The House Finance Committee stripped the $300 million blank check from a bond bill Friday for the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.

The change, if it survives the rest of the legislative process, means AIDEA would have to come back at a future date with a specific plan on how it would like to use the $300 million. It has said only that the money would be for something related to mining somewhere in Alaska.

A clever guy like Randy Ruaro, the executive director of AIDEA and former Dunleavy chief of staff, can make a connection between mining and almost anything. The West Susitna road project is one prime candidate. The Ambler Road is another.

AIDEA wants to avoid the need for getting any specific project debated and approved in the open.

The committee action Friday, on an amendment from Anchorage Rep. Andy Josephson, is a step toward establishing checks and balances in connection with the state-owned development bank, an entity controlled by the governor.

A column by former Sen. Rick Halford outlining the need for checks and balances helped bolster the case for fiscal discipline with AIDEA. In the column, which appeared in the Anchorage Daily News, Halford wrote that AIDEA is “a significant contributor to an imbalance of power between the legislative and executive branches.”

“AIDEA has historically been closely controlled by whoever occupies the governor’s office. As it has marched away from legislative oversight, it has become a serious breach in the constitutionally-created balance of powers and legislative control of appropriations. The executive branch doesn’t compromise because it doesn’t have to. The Legislature has handed over ongoing spending power to the executive branch,” wrote Halford, a conservative.

“The Legislature is supposed to have a wallet, but no arms and legs. The executive branch is supposed to have arms and legs, but no wallet,” he wrote.

Requiring AIDEA to show what it expects to do with $300 million borrowed from the state wallet is a sensible step. The claim that AIDEA won’t have time to come back in future years and wait for legislative approval is absurd.

AIDEA and the Dunleavy administration won’t give up on this and the $300 million blank check may reappear. Another AIDEA request may appear as well—that is the AIDEA desire to be allowed to borrow $100 million without getting legislative approval.

During a bungled committee hearing in March at which AIDEA revealed its amendments without public notice, the committee ran out of time to insert the $100 million into a bill dealing with the railroad dock in Sewad.

AIDEA got Anchorage Rep. Tom McKay to put his name on the AIDEA amendments. The $300 million request was approved by the Republican members who asked almost no questions .

AIDEA has refused to explain where it came up with the $300 million plan or the $100 million plan, as there are no details in the minutes of its meetings to show if the AIDEA board, which is supposed to control the agency, ever voted on these proposals or debated them in public.

PERMANENT FUND: Another state agency where checks and balances are lacking is the Alaska Permanent Fund, run by a six-member board of trustees appointed by the governor.

The conflict of interest questions centered on the behavior of Permanent Fund trustee Gabrielle Rubenstein deserve an independent investigation, but that’s unlikely to happen, given the ties between Rubenstein and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who recruited her for the board.

The Permanent Fund released a statement Thursday after the Alaska Landmine disclosed leaked emails that have created the most serious leadership crisis in the history of the fund. Here is what I wrote about the emails.

Here is the statement from the corporation:

“The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) acknowledges recent media reports concerning internal communications regarding potential conflicts of interest. We take these concerns seriously and were addressing the issue through established protocols prior to coverage by the media. We are committed to ensuring the well-being of our team and the integrity of the Fund’s investment process and to working on behalf of all Alaskans. Transparency and accountability are core values at APFC.

“A review of this matter is underway to identify next steps.  We will provide further updates as appropriate.”

The focus should not be on the source of the leak, no matter how much Rubenstein pushes for that approach.

MIKE PORCARO: Anchorage radio talk show host and adman Mike Porcaro, 75, hoping to be confirmed Tuesday to his stay-at-home $136,000 state job, told legislators the other day to stop worrying about his right-wing political stunts.

He’s done with all that, he claimed.

“if you’re worried about that kind of stuff now, I would say don’t. I’m kind of in a different mode and in a different stage of life,” Porcaro told the House Fisheries Committee April 30, when asked about his red pen stunt of 2019.

He claimed the red pen stunt attacking legislators and boosting Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s radical budget cuts in 2019 was prompted by his efforts to get people to listen to his show. It was good for ratings, he said.

Upon his return to the radio this week after a serious illness, however, Porcaro attacked the Anchorage Assembly, attacked the Anchorage School Board, attacked Mayoral candidate Suzanne LaFrance and attacked local government for raising his taxes. Porcaro praised Bronson.

Porcaro said Anchorage is going “to go through hell” for the next few years because of the Anchorage Assembly and because Porcaro thinks that Bronson will lose to LaFrance.

“Unless Dave pulls off some sort of miracle, we’re gonna end up with the politburo running this town,” Porcaro said on the radio.

The politburo is the highest political committee in a Communist government.

Porcaro’s full-time state job with the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, a job he was given as a political reward by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, requires about 22 hours of work a week, according to a 2015 audit.

Porcaro, who never stops attacking government waste, may have the lightest workload of any government employee in Alaska, though he never informs his radio audience of this.

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