Fear and loathing in Juneau, as Legislature winds down

MYRL THOMPSON/Juneau Report

May 4, 2007

Editor's note: The following is excerpted from the weekly Juneau Report of Capitol watchdog Myrl Thompson, who has been in Juneau since January, monitoring the governmental goings-on.

WARNING! This is an especially cynical edition of the Juneau Report. I have had about enough of the constant nonsense that passes for representation in the Capitol. Allow me to rant a bit this week, it's well deserved. I feel like the old cartoon character, George

Jetson … &#8220Jane, Jane stop this crazy thing!”

Municipal revenue

sharing

Does anybody remember all the campaign promises on this one? The one idea that essentially helps the people of this state in any number of ways has been shot down by the majority in the Legislature.

I believe that the governor had $48 million stripped away from the budget that was supposed to head to communities across the state. Those wonderful fiscal hawks that appear whenever there is a spending issue they personally don't like, however rare that is, have again undermined the communities that need help badly.

I think the overall spending for the state is about $9 billion, give or take a few hundred million. Now tell me why we can't afford $48 million for communities, especially when much of it would go directly to property tax relief and badly needed public services?

Where is the sanity in this place?

We are willing to give away the farm to the out-of-state oil and gas, mining and cruise industries to the tune of billions of dollars but won't even spare $48 million for Alaska communities.

The governor is trying, the mayors from around the state are trying, but the majority lawmakers have decided otherwise. Good grief.

House Bill 164:

The &#8220ocean ranger

replacement bill”

This bill left Rep. Jay Ramras' Judiciary Committee and was heard almost immediately in House Finance, before being passed out to Rules so a floor vote could be scheduled for Saturday. The bill is being carried on a wave of gray-water that is &#8220clean enough to drink,” according to some cruise industry-friendly legislators.

Also accompanying the bill from committee to committee was a virtual tour bus load of industry lobbyists. If that wasn't enough, there were also a few industry-sensitive Department of Environmental Conservation point women who have been pushing for &#8220flexibility” - code for industry-friendly changes that are contrary to voter-approved portions of the cruise ship initiative that was supposed to become law intact.

I thought that I had seen about everything possible in the realm of political manipulation, but the suite of cruise industry-sponsored bills has to rate near the top. The sheer number of special interests, paid lobbyists and political insiders that have been working the halls of the Capitol trying to unravel the recent initiative of the people is astounding.

If they are willing to continue the madness, I'm willing to keep informing you about it. The names connected to the various cruise industry bills are impressive and growing. Stay tuned, because the plot is thickening.

The logistics for implementing an ocean ranger plan could probably be figured out by any senior high school class. That is, if the state entities were really willing to cooperate with them.

I've heard in testimony over and over that we would need 80 or 85 ocean rangers for a season. DEC did more recently correct that number down to 35 and, in actuality, the

program could start with much less.

Another example of how the process has been gamed can be seen in the cruise industry wanting to charge $300 dollars a day for room and board for the ocean rangers. We should expect no less than company-store pricing from them.

However, as was pointed out in testimony, we could scrap that idea entirely and put our inspectors up in various communities, in nice accommodations for a small fraction of that cost. The funds spent would go straight back to the communities involved and not into industry's pockets.

The problem is this: Regardless of what voters said they wanted when they approved the initiative in August, some industry-friendly legislators are not willing to support the ocean rangers plan to begin with, and they are expending unbelievable amounts of time and energy to appease the cruise ship companies.

Those campaign donations that have poured into the right pockets of certain legislators, combined with highly paid hired lobbyists and other connected people, have been effective at blocking the implementation of a workable system thus far.

This type of political behavior should be a wake-up call for voters next year. Citizens can't do anything about who is hired by industry to do their work in Juneau, nor can they do anything about appointed government officials who don't necessarily have Alaska's best interests at heart.

However, there is one remedy available to voters: Note who votes against the expressed will of the people of this state and remember that on election day. There is no other way to stop the insanity down here.

I don't know how to be any more direct. The majority of majority legislators are not looking out for your interests.

Senate Bill 80:

That loophole fix bill (or, &#8220Too many co-sponsors spoil the soup”)

After four hearings and two-and-a-half months or so, Kenai Sen. Tom Wagoner's bill has finally made it out of Sen. Charlie Huggins’ Resources Committee - but not without being watered down to the point of being nearly useless. The bill proposed, essentially, to prevent BP from sending the bill for repairs to some North Slope pipeline to Alaskans, despite the pipeline being in disrepair due to company

negligence.

When it was introduced early in the session, nearly everyone in the Senate - including Mat-Su Sens. Huggins and Lyda Green - signed on as a co-sponsor. Months later, the early support for

the bill appears to have been little more than political grandstanding.

Between not-so-friendly amendments, industry-friendly testimony by John Norman from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and Huggins at the gavel, the bill - or what's left of it - has moved on.

Any way you cut it, the new SB 80 puts the state and its residents on the hook for negligence by the industry in most of the cases that may come up. The way the situation is now, without a fix, is much worse, though.

The bill actually was one of the better pieces of legislation when first introduced. It really didn't need any tinkering with at all.

However, Huggins placed it in the political crock pot on low heat and cooked it to a mush. He then added all the wrong seasonings and plenty of water to boot. Now we have a meal that will be tough for the state to swallow and harder to digest.

The House still has its version of the bill being carried by Soldotna Rep. Kurt Olson. It has been on the back burner in Rep. Carl Gatto's Resources subcommittee. Let's hope Gatto is not reading from the same recipe book as Huggins.

Something tells me there are master chefs somewhere away from the Capitol kitchen who are stirring the political pot on this one. Anyone ever heard of a Chef Randy?

Valley resident Myrl Thompson is a free-lance journalist and former independent candidate for state House in District 15. He writes a twice-monthly &#8220Capitol Watch” column for the Frontiersman. For information about receiving his weekly e-mailed Juneau Report, contact him at myrl@ak.net.