Bipartisan Duo Emerges as Senate Panel Sets Course on Energy

Both senators come from rural, fossil-fuel-producing states with large swaths of poverty. Both have angered climate advocates. And both have backed President Donald Trump’s energy and environment nominees.

But Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, say the latter’s elevation to the ranking Democrat slot is going to shift the committee’s focus over the next two years in some surprising ways.

One is a step that has been a rarity in the Senate since Republicans took control in 2015: a Senate committee hearing on ...