With no public notice and little discussion, Republican legislators who identify themselves as conservatives slipped $300 million in borrowing authority for AIDEA and $58 million in borrowing authority for the Alaska Railroad into a bill.
The $358 million in borrowing authority was added to a bill that would also allow the railroad to borrow $90 million more to rebuild the Seward passenger dock and terminal. It is House Bill 122.
Read MoreRegarding the Cook Inlet natural gas situation, they suggest that conserving natural gas with more efficient use of natural gas would be simple and effective and they provide this clear-headed statement about the way forward:
Read MoreThere are assumptions piled on assumptions and monumental subsidies in a so-called University of Alaska Fairbanks study proposing a coal-fired power plant in Southcentral Alaska to replace natural gas.
I say so-called because on page 2 of the report, it says the document was prepared by the Energy & Environmental Research Center of the University of North Dakota. It says that “economic results were developed by UAF with guidance from EERC,” the research center of the University of North Dakota.
Read MoreArmed with the David Eastman playbook, right-wing Reps. Jamie Allard and Sarah Vance attacked two people who have served the state well for decades—ethics committee volunteers Joyce Anderson and Dennis “Skip” Cook.
Anderson and Cook deserve an apology for the confirmation hearing, in which Allard and Vance, acting as if they were auditioning for “Law & Order,” embarrassed the Alaska Legislature.
Read MoreThe new Anchorage office of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, located just across from the Memorial Park Cemetery on Cordova Street, should be shut down to save about $170,000, according to draft budget language moving through the Legislature.
The proposed intent language from lawmakers is aimed directly at the trustees of the fund:
“It is the intent of the Legislature that the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation will not establish or maintain new office locations without corresponding budget increments for that purpose. It is further the intent of the Legislature that the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation shall provide a report to the finance committee co-chairs and the Legislative Finance Division by December 2024 that details any actual expenditures to date related to the Anchorage office.”
Read MoreIn his latest harangue calling for the U.S. to use more military force directly against Iran, Sen. Dan Sullivan quoted a Tom Friedman column from January 25 about how Iran is not paying a price for the actions of its proxies.
Friedman, a New York Times columnist, has an excellent grasp of the complexity and the danger in that part of the world.
His columns reflect these qualities and do not promise the simple military solutions that Sullivan invariably calls for.
Read MoreHe should be in Juneau working with the Legislature. Working on education, the future of energy supplies in Southcentral, the cost of electricity in Fairbanks and elsewhere, a short-term fiscal plan that does not mean creating a $1 billion deficit and a long-term fiscal plan that does not mean the end of the Permanent Fund and the end of the Permanent Fund Dividend.
Read MoreThe cover letter by Commissioner Ryan Anderson attached as part of the so-called “STIP narrative” asserts that this is a “transparent resource for the public” and provides a “clear overview of planned projects.”
Sorry, it’s not that at all. Alaskans need a simple explanation of what has changed and what went wrong.
Read MoreJohn Skidmore, deputy attorney general in the criminal division, gave legislators what sounded like a reasoned argument to add $502,000 a year to the state budget to pay for investigative grand juries.
But Skidmore was not telling the full story. He didn’t mention the thirst for vigilante justice and mob rule.
The mess created by Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor, Skidmore’s boss, with the runaway David Haeg grand jury is the best argument to kill this budget request.
Read MoreThe state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities says it filed a new version of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program with the federal government Friday, but as of Sunday the department had not posted the changes online.
“Links coming soon! Thank you for your patience,” the transportation department says on its website.
The Federal Highway Administration has a month to review the document, which means that Alaskans won’t know until the end of March if there will be a normal road construction season this year.
Read MoreFrom his perch in Anchorage, Gov. Mike Dunleavy hectored legislators and Alaskans who don’t agree with his ideas on improving education, sounding like an exasperated junior high principal addressing juveniles who refuse to do as they are told.
He tried to ridicule those who have other ideas on education, calling them special interests. He said he would veto the bill that nearly every legislator supported because it did not include provisions he wanted on charter schools, reading, and teacher bonuses.
Read MoreChronic complainer David Haeg, given an official forum by the Dunleavy administration to spread his baseless personal whining that the world is conspiring against him, has received the legal defeat he deserves.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews has tossed the hopelessly tainted grand jury indictment against retired District Court Judge Margaret Murphy.
The case will be dismissed if the state prosecutor, hired under a state contract, doesn’t act within 10 days to try to get a new indictment. A new indictment would only prolong an embarrassing and inept sideshow that has brought shame to the Alaska Department of Law.
Read MoreMy initial review of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto threat on the education bill is that it encapsulates his four greatest weaknesses as governor—his lack of trust for others with expertise, his lack of respect for those who don’t agree with him, his arrogance and his inability to compromise.
Dunleavy does not trust local school boards, which are in a far better and stronger position to decide how to improve education than he is.
Read MoreArizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming joined the Federal Trade Commission’s federal lawsuit against the proposed Kroger acquisition of Albertsons, the company that owns Safeway and other brands.
Washington and Colorado have filed their own lawsuits.
Alaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor, who joins every right-wing lawsuit that aligns with his personal political views, did not join this one.
Read MoreIt is more than generous to refer to the planning on the West Susitna access road project as slipshod.
The version of the project that popped into the STIP was thrown together last summer without real analysis.
It had been a project of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, envisioned as a 110-mile access road to promote mining. Some estimates put the cost at $450 million, but the final price could be much higher because detailed engineering work has not taken place.
Last summer, the Dunleavy administration decided to disguise the cost of the project and use part of the federal windfall in highway dollars to pretend it was no longer a single road project, but two projects.
Read MoreThe mishandling of the STIP, the most serious management failure of Dunleavy’s time in office, has put hundreds of millions in federal highway funds and thousands of Alaska jobs in immediate jeopardy. The entire road-building season is at risk.
This, from the governor who complains about people who don’t say yes to every idea about using public resources for private gain. He should have said something about saying yes to getting the STIP done on time so that the road construction season is not canceled.
Read MoreWhile Alaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor is occupied elsewhere polishing his right-wing political image, there is an important disclosure in the Washington state lawsuit against the Kroger-Albertsons case that is relevant to Alaska.
The disclosure adds weight to the notion that pledges to keep Alaska stores open after the merger are meaningless.
Read MoreThe mishandling of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan by the office of Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson is a real problem.
Anderson is now claiming he did not know about the rule requiring that projects in an area with a Metropolitan Planning Organization, such as Anchorage and Fairbanks, must have those projects included in the local plan to be in the state plan.
He also claims it is a new rule.
Anderson did know about this rule. And it is not a new rule.
Read MoreAlaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor has signed onto another federal court case that has nothing to do with Alaska and everything to do with bowing to Donald Trump and the Trump followers who rule the Republican Party.
Taylor used state resources to add Alaska’s name to a Supreme Court amicus brief supporting Trump’s bid to delay a federal court case against him.
Read MoreThe trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation voted 5-1 last week to release what they are calling “Trustee Paper No. 10.”
Trustee Paper No. 10 became a public document when the trustees voted February 16, but the staff of the corporation has yet to release the paper to the public.
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