Regulation has hit Haines and Skagway: For the lack of a license, there will be no grand fireworks this Fourth of July. Because nothing says Independence Day like OSHA.
Haines Borough code requires a licensed pyrotechnician for firework displays within 250 feet of the port. The fireworks are often exploded from a barge offshore. But Borough manager Bill Seward doused the fireworks show because local pyrotechnician’s Phil Wilde let his license expire.
For years, Wildefire Pyrotechnics put on a show at Portage Cove on July 3, and then July 4 in Skagway. It would have cost the borough $10,000 to bring in a legally licensed pyrotechnician from Anchorage, according to KHNS radio.
Residents will be allowed to light fireworks at at waters edge at local beaches, but the closest traditional grand display will be in Juneau on the night of July 3, where Independence Day weather is predicted to be ideal.
ROUGH RIDERS: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, HIS COWBOY REGIMENT, AND THE IMMORTAL CHARGE UP SAN JUAN HILL, by Mark Lee Gardner
Continuing a summer of adventure reading, here’s the swaggering story of larger-than-life
Theodore Roosevelt, written in narrative style and as much of a page-turner as any novel you’ll pick up this summer. We love our narrative nonfiction. Could it be that Donald Trump is really the modern day version of Teddy Roosevelt, but with cufflinks?
Right after the USS Maine went down in the Havana Harbor in 1898, President McKinley threw together a few cigar-chomping cowboys and cavaliers to drive Spain out of Cuba.
That was the birth of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, a regiment of western cattle drivers, rag-tag adventurers, and Ivy-elite reprobates, whose famed Battle of San Juan Hill immortalized them and made Roosevelt a legend.
A side story is the relationship between the Rough Riders and the Buffalo Soldiers who fought alongside them at San Juan Hill.
Gardner brought in obscure diaries from private collections in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Boston, and Washington, DC.
Must Read Alaska has asked experts in the energy sector to provide insights on Gov. Bill Walker’s pre-litigation moves against BP, the operator of Prudhoe Bay. Here’s a list of observations gathered in the past 24 hours, which will be updated as they arrive:
This is headed to court. Court will be where everyone loses.
The remedy for failing to provide information under the plan of development is not to take leases back.
The governor’s move does not instill confidence that Alaska is a good investment environment.
Walker does not look like a stable or reasonable partner.
Walker’s move will have a very real chilling effect on investment in the state.
The Prudhoe Bay unit operators may have an obligation to produce – but do not have an obligation to build the pipeline needed to get that production to market.
The four-decade-old problem of how to get the gas to market remains unsolved.
AK LNG should already have the marketing data Walker wants.
The highest value of North Slope gas remains its ability to be reinjected into the fields to enhance oil recovery.
Walker’s staff provided KTUU’s Austin Baird with terse written answers to a series of questions he asked:
Senator Cathy Giessel issued the following statement on Gov. Bill Walker’s rejection of the Prudhoe Bay Plan of Development, reported here earlier today.
Senator Cathy Giessel
“This is very troubling. Why, after 40 years of producing billions of barrels of oil, is a company being threatened with eviction?” Giessel asked. “Why are engineers being told they need to violate federal law and tell about a marketing program they don’t even know about (because, they’re engineers, not marketers?) Why does the state government demand information they’ve never asked for before? Lots of questions. Hopefully this is not a step in the state wanting to sue the North Slope out of existence.”
The Alaska Journal of Commerce has a more complete report here.
GOVERNOR DISTURBING THE PEACE
The Department of Natural Resources letter to BP’s Manager of Reservoir Scott Digert discusses BP’s “duty to market the PBU gas.” The letter, in its entirety, has the appearance of the State of Alaska setting the stage for litigation, one attorney said after reviewing the letter.
“No one disputes those implied duties exist under the leases. The argument is about when the duty to market gas must be fulfilled by the companies,” the attorney said.
In its letter, DNR admits, “While DNR acknowledges the proposed use of gas in the current POD time period to enhance the production of oil, the state and WIO’s must prepare for the time when such use will no longer be necessary or appropriate.”
Therefore, DNR acknowledges that the use of the gas is adequately covered for the time period for which the Plan of Development pertains. But since the gas might be needed at some point in the distant future for a gas line that may or may not be built, the State is requiring marketing information now.
“This is saber-rattling for something companies have no obligation to provide in this Plan of Development, in this year’s scope of work,” said one industry analyst reached in Houston. “Sheesh, this governor is not just disturbing the peace. He’s setting the state back a decade. Who is going to trust him now?”
DNR’s says the State of Alaska will give BP “one final opportunity” to provide a compliant plan.
