Page 1637 – Must Read Alaska

Grenn’s ‘ethics’ bill would put all lawmakers on ice

-

January 25, 2017

Newly elected Rep. Jason Grenn wants to make sure that any legislator who works for an oil company cannot vote on anything related to oil, taxes, tax credits, or even exploration and development in Alaska. Ditto for oil services companies or those who contract with oil companies.

In fact, no one with any kind oil-patch job would be able to vote on the budget, in Rep. Grenn’s ideal scenario, because the State of Alaska budget is paid for by oil revenues.

If you can’t vote on the budget these days, what are you even doing in Juneau as a lawmaker?

Blocking oil company workers is Grenn’s real reason behind HB 44, “Voting and Conflicts,” which was to be heard today in House Judiciary (Democrat Matt Claman, chair), but which was delayed to Friday with no reason given.

It’s also why in the Capitol, aides refer to HB 44 as the “M&M Bill,” code for the “Meyer/Micciche Bill,” because both Sen. Kevin Meyer and Peter Micciche work for ConocoPhillips, and they are always attacked by Democrats for holding down jobs with Big Oil.

As a candidate, Grenn said he was running for office because, “Our current Legislature failed Alaska when it went back to Juneau for five overtime sessions to deal with the most serious fiscal crisis in state history and took no action.”

Yet, as someone who has been put in charge of vetting the budget for the Department of Administration, Grenn is now busy working on his first “practice” bill. And he’s chosen Republicans Meyer and Micciche as his targets.

Before Grenn sits in front of Judiciary and offers his bill for deliberation, we’d offer members of the committee some additional questions:

Should union lawyers like Senate Democrat Bill Wielechowski be forced to sit out their votes on anything related to the budget, since nearly all budget items pertain to union members?

Will House Democrats Andy Josephson and Geran Tarr have to sit out any votes on oil taxes or environmental policy? After all, in December Josephson offered the official state offices of Josephson and Tarr to the environmental lobby group The Alaska Center, which is a clear indication that the two have already prejudged environmental matters to come before them. (This is a matter the Legislative Ethics Committee should take up, regardless.)

Will House Democrat Zach Fansler vote on the budget if it includes cuts to the University of Alaska, where he teaches math (at the Kuskokwim campus)?

House Democrat Chris Tuck works for a union — will he have to abstain from voting on the budget, since it will affect his employer?

Or, as Senate Republican Mia Costello noted, will anyone with children in the public schools have to recuse themselves from voting on the budget, since their children will be affected?

Speaking of conflicts, the sponsors of HB 44 include House Rules Chair Gabrielle LeDoux, who now runs Gabby’s Tuesday PAC, where she accepts money from lobbyists through a loophole that only a crafty lawyer like her could have found.

Those lobbyists now know what it takes to get legislation past her committee and onto the House Floor: “That’ll be $5,000, please.” They don’t need to be told — they’ll just fork it over because they know they have to.

Should LeDoux be banned from voting on ethics legislation that would close that loophole? For that matter, should she be banned from voting on fishing legislation because she owns a driftnet permit in Bristol Bay? Or how about landlord legislation, since she owns several rental properties?

Other HB 44 sponsors are Musk Ox Republican Rep. Louise Stutes of Kodiak, and Democrats Ivy Spohnholz of Anchorage, Justin Parish of Juneau, Fansler of Bethel, Geran Tarr and Harriet Drummond, both of Anchorage.

“Whatever happens on Nov. 8, let’s make a commitment to put partisan agendas on the shelf and deliver the responsible fiscal plan that our state desperately needs. Alaskans deserve it. And I would be honored to be a part of it,” Grenn wrote last year.

That was so last year.

This year, Grenn is starting out of the gate not with serious intent to trim state government, nor make it more efficient. He is going after the people in the Legislature who hold jobs in the private sector.

Grenn’s statement on HB 44 says: “HB 44 contains provisions to ensure conflicts are “substantial” before a legislator would be required to abstain from voting. Any benefit a legislator or a member of the legislator’s immediate family might receive from supporting a particular piece of legislation would have to be greater than the benefit a large group of Alaskans would receive in order to require abstention. The bill and resolution recognize the responsibility of legislators to vote, except in clear cases where the outcome of the vote would result in substantial personal financial gain. This includes cases where an immediate family member or a legislator’s employer would receive a large and direct financial benefit.”

Substantial financial benefits might include having a job, which Grenn himself had until he left it to become a lawmaker.

If HB 44 was passed, lawmakers like him would try to block others from voting on matters by raising conflict questions that would have to be sorted out before a vote could proceed. Lawmakers who have no jobs would hold the hammer over the heads of those who do.

These challenges would be taken to the Legislative Ethics Committee time and again, and the process being used to block progress.

Grenn’s bill is a solution in search of a problem. He would introduce a layer of uncertainty into the ethics law, which today features simplicity and accountability. Fellow legislators already declare their conflicts and their colleagues vote on whether or not they should refrain from voting on an issue. This is transparent. Citizen voters have the final say come election time.

BIG STATE, SMALL COMMUNITY: Alaska is a medium-sized U.S. city in terms of population and it’s a place where employment options are limited, and the oil industry is one of the major employers.

Grenn’s bill runs the very real risk of disenfranchising the voters of districts where there is actual employment, in favor lawmakers who have no real jobs. This undermines the principle of a citizen legislature.

Grenn, who is a nonprofit guy whose last job was funded by the Rasmuson Foundation, has his own conflicts, including his acceptance of substantial support from the Alaska business community during his election.

Now, he’s going after those who are employed by the business community. His bill would make it less likely that people who work in the private sector even bother to run for office in the future.

By using his M&M bill to pick fights with legislators rather than focus of trimming the budget, Grenn is off to a questionable start.

Murkowski retains control of Interior Department’s budget

Suzanne Downing

-

January 25, 2017

0

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has again been chosen as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for the Department of Interior’s budget, a role she gained in 2015.

