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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski are among Republicans who have given little or nothing to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The cash-strapped NSRC has been struggling to raise money to defend vulnerable GOP seats in the Senate, but has been getting little help from some party members.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has raised far more cash than its Republican counterpart, the Washington political newspaper The Hill reported. The DSCC had $32.8 million in cash on hand at the end of February, while the NRSC had just $15.3 million.

NRSC Chairman Sen. John Ensign of Nevada told The Hill that about half of the Senate’s 49 Republicans were far short of meeting their fundraising targets for the party. Ensign has asked members to raise between $750,000 to $3 million apiece, depending on their seniority and committee assignments, The Hill reported.

Senators are expected to give money to the NRSC from their own campaign war chests or by soliciting donations for the committee.

Murkowski and Stevens are among the Republican senators who have given nothing to the NRSC.

Tim McKeever, spokesman for the Stevens campaign, said Stevens has been focused on raising money for his own re-election bid.

“The Stevens for Senate Committee has not donated to the NRSC yet this year, as the senator is a candidate for re-election and is focusing on his race at this point,” McKeever said. Stevens might give money to the committee later in the year and has given generously in the past, he said.

Stevens donated $200,000 to the NSRC in 2006 and $100,000 in 2004.

Stevens’ leadership political action committee, the Northern Lights PAC, gave the legal limit — $15,000 — to the NRSC every year between 1998 and 2007, McKeever said. Stevens’ PAC has also donated directly to individual GOP candidates, including a total of $85,000 this year.

Stevens has slightly more than $1 million of cash on hand, though he has recently held several fundraising events, McKeever said.

Congressional candidates are required to file a quarterly report on their campaign fundraising activity during the first three months of this year with the Federal Election Commission by April 15.

Murkowski has also not given money to the NRSC despite not facing re-election this year and having $194,000 in her campaign account at the end of 2007.

Mary Hughes, spokeswoman for the Murkowski campaign, said the senator intends to support the committee but has yet to do so by writing a check.

“Sen. Murkowski is supportive of the NRSC and has volunteered and made calls on the committee’s behalf,” Hughes said.

Murkowski has both given and received money from the NRSC in the past, Hughes said.

Both Hughes and McKeever said there’s plenty of time to give money to the committee before Senate races heat up.

Feds release land around Paxson

The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday made nearly 83,000 acres around Paxson available for selection and conveyance to the state.

The land was originally set aside by the federal government in 1971 to provide a utility and transportation corridor for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Former Gov. Frank Murkowski had lobbied the Interior Department to make more of the corridor available for state selection under the 1958 Statehood Act and the 1980 Alaska Lands Act, saying the federal government had withdrawn more acreage than needed for the pipeline.

Following a lengthy resource planning and public review process, BLM released 82,608 acres south of the Yukon River.

While not as much as Murkowski originally sought, John Katz, Gov. Sarah Palin’s spokesman in Washington, said the acreage is a high priority for state land managers for recreational purposes.

“It’s an area that’s relatively accessible,” Katz said. “There’s a fair amount of human use around Paxson.”

Katz called the order good news for the state, but said state officials plan to continue to push BLM for the release of more acreage north of the Yukon River.

The BLM is considering whether to make more land available north of the river. Some of the additional acreage the state is seeking potentially contains significant hard rock mineral deposits, Katz said.

Fairbanks among 100 fastest-growing cities

U.S. Census data released Thursday show that the Fairbanks metropolitan statistical area’s growth rate ranks 30th in the nation.

Between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, population in the Fairbanks area grew 2.8 percent. It saw an increase of 2,681 residents to total 97,484.

The fastest growing metropolitan area in the country was Palm Coast, Fla., which increased its population 7.2 percent.

National Review endorses Parnell

The conservative magazine National Review is endorsing Sean Parnell’s effort to unseat U.S. Rep. Don Young in the Republican primary.

The magazine’s publisher, Jack Fowler, sent out an e-mail last week stating the editorial will appear in the April 7 issue.

The editorial warns that Republicans could lose control of the House seat if Young, who is under federal investigation for activities related to his campaign finances and use of congressional earmarks, is the GOP nominee.

“There’s a feeling that Parnell’s a conservative that can win and protect the seat,” National Review reporter John Miller said.

Parnell put out a press release saying he welcomed the endorsement.