“As previously indicated, the proposed 2016 POD cannot be approved at this time because it is not yet complete. Given the importance of the gas resource to the State and teh need to protect all patties in interest, including the WIOs, DNR wil allow yet more time for an adequate submission on this topic…A modified proposed POD shall be due by September 1, 2016…the 2015 POD (as amended) will expire on November 1, 2016.”
November 1, 2016 is the date when the State could enter into litgation with the companies that provide the oil to the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Once again, the governor told KTUU’s Austin Baird that he has no intention on entering litigation. But he told the Alaska Dispatch earlier this week he had no intention of defaulting the leases, which he has done, without actually doing.
Without even a whisper to the media, Alaska Governor Bill Walker has rejected the Prudhoe Bay Plan of Development. He went full Venezuela.
The governor has chosen a route of planned uncertainty by rejecting the required plan and extending the existing operating agreement until November.
This is a step a sovereign might take if it planned to “nationalize” its oil. It’s the Hugo Chavez move of the century and will send shock waves throughout the energy sector.
Governor Walker is hanging the threat of lease foreclosure and eviction over the heads of producers who have been, in good faith, developing and producing oil for Alaska for over a generation.
As reported here last month, Governor Walker’s Administration demanded confidential information from the major producers in Alaska, relating to how they pan to market the gas they hold in their leases.
BP, the field operator said, in no uncertain terms, that it can’t give over the marketing plans because it would be an anti-trust violation if the companies had each other’s plans.
DNR COMMISSIONER WALKS OUT
On the day when the Acting DNR Commissioner walked out on the Administration, the governor came within an inch of defaulting the lease agreement.
But the governor was undeterred. He hired himself a new DNR commissioner, Andy Mack, who has a long history of opposing development. Mack is historically on the side of the environmentalist lobby and he’s now in charge of our resource-based economy. He now has the job where he will make critical decisions regarding the gas line and the oil fields.
Over at the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, the brand new president Keith Meyer just finished telling the Senate and House Joint Natural Resources Committee that the state is going to go it alone on the gasline.
The State of Alaska is moving ahead without the other three partners on a $55 billion construction project, the largest in North American history.
When sitting in front of the same committee on Wednesday, representatives for the three producers were all asked if they had suspended negotiations on the fiscal and commercial terms for the gasline.
They all answered they had not suspended negotiations.
That means only one partner has suspended negotiations: The Governor of Alaska.
Only one partner has taken the unprecedented step of threatening foreclosure on the companies who produce oil in good faith.
Only one partner has asked those companies to violate anti-trust laws and disclose how they would market their gas.
Although Point Thomson was in litigation for a decade, Prudhoe Bay has been a producing oil field for the past 40 years, not an undeveloped resource. What the governor has done is an unprecedented move in the history of oil and gas in Alaska.
Update: On the Friday edition of the Dave Stieren Show on KFQD, Senator Cathy Giessel, who chairs the Senate Natural Resources Committee, said the combination of events this week was startling: “Alaskans need to ask themselves if they want their state government owning an oil company.” She expressed doubt about whether the gasline project could move forward under the current conditions the governor has created.
If you would like a PDF version of the letter, contact [email protected]
Gov. Bill Walker took $700 million from Alaskans’ Permanent Fund dividends. More than $1,000 each.
That isn’t exactly in the playbook the Democrats were working from, but other than the money coming from one pocket rather than another, it’s right in line.
They wanted more money for nearly everything, including universal pre-K (programmed day care).
They wanted government programs and services to be held harmless.
They wanted State worker contracts to be kept whole.
They wanted taxes on Alaskans and businesses to pay for the state bureaucracy, including paying automatic raises for the 16,000 state workers — the one State worker for every 45 Alaskans that the State generously provides.
Democrats got what they want it — or close enough for government work — when the governor made his dramatic unveiling of vetoes on Wednesday morning in Anchorage.
Governor Bill Walker unveils his vetoes.
During his press conference, Governor Walker put on a brave face and trembling lip to tell Alaskans he’d have to dock them in order to keep the state workforce healthy. He hated to have to do it, he said in his rambling, unscripted way. But he’d be taking that $1,000 or more from them anyway.
MODEST CUT FOR EDUCATION
As for cuts, he managed to cut $6.4 million from Education’s base student allocation: $48 per student, or $4.80 per student per month (across 10 months).
This is not a grave cut, considering that per-student spending in rural Alaska is the highest in the nation, at about $30,000; it’s more than $15,000 per student in Anchorage.
After years of massive investment in education by Gov. Sean Parnell, $4.80 a month is a mere trim around the edges, practically a rounding error.
But you wouldn’t know it by listening to the Administration.
Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott warned the state would suffer irreparable harm because of the cuts they were forced to make.
Lieutenant Gov. Byron Mallott speaks about the dire state of the economy on June 29, 2016.