The subcommittee is critical to Alaska, as it controls funding for a federal agency with multiple subdivisions that have a huge footprint in the state.

“As Chairman, I have the ability to directly influence how these agencies operate, whether that’s blocking excessive regulations or directing federal resources to where they are needed,” Murkowski said. “I will continue to be a tireless advocate for our state and look forward to providing greater opportunities for Alaskans to build the economy and create healthy communities.”

The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee controls funding levels for federal agencies and the Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Indian Health Service. Murkowski, as Chairman, is able to write the Senate’s annual appropriations bill for the subcommittee.

City to citizens: Want street plowed? Move your car

Suzanne Downing

-

January 25, 2017

0

*In Anchorage? Get ready for a slush fest, as warm weather hits these snowbanks in the next 48 hours.*

The snow is only going to get heavier with the warm front that is coming this way, so you may as well get on it now.

And to encourage you, Anchorage Police Department issued a unusually chipper message on the Nixle app this afternoon. Take note of the personable tone, which might almost make you want to shovel snow:

Mother Nature, bless her heart, has decided we should get all of last year’s snow AND this year’s snow. All at once. Fabulous. So you know all of that white stuff you’ve been repeatedly shoveling out of your driveway? The plows need to remove it from our streets. But they can’t do it without your help.

Please remove your vehicles from the roadway so the plows can make it easier for all of us to drive. Not only is it difficult for our amazing plow operators to navigate those big machines around cars, but in some places, there is so much snow build-up and so many cars on the street that the plows simply don’t fit. They have to drive on past the neighborhood.

I know you know where your shovel is because you’ve been using it non-stop the past three days. So please take it out to your car, unbury your vehicle, and move it to the driveway. Thank you so much for your help. The plow drivers thank you too!!

Municipal Code 9.30.150 – Parking for longer than 24 hours – No person may park a vehicle on any street, vehicular way or area, or municipally owned parking lot for a period of time longer than 24 hours, except from Friday noon until Monday noon.

To receive alerts from the Anchorage Police Department (and they can be helpful, especially regarding emergencies and road closures) text your ZIP code to 888777, or walk through the process at https://local.nixle.com.

A word to the wise: Not all of the Nixle warnings are so insufferably cheerful.

Juneau Assembly votes 6-3 favoring the ‘paid in full’ Juneau Road the governor deep-sixed

Suzanne Downing

-

January 24, 2017

0

*Juneau residents pack the Assembly chambers on Monday night, many of them well-organized opponents of a road to Juneau.*

At a packed Juneau Assembly meeting on Wednesday, people sat on the floor and lined the walls, many of them there to oppose or support the Juneau Access Project, which was one of the subjects of the meeting.

The testimony of attendees was fairly split between pro- and anti-road, with the pros having a slight advantage, and the Assembly voted 6-3 in favor of a resolution supporting the long-delayed project. That resolution will marched up the hill to the Governor’s Office, where Gov. Bill Walker last month decided there will be no road to Juneau.

The Juneau road has been contentious for years, with well-organized environmentalists funded by Outside environmental groups blocking it since the 1990s.

Environmentalists say they like the ferries the way they are, and don’t want the road extended by 50 miles so that ferries can make a short crossing to Haines and Skagway several times a day.

The project, euthanized by the governor, is shovel ready and paid for in full with funds the governor is now going to divert to other communities.

Assembly woman Beth Weldon reminded her colleagues on the Assembly that since she was unopposed for her seat on the Assembly, she employed sports team members to do a short survey door-to-door in her Mendenhall Valley district in the days leading up to the municipal election.

Her district, she discovered, wants the road, by a 2-to-1 margin.

Assembly woman Debbie White laid out her math: It cost a family of four with a vehicle some $700 to make a round trip to Skagway, and that’s with a 68 percent subsidy paid by the state.

“There’s no way that subsidy can continue, when 30 miles of that trip is parallel to an existing road,” White said, adding that Haines has a road to the main highway system and so does Skagway. Juneau only wants what Haines and Skagway already have — affordable access.

Opponents said road maintenance was going to be more than ferry fleet maintenance, but for boat owners, the word B.O.A.T. is an acronym for Bring On Another Thousand. Ferries pushing water around Northern Lynn Canal are costing the state tens of millions of dollars a year to subsidize, and often they are far from full. The state is subsidizing out-of-state people to bring their cars on the ferry as well, but even in the summer the car decks are often not full because people cannot afford the ferries.

“The only way the ferry system can continue to survive is to shorten what runs we can shorten, otherwise neighboring communities like Angoon, Hoonah, and Tenakee are going to suffer,” White said.

Ferries burn over 1,400 gallons of diesel for each one-way trip between Juneau’s Auke Bay Ferry Terminal and Skagway. A regular-sized truck would burn just three gallons of diesel to get to the Katzahin terminal that is planned in the Juneau Access Project. The remaining distance is only a short trip, that the new Alaska Class ferries would make several times a day.

Governor Walker said in December that the State cannot afford the Juneau Road, which is was paid for by the federal government.

Instead, Walker said he plans to reallocate the designated funds into an airport project in Angoon, a ferry terminal project in Skagway. Word is he may also retrofit the Alaska Class ferries being built in Ketchikan as day boats for the Juneau Access Project, and turn them into overnight vessels, which will drive up the labor costs.

House Democrats: Budget will get ‘lounge’ review

Suzanne Downing

-

January 24, 2017

0

*Rep. David Guttenberg, member of House Democratic Majority*

Last week, House Majority Finance Co-chair Paul Seaton, a Musk Ox Republican out of Homer, issued an eight-page memo describing how the new Democrat-controlled Finance review process would work. Seaton has kept his Republican veneer but has joined the Democrat majority.

Instead of subcommittees from the House Finance Committee executing the first deep dive into departmental budgets, those budget reviews will now be part of the existing House standing committees that are tasked with hearing, amending, and voting on policy and legislative bills that are referred to their committees.

