By BOB BIRD
Let’s get some priorities straight. Alaska cannot squander this moment. It is going to take leadership and courage to turn things around. Amazingly, it might — it should — be a bi-partisan effort.
Before reading further, first go to YouTube and watch what Gov. Walter Hickel produced in 1993, when he initiated a $29 billion lawsuit against the federal government for its failure to give Alaska what was promised at statehood. Here is the link. It isn’t long.
Incredibly, most Alaskans and many legislators, have never heard of the phrase “90/10.” It has been buried, thanks to our own congressional delegation, under the fig-leaf phrase, coined by Sen. Ted Stevens and echoed by Rep.Don Young, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Dan Sullivan and others, which says, “Fifty percent of something is better than 90 percent of nothing.”
A better phrase would be, “Our politicians have sold out our birthright for a mess of pottage.”
From Wikipedia: A mess of pottage is something immediately attractive but of little value, taken foolishly and carelessly, in exchange for something more distant and perhaps less tangible but immensely more valuable.
You will find it in Genesis 25: 29-34, in the story of Jacob and Esau.
So, what is the background for Alaskans? Because the most valuable argument against Alaskan statehood was our inability to pay for self-government, congress crafted us a special gift: that oil revenues taken from federal properties would be split, not 50/50 as with the other states, but 90/10 in Alaska’s favor.
As the pro-Alaska historians, lawyers and legislators tell you in the video, this could not be unilaterally changed, but had to be OK’d by a statewide referendum. But as an inducement to open up ANWR to lower 48 congressional votes, who would have to face the media’s kissy-poo pets in the Green Lobby, our own “champions” lured them into accepting ANWR’s opening on a 50/50 split.
It was done under the radar thanks to our local media outlets in the Anchorage Daily News, and its “court historian” Dr. Stephen Haycox, who pontificated: “Hickel apparently did not realize that Congress must be free to change its legislation to conform to changing public opinion, to changes in society’s will.”
This conforms to liberal tastes that contracts can be broken by the stronger (federal) party, and to the idea that the Constitution is a “living document”.
You may recall that Donald Trump was on the cusp of opening ANWR in 2020, then “lost” his re-election bid. But it was on the 50/50 basis, thanks to Don Young, whose final years in congress took a mysterious leftward slant.
With the kind of momentum conservatives now possess, with the Green Lobby off balance, with the pro-ANWR development natives of Kaktovik (in the heart of ANWR) voting for Trump 57-12, with our state budget and PFD in a shambles, what are we waiting for?
In debates I had in 2008 with former Sen. Mark Begich, he had the good sense to agree that 90/10 had to be defended. He completely understood that it meant more revenue for state government. Now, with his pro-development nephew likely to take our congressional seat, we have the proper alignment of the stars.
Except, of course, in the RCV-elected state legislature.
When Sen. Jesse Bjorkman and I were broadcast partners at KSRM, as a recently-arrived Alaskan, he had never heard of “90/10.” To his credit, he was all on board when it was explained to him. If he is going to forfeit his conservative credentials once again for the sake of influence in a Democrat-controlled state senate, maybe — just maybe — he can use it for this vitally important purpose. It is a chance for him to have a hand in making state history.
Do Democrats want more revenue for state government?
Do conservatives want a new oil-and-gas boom? Do they want a balanced budget? Does everyone want a recovering economy, value-added jobs and a full PFD?
Do we want and need a gas pipeline? Do we want a generations-long economy of permanent jobs?
The questions answer themselves.
Bob Bird is former chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show on KSRM radio, Kenai.