“Both of us believe passionately that education is the key to our future…A key indicator of the state’s ability to invest in the lives of Alaskans will be severely negatively impacted,” Mallott warned.
“If we do not begin to grow the capacity, the expertise, the teachers to educate Alaska’s children in a smart and cost-effective way, Alaska is crippling itself,” he continued.
This is the mantra of the voracious, always aggrieved Left. Mallott has rehearsed the “never enough” narrative for his entire life. The Left is disciplined, if nothing else, at sticking to “the narrative.”
We ask the obvious: If education is the high priority, why did the governor overspend last year on gas line consultant Rigdon Boykin ($850,000) and his gas line sidekick Radoslav Shipkoff ($100,000 monthly)?
After all, Walker knew this year the budget would still be a huge problem for the state.
Why did he overspend on Texas oil and gas consultant Audie Setters, who made nearly $600,000 working for Walker.
Why did he buy a parade of other consultants, including Andy Mack, who has now been named Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, and the new head of AGDC, Keith Meyer, who makes north of $700,000, once you include his bonus.
In other words, there’s $6.4 million to be found, if the governor wants to find it for education. He did not.
SCHOOL BUDGETS SHRINK SLIGHTLY; BUT ENROLLMENTS DO TOO
The funding for education, during the years when Gov. Parnell was in office, went up dramatically. He invested in education like the future depended on it. Direct K-12 education funding increased $50 million in the budget he signed in 2012, while Parnell still reduced overall state spending by $1 billion.
In 2014, Parnell added another $100 million to education, all while bringing the “bipartisan working group” spending under control in other areas.
In fact, there’s never been a governor more pro-education than Parnell, if you look at dollars invested in every student in the state, from K through college.
Great Alaska Schools rally at Capitol – Alaska Democrats photo
The Left, the teachers’ unions, and their media surrogates railed. They ranted. They picketed. They played every card they had, including the Great Alaska Schools, an Astroturf (well-funded, partisan grassroots) group that rallied and petitioned and threatened. They leveraged the blogs and the cause-driven reporters did their bidding to argue how anti-education Parnell was. Looking back, it seems fairly petulant. And where are these shouters now?
A $6.4 million cut to education in 2016 is not much more than a paper cut, especially because enrollment for this September will likely be down by 2,000, with the many oil jobs that have been lost in Alaska.
Last fall, the Alaska Department of Labor reported that out-migration from Alaska already exceeded in-migration by 7,500 in the year that ended one year ago, June 1, 2015.
That was the highest net departure volume since the crash of 1988, when 15,700 people left the state during a devastating recession, according to the Fairbanks News-Miner. This year’s out-migration will be similar, if not more than last years.
When school enrollments shrink, so should budgets in these lean times.
We throw in a correction here on behalf of Casey Reynolds, who reported in his blog that Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux was at the “Boss Vince” Beltrami fundraiser last Friday.
The union-fueled blog took it down several hours later without comment, but not before we received several shocked messages, including one from Rep. LeDoux herself.
We did spot a few folks, including the broadside of the aforementioned Mr. Reynolds.
LeDoux was so bothered by it she penned her own letter to her colleagues to make sure they knew she was nowhere near the union event. This case of mistaken identity was a smear tactic.
DRIVING MISS DAILY
A Cessna 206 owned by Alaska Dispatch Publisher Alice Rogoff was said to have been damaged when it rammed into the dock at Halibut Cove yesterday. Halibut Cove is the location of former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell’s wedding this week, officiated by former Senator Clem Tillion.
Word is that Rogoff was piloting the Cessna when she dinged the dock, and the plane was brought back to Anchorage under its own power by another pilot.
Rogoff hosted an elegant engagement party at her home earlier this month in Anchorage for Mead Treadwell and Clay McClure.
RECALL THAT GUY?
We heard about a recall effort when we were in the valley last week, and this week an endeavor popped up on Facebook to explore whether people are serious about taking on a sitting governor.
So while Gov. Bill Walker recalls legislators to Juneau for a special session, there may be a diffent kind of recall going on.
LANDFIELD GETS BIG LABOR AFL-CIO ENDORSEMENT
Jeff Landfield, candidate for Senate District L, received the AFL-CIO Anchorage Central Labor Council’s endorsement. Landfield, a Republican, is running against Natasha Von Imhof and Rep. Craig Johnson in the Republican primary on Aug. 16. The endorsement means union cash will flow into his campaign.
LOTS TO PRAY ABOUT
The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will continue to open its meetings with prayer. An ordinance to ban the practice was offered by Assembly President Blaine Gilman.
Prayer won. Pray on.