The standing committees are intended for policy and law. That’s why the Finance Committee has always structured the budget review through its own subcommittees: They keep their focus on the numbers.

A structural problem arises with the Seaton process: Policy committee chairs cannot also be Finance subcommittee chairs. Seaton overcomes this by placing one Democrat Finance Committee member into each policy committee, and that person leads the discussion and decision making on budgets referred to that committee.

Clear as mud?

That’s the way it looked during the first meeting of the House Resources Committee this week.

Rep. David Guttenberg, a Democrat from Fairbanks, is the Finance member placed into House Resources for the purpose of taking over as defacto chair when it comes to the budget.

The House Resources Committee has a full plate of policy, what with examining oil and gas tax credits, and the expressed desire of the Democratic co-chairs to give the current, voter-approved oil tax structure, Senate Bill 21, a thorough whipping.

Guttenberg described the process of how to work financial deep dives into the standing committees as evolving.

“Each person who chairs a subcommittee has different answers,” he said.

As for his role, Guttenberg made it clear he would not be cutting any more state jobs nor looking to curtail travel, and he planned to issue a “narrative report” to the Finance Committee that will be reached through a “consensus process” on the budget process, without taking a vote.

Republican members of the House Natural Resources Committee and observers were somewhat stunned that Republicans will be asked to join a consensus on the budget, rather than being allowed to vote. Most Republicans want to continue to trim the budget and won’t want to be placed in a position counter to the will of their own district.

When Republican members of House Resources asked how consensus would be achieved, Guttenberg said there would be conversations in the hallways and the legislative lounge.

We are not making this up.

It also appears that no amendments to the budget can be made in the subcommittee/policy committee; all budget amendments must be forwarded to Rep. Seaton through a yet-to-be-launched limited access database, similar to one used for the capital budget (known as CAPSIS)

Rep. Chris Tuck of Anchorage said this process will provide more transparency because the policy committees are televised and will be held during working hours.

But the previous process was audio available and the evening and weekend budget reviews allowed working Alaskans at least equivalent access.

House Republican members of the Finance Committee have been placed on about half of the policy committees. Democrats are firmly in control right now of the House review of the state budget.

This “still evolving” process promises to be less than transparent.

Given that Guttenberg has already stated publicly that he has no interest in further cuts to personnel, travel, or anything else, the Democrats’ budget review may be more of a rubber stamp for the Governor’s budget proposal.

Gasline to save us? Hearings today

Suzanne Downing

-

January 23, 2017

0

“We have no other project that will revitalize our economy the way the gasline will.” – Gov. Bill Walker, State of the State Address, January 18, 2017

The Alaska LNG project is Gov. Bill Walker’s plan to save the Alaska economy. Unfortunately, few of those knowledgeable in the field are lining up behind him.

Today, the Alaska House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Natural Resources Committee receive their periodic updates from the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation on the progress being made toward a $65 billion project that AGDC is charged with completing.

The private sector partners have all left the project: TransCanada, BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are out. Governor Walker is in charge.

At today’s hearings, the vice presidents of AGDC are expected to give testimony, because President Keith Meyer is in Japan checking out the new AGDC office in Tokyo.

PRE-FEED DONE: The pre-front-end engineering and design work has been completed for the LNG project. What’s logical now is to move into the FEED stage. FEED is the last “gate” in the decision-making process. In this business, if you get as far as FEED, you’re very likely to have a project.

Alaska is not there yet. The private partners did not want to move ahead with a project that was not economical for them. Gov. Walker wanted to go it alone.

PRE-FEED 2.0: What is likely next is FEED-light or a gap year of pre-FEED, burning up the clock while locating new financing, now that the partners have left.

The governor will have to go out on the financial markets, perhaps to a sovereign fund from a foreign entity, and secure financing. How that financing will be collateralized — or guaranteed — is of concern to Alaskans. Ultimately, it may put our largest asset, the $50 billion Alaska Permanent Fund, at risk.

GAS GLUT: There’s a lot of talk about “windows” of time when natural gas will not be abundant in the Pacific basin, as it is today.

Meyer of AGDC says the window is between 2023 and 2025.

BP’s economists say there may be a “gap in unmet demand” in 2025-2030.

No one is that good at saying what the window will be, because there are too many unknowns in the market. Essentially, players can get a forecast that tells them anything they want to hear.

But what we know right now is that gas is $3 a mmbtu, or million British Thermal Units. It’s flowing out of the Gulf Coast toward Asia and it costs a total of between $8 and $9, delivered to the same customers Alaska wants to court.

The Wood Mackenzie Report commissioned last year for BP, ExxonMobil, and AGDC shows Alaska’s best case scenario is $11 per mmbtu, delivered. That makes Alaska’s project one of the highest cost options in the world.

CONVERTING IT TO A UTILITY MODEL: When that $11 number came out, it was obvious why the private sector was backing away and suggested if the State insists on moving forward, it consider the gasline a utility, which can operate on a lower rate of return. It would be considered state infrastructure, such as a toll road, which a state might build and then charge people to drive on.

A key component is that the federal government not tax the project. But in reality, that’s a long shot. In a report by Manley & Brautigan to the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, the tax lawyer Charles Scheutze concluded:

This is a good deal different from the project being described by AGDC. The lawyer is saying that the project must be owned, developed, and operated by the State in order to avoid taxation.

Having the State actually operating the gasline is of great concern to those who have seen other government-run projects experience lavish cost overruns. It is also alarming to those familiar with the poor track record the State of Alaska has amassed over the years dabbling in private sector endeavors.

The work ahead for the next year or two is nontechnical, financial work. There will be no buying of steel in the near future. Those who work on the gasline project will be working with bankers and private equity companies. They’ll be sorting through the legal issues and the commercial agreements.

There won’t be any big breaking news during this timeframe. The signals to watch for will be nuanced from the Governor’s Office. Look for a possible change in the next year, and a new look at a downsized gasline for in-state use only — owned and operated by the State of Alaska.

