devastated by drought, other major food producers are also facing struggles with severe weather and wrecked harvests? In the United States, that could mean a freak flood season that wipes out inland waterways or overwhelms coastal ports. Brazil, the world’s other heavy-hitter, accounts for 17 percent of global wheat, maize, rice and soybean exports. But its road network is crumbling. Extreme rainfall could knock out a major transport route. If this happened together with a U.S. flood and a Russian drought, there would be global food shortages, riots and political instability, starvation in areas that are heavily dependent on imports, and recessions everywhere else.”

These are some of the “choke-point” junctures, Winkler notes, critical to the transport of food supply, adding “disruption at any of these choke points would mean trouble, but if several jammed at once, it could be disastrous.”

DAYBOOK

Today

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is scheduled to visit Daikin Texas Technology Park in Waller, Tex. to tour the air conditioning manufacturer’s facilities.

Coming Up

Perry is set to visit a uranium plant cleanup site in Ohio on July 31.

EXTRA MILEAGE

How Senate Republicans' 'skinny repeal' bill failed:

Watch a Miami firefighter save a dog struggling in water:

Nine animals have been rescued from a zoo in Syria: