Roll Call has this item on regarding the congressional delegations from the 49th and 50th states. Excerpt:

The relatively new members of the Alaska and Hawaii Senate delegations are working to build up their relationships as they seek to continue a decades-long alliance forged by the late Sens. Daniel K. Inouye and Ted Stevens.

“We don’t have that strength yet,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. “But you’ve got to put it into context. … The Hawaii delegation is a very young delegation; actually the Alaska delegation is also a very new delegation, so we need to form those same bonds.”

At age 57, Murkowski is the dean of the two Senate delegations, having served in the chamber since 2002 — time that overlapped with Inouye, Stevens and Sen. Daniel K. Akaka of Hawaii, who all had enormous effect on their states and the chamber.

Inouye, Akaka and Stevens served about 112 years collectively in the Senate; the current members of those two states’ Senate delegations have served about 16 years collectively. …

But disagreements over energy policy could threaten the bonding efforts.

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii isn’t particularly happy that Republicans kicked off the year with Murkowski, the Energy and Natural Resources chairwoman, pushing the Keystone XL pipeline through the chamber as the first order of business. …

Sens. Dan Akaka and Dan Inouye at a hearing in Hawaii.

File photo.