Monday newsletter: Get it in your inbox

Suzanne Downing

-

January 23, 2017

1

Must Read Alaska has a Monday e-newsletter that reaches more than 8,300 Alaskans weekly. Much of the content of the newsletter is not available on the blog. Here is a sample copy of today’s edition. Subscribe yourself, at the box on the right. Don’t miss out!

GOOD MORNING, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017…Our subscriber list is 8,345 today…Forward this to friends and colleagues…The Alaska conservative movement grows with shares!…New Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel has named Matt Pinnell to oversee her transition team…Super Bowl 51 is just ahead with the New England Patriots vs. the Atlanta Falcons in Houston, Texas on Feb. 5…

Visit www.mustreadalaska.com, where we are a pussy hat-free zone…National stuff at the top of this week’s newsletter…Skip down if you are in serious eye-roll mode about the day of national hand wringing or are curious about the gasline hearing today…But first…

DAY FOUR OF TRUMP: The earth still spins on its axis. Liberal/progressives/neo-feminists/alt-lefts concocted their own weather system of fear and, having created a monster, are cowering from the Cat 5 storm of their imagination.

Rather than bash away at the precious snowflakes (and the temptation is rich), this is a teaching moment. Let there be light:

Lesson 1: Fear your government. One should always have a healthy suspicion of one’s government. Our Founding Fathers wanted us to be ready to revolt against those who rule us, should they get out of hand. Our Constitution and the Amendments protect us from both the government and mob rule.

Lesson 2: Elections matter, as President Obama was known to say. Eight years of Barack Obama subjugating our economy to ever-greater government control and the resulting, predictable slow growth, meant the rebellion was inevitable.

Lesson 3: Acceptance of each other’s values goes both ways.

OOPS, PARK SERVICE, YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING: The National Park Service tweeted an unflattering comparison of the 2009 and 2017 inauguration crowds, and also tweet-whined about the White House deleting website pages devoted to gay rights and climate wrongs.

The Trump Administration told the Department of Interior to stand down its Twitter account. The Park Service took a 24-hour time-out. Twitter liberals lost their minds.

The Park Service does not give crowd estimates after a controversy over the Million Man March in 1995.

But stay with us…

YES, THE CROWD DID APPEAR SMALLER: There, we said it. But why? Did more show up for Obama’s inaugural in 2009? Yes. It was deeply historic, as he was the first non-anglo president in our nation’s history. That, plus his decisive swamping of McCain/Palin:

2008:
Barack Obama: 365 electoral votes, 69,456,897 popular vote
John McCain: 173 electoral votes, 59,934,814 popular vote

2012:
Barack Obama: 332 electoral votes, 65,915,795 popular vote
Mitt Romney: 206 electoral votes, 60,933,504 popular vote

2016:
Donald J. Trump: 306 electoral votes, 62,979,636 popular vote
Hillary Clinton: 232 electoral votes, 65,844,610 popular vote

Washington, D.C. is pure Obama Country: Government workers, nonprofit headquarters, and a whole lot of public employee unions.

This is how DC voted in 2016:

Clinton: 282,830
Trump: 12,723

DC showed up for the “hope and change” larger government Obama promised them during the campaign when he declared: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

By 2013, the crowd for Obama’s second swearing-in was smaller than his first. It was no longer a novelty.

Trump scares the DC establishment. He represents people outside the Beltway, many of whom could not afford to travel for an inauguration. Trump represents a change from the status quo that the bureaucracy thrives on. Naturally, bureaucrats and functionaries did not show up to support him.

Instead, Trump voters were a rebellion against overreaching government. We loop back to the Park Service: To weigh in with an uninformed comparison of crowds between 2009 and 2017, while chuckling into their drab olive sleeves, is political.. But we accept their apology:

DEMO-CAT WOMEN MARCH: 56 percent of Alaskan voters picked Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

But there are some profoundly angry women out there and they gathered Saturday to express their outrage at the rest of us, as seen on this sign from Sen. Berta Gardner’s Facebook page. Sen. Gardner attended the Juneau rally. It was definitely political:

HELLO KITTY? Like DC, Juneau is a government town. The per capital income is $63,000 — 112 percent of the state average. Most workers only log 37.5 hours per week of work. Juneau women earn 15 percent more than women nationally. Unemployment is the lowest in the state. Life is good in Juneau.

WHICH SHALL WE EMULATE?

NASTY ENOUGH? The most dangerous place to be in DC on Saturday was between a Hollywood actress and a microphone. To see Madonna channel her nasty woman, click here. Ashley Judd here. The sad fact is that many participants were vulgar and apparently unaware that they are part of the reason Donald Trump was elected.

WEIRD LITTLE FACT EXPLAINING TRUMP WIN: The Left has a short memory. They forget both H.R. Clinton and D.J. Trump were the most unlikable candidates in memory. A lot of voters didn’t like either of them when they went to the poll. And yet people voted. Read this fascinating breakdown offered by exit polling experts that explains how people decided.

TRUMP, EVERLASTINGLY UNDERESTIMATED: Our essay reflecting on Friday’s inauguration has gone viral on Facebook. If you missed it, read it here.

GOT ENERGY? Oil, gas, and coal policy is up on deck. President Trump may sign as many as 200 executive orders on Monday, after the ones he signed relating to risky mortgages and Obamacare over the weekend.

He is expected to roll out his America First Energy Plan. This may mean dismantling Obama’s Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. In the waning days of the Obama Administration, Obama locked up extensive areas of Alaska and other Western states. Read more.

Read the leaked memo from the transition team that in December detailed all the energy plans Trump may be signing.

CHANGE AHEAD FOR ALASKA MEDICAID EXPANSION: Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to President Trump, told NBC News’s Sunday Today that the Affordable Care Act will be replaced and in the process Medicaid will become a block grant program, meaning the federal government will give money to the states to implement Medicaid as appropriate.