FEDERAL VICTORY TEAM APPOINTED
Alaska Republican Party Chairman Tuckerman Babcock named the following Alaskans to the Victory 2016 Committee, which will head up Alaska’s efforts in the federal campaigns, focused on the race for the Presidency, and including efforts to promote the entire federal ticket with the U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives:
Drue Pearce, Chair, Victory 2016
Lesil McGuire, Co-Chair, Finance
Jerry Ward, Co-Chair, Rural Alaska
Mike Robbins, Co-Chair, Events and Activities
George Lamoreaux, Vice Chair, Volunteers
Stephanie Haydn, Vice Chair, Finance
David Morgan, Vice Chair, Special Events
Jim Crawford, Alaska Spokesman for presidential campaign
Ms. Pearce is the former senate president of the Alaska Legislature, while Lesil McGuire serves as state senator and Jerry Ward is a former state senator. Mike Robbins is a businessman and Trump alternate delegate to the National Convention, and Jim Crawford is a past Alaska Republican Party chairman.
Governor Bill Walker answers a reporter’s question during media availability.
After claiming for seven months he cannot cut government, but that taxes are essential to Alaska’s survival, Gov. Bill Walker made good on his word today.
His choice was to barely touch government spending. There are still more than 16,000 filled positions and a travel freeze that never quite froze.
He chose to trim around the edges in education and commerce, but not touch the lavish labor contracts or ask employees to cover some of their own health insurance premiums.
Instead of program cuts, Walker chose instead to slash the Permanent Fund dividend and various road projects — projects that are completed by the private sector.
The cut to the Permanent Fund Dividend equates to a 50 percent or more tax. (The IRS will take another $300 (plus or minus), leaving taxpayers with roughly $700 in actual benefit from oil royalties).
The governor’s unilaterally imposed dividend tax will give him another $700 million to work with.
YOU’RE A STATE TAXPAYER NOW
Alaskans, by having their dividends garnished, have become state taxpayers without a vote.
This, however, is not a hard hit to the Alaska economy, as the cash goes from your pocket into that of a public employee, and it will still get spent in the Alaska market.
But if you’re an air carrier with a route to Hawaii, you’re already re-calculating the coming winter travel season.
Walker also made cuts to projects under way and on the planning table. They include the Knik Arm Crossing, Susitna-Watana Hydro, and various roads being built or planned with state funds.
He did not cut the Juneau Access Road today, although that fully funded project is still in peril under the Walker Administration. If he was smart, he’d let that project go through.
As predicted, Governor Walker cut cash credits due to the smaller oil and gas producers, chopping them from $430 million down to $30 million. Those are bills he’ll have to pay later; he did the same thing in his first budget.
WALKER: BLAME LEGISLATURE FIRST
Walker began his morning by breathlessly blaming the Alaska Legislature for not giving him a fiscal plan. He glossed over his responsibility in providing his own prudent plan first. The plan he presented earlier was panned by the public, but Walker insisted that all components worked together, and must be passed together.
At a March news conference, Walker said he would call a special session if the Legislature didn’t pass his multiple tax proposals. He wrote to legislators that taxes, spending cuts and a restructuring of the Permanent Fund are “written in pen.” But he could not bring Democrats to the table to agree to cuts, and their vote was essential.
The Legislature, closer to the people, dug in. Sen. Pete Kelly, co-chair of Finance, said taxes would not be considered before budgets came down.
CERTAINTY ABOUT ONE THING: THE SIZE OF YOUR DIVIDEND
Has there ever been a time in Alaska Permanent Fund history when the amount of the dividend was announced in June? Not that anyone can remember. The announcement is usually made in the fall after an extensive calculations — and the amount has been a well kept secret until its unveiling.
The talk of the town in Juneau is which state programs are being cut when Governor Bill Walker announces his vetoes on Wednesday at 9 am. Because vetoes are straight ahead as the fiscal year starts July 1.
Walker will hold a press conference on the First Floor Conference Room of the Atwood Building in Anchorage to announce his vetoes, and they are believed to be up to $1.6 billion.
The cuts may include $700 million to the Permanent Fund Earnings Reserve Fund, which cuts Alaskans’ Permanent Fund Dividends down by $1,000, or roughly in half.
Cuts also are said to include $300 million in oil and gas tax credits, which would be cashable credits to the smaller companies, possibly pushing off the liability that Walker began building last year when he refused to pay the owed credits.
Another $500 million would be from the budget itself. Not from employee contracts, not from education, and not from Medicaid. But the wheel is spinning and something will have to go.
Regulation has hit Haines and Skagway: For the lack of a license, there will be no grand fireworks this Fourth of July. Because nothing says Independence Day like OSHA.
og that Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux was at the “Boss Vince” Beltrami fundraiser last Friday.