“The National Review has a long history promoting smaller and smarter government, like any true fiscal conservative. I’m happy they trust my abilities,” Parnell said. Miller said the magazine based its support for Parnell, who had just announced his candidacy a few days before, on the endorsement of Gov. Sarah Palin.

“The governor’s support of him was influential,” Miller said.

UAF receives NASA contract

NASA has selected the University of Alaska Fairbanks to operate and manage the archive for its satellites monitoring changes in sea ice and the Arctic. The five-year contract is worth as much as $39 million to the university.

UAF is one of about 10 archive centers located across the country. The centers are devoted to the collection and archiving of science data beamed down from more than a dozen satellites orbiting the Earth. The centers are also responsible for making the data accessible to the general public.

Gravel talk

Former Alaska senator Mike Gravel said on Thursday that he has no intention of giving up his struggle to be the next president of the United States.

Gravel, who earlier in the week announced he was leaving the Democratic Party to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for president, blamed the leadership of his former party for marginalizing his campaign.

“The Democratic Party has not been fair to me in any of the debates,” he said. “They’ve been in cahoots with the networks to cut me out.” Gravel said the Libertarian Party was a better fit for his political views. He said he disagreed with Democrats’ attitudes on the war in Iraq, health care, education, foreign policy and the economy.

“People are fed up with candidates who want to continue the war and waste our treasure being the policeman of the world,” Gravel said in a phone interview. “I’ve been trying to change those policies from within, but I can’t get to first base because the Democratic Party leadership has cut me out. I’m tired of tilting at windmills.”

Gravel, 77, believes he’ll be well received by members of the Libertarian Party and said he was unable to generate much interest in his direct democracy ideas among mainstream Democrats.

“I got a lot of support from Libertarians and Greens and not much from Democrats,” he said.

The central tenet of Gravel’s campaign is something he calls the “National Initiative,” which would allow voters to enact legislation through the ballot process, instead of relying on Congress.

“Freedom is participation in power,” Gravel said, quoting the Roman orator Cicero. “If you don’t have participation in power, you don’t have freedom.”

Gravel made an early splash in the race for the Democratic nomination with quirky videos on YouTube and calls to end the war in Iraq, but his campaign faltered late last year as the media began to focus on the contest between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Donations to his campaign quickly disappeared as well. Gravel said he has about $3,000 in his campaign war chest.

“When I was shutdown in September by the Democratic leadership, my fundraising just dried up because I had no visibility,” he said.

Gravel said his campaign has taken in $1,300 in donations since he announced Tuesday that he was switching to the Libertarian Party. That’s still a pittance compared to the tens of millions of dollars the leading candidates have stockpiled, but Gravel remained confident that his campaign could soldier on.

“The money will come in once the American people realize that I’m talking about empowering them and giving them the ability to vote on issues they feel are important,” he said.

Gravel said he’s also seeking campaign matching funds from the Federal Elections Commission. Gravel, who now lives in Arlington, Va., represented Alaska in the Senate from 1969 to 1981.

“Alaska will always be my first love as a location to live,” he said.

He plans to visit the state this summer to court local Libertarians, though, at the moment he’s focused on the Libertarian Party national convention in May and on raising money. Gravel, who’s operating on a shoestring budget, said he’s conserving his campaign funds for a big push in October, right before the general election. That’s assuming he gets the nod from Libertarians, of course.

“We’ve got to do a lot of fundraising between now and September,” he said.

And finally …

The American Trucking Association, reeling from record-high diesel prices, is calling on U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to support efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

In a letter to Bodman on March 19, Bill Graves, president of the American Trucking Association, warned that skyrocketing diesel prices could magnify the current economic slowdown and delay recovery.

Graves urged Bodman to take short-term and long-term steps to reduce the price of oil products.

“In the longer run, we need to make sure that strategies are in place to ensure that fuel prices do not limit the long-term potential of the economy. We need to invest in new refining capacity and expand domestic crude oil production, including environmentally sound exploration of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf,” Graves wrote in the letter.

The trucking industry is on a pace to spend $135 billion on diesel fuel this year, $22 billion more than a year earlier, according to the industry group.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens have introduced legislation that would open the coastal plain of ANWR to development if the price of crude oil reaches $125 a barrel. Democrats, who control both chambers of Congress, strongly oppose the measure.