“You really cut out the fraud, waste and abuse, and you get the help directly to them,” she said.

Medicaid is now funded by the federal government and states. Its open-spigot funding model means it currently pays for all health costs to which its beneficiaries are entitled. Alaska has one of the most generous Medicaid packages in the country.

A block grant program would change that, but block grants have their own worries.

More likely is a rollback. This is something that Gov. Bill Walker didn’t see coming when he expanded Medicaid in Alaska, which now looks set to be a massive budget buster. Check back with Must Read Alaska’s blog for more this week. We’ll tackle it.

LIMITING OBAMACARE’S UNDUE BURDEN: Trump’s first executive order.

OUR SHAPE-SHIFTING GOV: 2015 and 2017 side-by-side, Governor Bill Walker, squiring President Obama around, and on the right, attending the Inauguration of President Donald Trump.

I DON’T THINK ‘HIRING FREEZE’ MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: The governor keeps hiring, and he’s building a re-election campaign team on the public dime. And during a time of fiscal crisis. His PR team now says it’s not really a freeze, but a restriction. But that’s not what they said a year ago:

SENATE MAJORITY DOES A POLL. TAKE IT HERE: Word is they will close down the polling tonight, so waste no time in telling our senators what you think is important.

GOVERNOR STRUGGLES FOR A MESSAGE: The State of the State Address is described by one wag as a Saturday Night Live skit of a second-rate governor bumbling his way through a paint-by-number speech. Walker didn’t speak to legislators, but neither did he go around them and talk to their constituents. Our summary was more charitable.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: This just kills us. Democratic Reps. Andy Josephson and Geran Tarr are the co chairs of House Natural Resources. They have started having hearings on various things, such as Mental Health Land Trust issues and the Governor’s LNG project.

What might we expect? They told the Alaska Center, formerly known as the Alaska Center for the Environment, last month:

Josephson-Tarr plan revealed their plans on Dec. 13, when they and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, were the special guests of the 20th Conservation Summit of the Alaska Center (for the Environment).

We took notes during the Facebook video as Josephson and Tarr spoke.

Here are our notes on what Josephson, Tarr and Mallott told the Alaska environmentalists:

Rep. Andy Josephson:

Speaking directly to Alaska Center for the Environment: “Use my office and Rep. Tarr’s office as a virtual satellite office.”
The federal government has been our ally.
Carbon tax a good idea.
Promises climate change hearings.
“Eco-tourism” will be important.
“I get emotional about this.”
We’re looking at slow growth for Alaska.
Hopes to stay in contact with Alaska Center for the Environment.
He and Tarr attended the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators in Chicago in August.

Rep. Geran Tarr:

“We don’t want a state where everyone get pushed to urban centers.”
“Focus on fishing and tourism.” (It seemed to escape Tarr that both are seasonal industries, mainly low income.)

Lt. Gov. Mallott:

We are in a “transitional economy.” (In other words, away from oil — the industry that has paid for our state government for 40 years and given us the lowest tax burden in the nation. Mallott wants to “transition” away from that.)
Focus on emissions and carbon markets.

The Alaska Center for the Environment has pulled the video down, or we’d refer you to it to see for yourself.

We’re stunned at the generosity of these lawmakers, offering environmentalists from the Alaska Center for the Environment the use of official state offices to be used as satellite offices.

SENATE RESOURCES COMMITTEE: The Must-Tune-In hearing is Monday’s Senate Resources Committee update on Gov. Walker’s LNG project, at 3:30 pm in Room 205 of the Capitol. The House Resources Committee will have the same presentation earlier in the day.

Of interest will be who on the Governor’s team is trotted in front of the committee, since he has had 100 percent turnover on his gasline team. Keith Meyer, president of the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation who has had a rocky start with the Legislature, will not be there because he is in Japan at his new Tokyo office. Two vice presidents will do the update today.

As for DNR, gone are experts Commissioner Mark Myers and then Marty Rutherford, defenders of the constitutional obligation to market gas molecules. DNR will be phoning it in for this hearing, but who pulls the short straw of answering lawmakers’ questions remains to be seen.

We’re reminded of two years ago and that blistering six-hour hearing that the joint committees had in the Mat-Su. People still refer that as the moment when the governor lost credibility on his gasline plans.

Our testimony wasn’t invited, but we offer it nonetheless: The Governor’s Alaska Gasline Project is not commercially viable. There is a glut of gas out there. What hope it had left — to keep the A-list team of producers on board — was snuffed out by the Governor’s erratic conduct on the project. This is why the smart money ran for the exits.

The only possible way to make the numbers work now is for it to be state property, run it like a utility, and for the state to get some kind of tax relief from the federal government. This is where the governor is in his thinking, and it’s a long shot. One hurdle: The concept he now has and that AGDC is working on is not the gasline for which the Legislature appropriated funds. This is a new project with new players (i.e., no players) and new market realities. There may need to be some new enabling legislation.

The gasline cannot be built without a healthy oil industry in Alaska. Producers in Alaska lost money last year and this year they simply hope to break even. They can’t keep losing money in Alaska. Their balance sheet is essential to Alaska’s economic health.

NUANCED CHANGE IN GASLINE: A shift in messaging coming from the Governor and AGDC might be too subtle to notice, but we sense Gov. Walker has backed away from saying that the state leading the project is the same as building it or operating it. Both the governor and AGDC’s Keith Meyer are being a lot more careful how they phrase it these days.

We’ll be writing about it at Must Read Alaska today. Check the blog.

GOVERNOR CLOSES FISH TRADE OFFICE IN TOKYO; OPENS GAS OFFICE: He sure did keep it under wraps. No word as to what Walker will be doing about that long-promised Houston office. No word as to why AGDC is involved in the marketing of gas, when that is statutorily bound to the Department of Natural Resources.

PFD RESTORATION HEARING: The Senate State Affairs Committee meets Tuesday to hear Sen. Mike Dunleavy’s bill that would that would restore the half of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend that Gov. Bill Walker vetoed last year. They’re lining up public testimony for Saturday.

‘KUMBAYA CAUCUS’ HOLES UP AT SEALASKA: Some sort of all-day caucus meeting on Saturday for the Alaska House Democratic Majority went down at Sealaska’s building, which our sources tell us was to try to mend a fractured caucus. “Open and transparent?” Where is the media now? You can watch the House Democratic Majority press conference every Tuesday at 9 am on Gavel Alaska. Maybe a member of the press will ask them.

NOWHERE-MAN, MAYOR BERKOWITZ: There were deaths in Anchorage parks last year, and Mayor Ethan Berkowitz was a no-show. For weeks on end, he had nothing to say and when he did, the community was having none of it.

There was a truly crazy man who got his gun back from the Anchorage Police Chief, and flew to Fort Lauderdale and killed several people. Mayor Ethan Berkowitz was a no-show — he had nothing to say. No words of condolence or prayers for the families of victims shot by an Anchorage resident who got his gun returned to him even though he had admitted to hearing voices that told him to hurt people.

There were wicked cold temperatures across the municipality and now frozen corpses are showing up, victims of hypothermia. The mayor is still a no-show: No warnings, no opening of warming shelters, or advising how to be sure you don’t die of carbon monoxide. Mayor Berkowitz just has nothing to say about any of this.

The last time the mayor said anything was in an op-ed right after the November General Election, where he all but declared Anchorage a sanctuary city. It was a thinly veiled rebuke to Donald Trump’s resounding victory in Alaska. It was no surprise then, when Mara, Berkowitz’s wife, was the keynote speaker at the Anchorage women’s march on Saturday.

ALERT: ONE WEEK LEFT TO SAVE ANCHORAGE SPENDING CAP: For the Anchorage spending cap, supporters have only until the end of January to collect signatures to get the matter on the April municipal ballot.

Sign a petition at one of these places: 907 Surplus on Boniface, Mike’s Quality Meats and Boondock Sporting Goods in Eagle River, and Gunrunners in midtown.

The petition puts the question onto the ballot to keep the liberal-dominant municipal assembly from blowing through the current spending cap.

BE A FOUNDING SUPPORTER OF MUST READ ALASKA.

Donate here.

It’s a secure site and a worthy cause: A conservative voice for Alaska.

REAL ALASKANS: Kuskokwim 300 is not for sissies. This weekend’s race was -40 with a windchill of -50. Not only are the mushers hearty people, but the spectators are, too. For the third year in a row, Pete Kaiser won the grueling race.

SITKA LOSES COAST GUARD CUTTER: The Coast Guard Cutter Maple heads south for a new home port in North Carolina after a stop for maintenance this spring, and Sitka will be without a large Coast Guard vessel for much of the year.

The Maple is designed to maintain buoys. The new vessel assigned to Sitka will come from Hawaii and is the same class of vessel, but is not going to arrive until 2018. It puts Alaskans at risk because the ships are also used for search and rescue.

PEOPLE: Happy birthday Charlie Huggins, sharing the same birthday with his daughter Hallie. Happy birthday Lesil McGuire. Someone having a birthday? Send a note, and we’ll note it here.

We heard through the grapevine that the new chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna Romney McDaniel, is the power walking partner of Kristie Babcock, who is married to the Alaska Republican Party Chairman, Tuckerman Babcock. The two hit it off on a power walk while at the RNC meeting in DC. Several candidates were reported as likely to seek the position, including McDaniel. On December 14, 2016, McDaniel was chosen by President Trump as his recommendation to replace Reince Priebus. She was officially elected as RNC chairwoman on January 19.

Congrats to Ketchikan Borough Manager Ruben Duran, who replaces former borough manager Dan Bockhorst, who retired at the end of December after nine years on the job. Duran served as city attorney of Desert Hot Springs, so going to the rain forest will be an adjustment.

In Wrangell, Borough Manager Jeff Jabusch announced his retirement in September and the hiring committee is down to two.

Alaska campaign manager Harmony Rowe will be heading to Houston for Super Bowl 51. Are you going? Send us a note and we’ll stay in touch.

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK: The media has finally found its next Trump target in Kellyanne Conway, the first female campaign manager to get a candidate to the presidency, who did so by outsmarting the Democrats and focusing on electoral wins. Talk about sexism — the liberals have it down pat: Live from New York, Saturday Night Live portrayed her as obsessed and media-vain. They never would have gone after a male campaign manager this way. They should have stuck to making fun of her on her “alternative facts” defense. Instead they went the sexist route.

CALENDAR – CHECK THE BLOG FOR UPDATES.

SAVE THE DATES:

Americans For Prosperity Alaska pours another round of its popular Pints and Policy series, this time featuring Jared Walczak of The Tax Foundation, and Jeremy Price of AFP Alaska:
FEB. 7, Cannery Lodge in Kenai
FEB. 8, 49th State Brewing in Anchorage
FEB. 9, The Annex in Palmer
FEB. 10, Westmark in Fairbanks

FEB. 18: Anchorage Republican Women’s Lincoln Day Dinner, Bridge Seafood Restaurant & Catering, 221 W. Ship Creek Ave, Anchorage. The speaker is conservative comedian Eric Golub, part of a tiny subspecies of comics who makes jokes at the expense of Democrats.
FEB. 17: Mat-Su Republican Women’s Lincoln Day Dinner.
FEB. 24-25: Juneau – Alaska Republicans’ State Central Committee quarterly meeting. Get your constituent fare nailed down now.
FEB. 25: Hunting Expo and Sportsman’s Banquet, Dena’ina Center. Tickets: http://www.aksafariclub.org/2013-banquet

FEB. 24, CAPITAL CITY REPUBLICANS LINCOLN DAY DINNER

A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier, by David Welky

Now that the inauguration is behind us, we need a break from politics.

David Welky, author and history professor, gives us that break. Here we have true grit, tragedy, and treachery rolled into Must Read Alaska Editor Suzanne Downing’s favorite genre: True adventure.

In Greenland’s Thule region, Commander Robert Peary’s party set up a base camp in the 1890s to launch a series of expeditions that would continue for several years, and culminate with the 1909 trek to the North Pole.

But in 1906, after failing to reach the North Pole, Peary was standing on a hill named Cape Colgate in northwest Greenland’s Ellesmere Island. Through his scope, he spotted a mountain range shimmering in the distance across the Arctic waters, that he dubbed “Crocker Land.” Crocker was the name of a banker in San Francisco who was one of his financial backers.

Except maybe there was no Crocker Land. This may have been a mirage, an optical illusion, or may have been an attempt to secure further support from Crocker for Peary’s 1909 expedition. Unfortunately for Peary, the San Francisco Earthquake struck and Crocker diverted all of his cash to rebuild the city. (To this day there is a Crocker neighborhood in San Francisco).

But never mind all that. Years later, Frederick Cook explored the region and returned to civilization with this message: Crocker Land was a myth. Two of Peary’s associates wanted to restore Peary’s reputation, so brought together a gaggle of adventurers to prove Cook wrong. They set out to find Crocker Land and hoped for some fame and fortune in the process. Even Theodore Roosevelt endorsed their expedition.

But the exploration of the mythical land quickly devolved into a nightmare. The ship, under the command of a drunk captain, hit the rocks. Bone-chilling hurricane blizzards whipped through, dwindling food supplies haunted the band of adventurers and mishaps, fights, and murder ensued. But the adventurers fought through the hardship and pressed on. Their return home was also protracted and unlikely, but they did make it home, although it took some of them years to get rescued.

“Making magnificent use of documents and recreating the years-long Arctic sojourn with the drama and immediacy of a tension-filled adventure novel, [Welky] conjures a romantic quest emblematic of the rugged manliness of the time…vastly entertaining,” says Kirkus Review. We ditto that.

More Welky writings can be found in The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937, The Moguls and the Dictators: Hollywood and the Coming of World War II. He teaches history at the University of Central Arkansas.

“I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.”

– Steve McQueen

Governor Walker beefs up campaign staff, on public dime

Suzanne Downing

-

January 21, 2017

1

Governor Walker beefs up campaign staff, on public dime

FREEZE-SCHMEEZE: In January of 2016, Gov. Bill Walker put in place a hiring freeze and travel restrictions for state workers, due to Alaska’s budget crisis. His instructions were very clear.

In a memo from then-Chief of Staff Jim Whitaker, last year he banned hiring into vacant staff jobs, with the exception of those essential to Alaskans’ life and safety, such as State Troopers, corrections officers, and some in the health fields.

According to his memo, commissioners may ask for a hiring exemption if they feel a job is critical to the mission and cannot be accomplished with existing workforce. Each exemption would be evaluated by the chief of staff.

Since then, the governor has approved all kinds of hiring for all manner of nonessential workers, but the most egregious hires have come in his own office and through highly paid contractors he brought in.

THE $100,000 MAN: We come to the pending employment of John-Henry Heckendorn, who is Exhibit A for a hiring freeze that does not exist.

Heckendorn is the young man from Massachusetts who came to Alaska five years ago to work on a campaign for Rep. Andy Josephson, someone he met while attending Whitman College.

He found Alaska to his liking, so much so that he decided to start his own campaign company, Ship Creek Group, which gets Democrats elected. He’s good at it.

Heckendorn is associated with Jim Lottsfeldt Strategies, where he appeared on the Democrat operative’s web site as a team member until his profile was removed last week. Heckendorn has a talent for running effective campaigns. His alliance with Lottsfeldt gives him strong union chops, and a direct line to the Lottsfeldt political blog.

Heckendorn is a likable guy. But in fairness, he’s 100 percent campaign operative.

The governor has made Heckendorn an offer to come onboard his Administration, starting at the end of this month.

This is good for Heckendorn, because it’s an off-year for campaigns and money will be harder to come by with only municipal races in Anchorage to play in. He can put his company on auto-pilot while he goes to work for Walker, who has made him a handsome offer: $97,500.

Heckendorn is 26 years old.

That’s equivalent to nearly 100 Permanent Fund dividends. And that’s not including benefits.

What is Heckendorn’s job? From the paperwork, it’s unclear. There is no actual job description. He told the Alaska Dispatch News that “he will work with the Legislature and the state’s executive-branch agencies.”

Where did the governor come up with the position?

An analysis of the paperwork trail shows Walker has taken a position from the Governor’s Office of International Trade, which had been occupied by an associate director who the governor let go to trim the budget. The governor has slyly converted it into a special assistant position that is likely related to Walker’s re-election bid.

Heckendorn, according to the governor’s organization chart, is at the same reporting level as Communications Director Grace Jang. He will be a special assistant to the Chief of Staff and Governor, but technically reports to Marcia Davis, deputy chief of staff.

His handsome salary at the assigned Range 23, between a step E and F, indicates there has been a salary override. This is a salary step that Heckendorn might only see after working a few years, but he’s getting it right out of the gate.

The new position will be stationed in Anchorage, where the bulk of election strategy work is likely to take place:

WHITAKER, ESSENTIAL TO LIFE AND SAFETY: The governor has also retained his former chief of staff, Jim Whitaker, keeping him at his very lucrative chief-of-staff salary of over $173,000, plus benefits.

Whitaker is around Range 29, Step Q, and adding in the benefits he receives, he pulls down the equivalent of 249 Permanent Fund dividends.

Whitaker’s job description is Special Projects Coordinator, a job created for him after Walker needed to get him out of the spotlight, since he is unpopular with legislators. Whitaker, readers recall, spoke in endorsement of Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

How did Walker carve out that position vacancy? In the paperwork trail it appears that he took a constituent relations position, (PCN 01-405X) , that was in Fairbanks.

That position was vacant due to downsizing his staff. Now he is up-sizing the position from a Range 14 to a Range 29 in order to keep Whitaker close by.

KENDALL, CAMPAIGN MAN AND CHIEF-OF-STAFF: Walker hired former Murkowski campaign operative Scott Kendall as his new chief of staff.

Kendall is in charge of signing off on the Heckendorn hire, and in fact may be looking forward to having the young man join the staff in just 10 days.

Kendall himself came in on a salary override, of nearly Range 29, Step O. With his benefit package, Kendall costs Alaska nearly 232 Permanent Fund dividends.

The world of Bill Walker’s own office salary overrides, layered on his previously announced hiring freezes, gets weirder by the day: This week he announced wage freezes for most non-union state workers.

While admirable, it’s not new. Recall last year’s attempt at freezing wages, an effort by Republicans in the House, which ran into a concrete wall of Democrats. The bill would have kept wages steady until oil hit $90 a barrel.

Back then, Alaska AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami called it a “ridiculous sideshow,” and said he was glad to see that Democrats in the House were blocking its passage.

The governor’s bill, SB 31, holds unions harmless and goes after non-union state workers instead.

“Until we enact a sustainable fiscal plan, we must make adjustments,” Governor Walker said in a Jan. 19 press release. “I believe in leading by example and have reduced my own salary by one-third. While it won’t close the fiscal gap, this legislation (SB 31) is a necessary part of the solution to Alaska’s fiscal crisis.”

His bill and transmittal letter are here.

The reality is that the Governor’s Office is in no way leading by example.

THE SALARY OVERRIDE GOVERNOR: This could get awkward for Gov. Walker. While freezing wages for many rank-and-file state workers, he is dramatically upgrading positions in his own office, creating new ones, and re-purposing trade promotion staff to serve as political operatives for his own re-election.

Andree McLeod, a citizen activist who requested the documents from the Governor’s Office that are cited in this story, had this to say:

“Walker’s actions do not match his rhetoric. His attempt to seem fiscally prudent is disingenuous at best and is three budgets too late. He campaigned on the promise to decrease high exempt salaries but has chosen to increase them year after year. Even his most recent exempt hires contained salary overrides (salaries over the required amount) to his newly hired chief of staff Scott Kendall and his former chief of staff Jim Whitaker who was kept on at the same rate.”

Look for the Senate Finance Committee — and other Alaskans — to have questions about the governor’s actions.

Toyko or bust: Fish office replaced by natural gas office in Japan

The 907

Suzanne Downing

-

January 21, 2017

1

The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation has opened an office in Tokyo, Japan to market the state’s wealth of natural gas.

And the State of Alaska has closed down another office — one that represented the trade interests of fishing families in Alaska.

While the Governor’s Office for many years had a seafood office in Japan’s capital, anyone who wants to talk fish now needs to go through the office devoted to talking nat-gas. The office being run by AGDC is a one-stop shop for any of Alaska’s resources, but the person in charge is a natural gas guy.

Oddly, the governor made no mention of the historic change in his State of the State Address on Wednesday, but an invitation to the opening of the new office was making its way around the small circle of media at the Capitol even while the governor spoke. It was dated January 12, six days before the governor’s speech.

Similarly, no mention was made in the governor’s State of the State speech about the Houston office that AGDC announced it would open back in July.

That office never materialized, and no public discussion has taken place about why, or about the need for the Tokyo office.

On Jan. 11, AGDC President Keith Meyer spoke about the gasline project in Kenai to a group of business and industry leaders, and also made no note of the office he had opened in Japan that week.

And at the most recent board meeting of AGDC took place on January 12 — the same day the Toyko Office opening was quietly introduced to industry — no mention was made.

That meeting was almost entirely held behind closed doors in an executive session, with no written notification before or after the executive session about any topics discussed.

Alaska’s seafood industry is the fourth-largest supplier of seafood imports to Japan, and has been for decades.

Screen Shot 2017-01-20 at 4.30.24 PM — *Masatoshi ‘Nick’ Shiratori*

Now, with the fish trade expert gone, a former employee of Mitsubishi Corp. will be Alaska’s representative on all trade matters. He will work with the administration to secure long-term contracts for gas, as well as financing for the gasline project that may cost $65 billion. Masatoshi “Nick” Shiratori is anchoring the new office.

AGDC officially became the sole owner of the giant gas export project on the last day of 2016 after its private partners – Transcanada, BP, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil decided the massive project was not for them. AGDC is a public corporation owned by the State of Alaska.

Alaska seafood in Japan has been a declining market because of changing tastes among younger Japanese, according to the food blog Northwest Asian Weekly.

Not as many millennial Japanese are eating the kinds of seafood that come from Alaska waters, but instead are turning to chicken, pork and beef, the magazine said. Without a robust trade representative, Alaska’s Japanese market position could erode even more as the skills needed to handle and prepare seafood are lost.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has worked to counter that trend by actually teaching the Japanese in Tokyo various time-saving tips, such as its “Cook It Frozen” campaign.

Read more by Nat Herz at the Alaska Dispatch News about the Tokyo office non-announcement.

Grenn’s ‘ethics’ bill would put all lawmakers on ice

Murkowski retains control of Interior Department’s budget

City to citizens: Want street plowed? Move your car

Juneau Assembly votes 6-3 favoring the ‘paid in full’ Juneau Road the governor deep-sixed

House Democrats: Budget will get ‘lounge’ review

Gasline to save us? Hearings today

Governor Walker beefs up campaign staff, on public dime

Toyko or bust: Fish office replaced by natural gas office in Japan

About us

The latest

EPA, Pebble Mine developer in settlement talks over Biden’s unprecedented pre-emptive veto

Anchorage trying to get little kids to pioneer playing in one of the least safe places in downtown

Anchorage workers removed 744,000 pounds of vagrant encampment debris from Davis Park — the weight of a fully loaded Boeing 747-400