Mat-Su legislators, in positions of influence, are moving their bills in Juneau

Mat-Su legislators are making their weight felt in the state capitol. Not only is Rep Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, the Speaker of the House and Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-palmer, cochair of the House Finance Committee, but Sen. David Wilson, R-Mat-Su is again chair of the Senate Health and Social Services Committee.

However, the new crop of freshmen legislators are fast learning the ropes. One is Rep. Jesse Sumner, R-Wasilla, formerly on the borough assembly, who chairs the House Labor and Commerce Committee and is steering a bill through the House to create an Alaska lumber-grading program so that locally-harvested timber could be milled, certified as to quality, and sold for residential home construction.

Currently there is no way to certify lumber in Alaska unless lumber inspectors are flown up from the Lower 48, which would be prohibitively expensive. Sumner’s bill, and one like it in the Senate by Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Kenai, another freshman, authorizes the state forestry division to develop an Alaska lumber grading system acceptable to institutions that finance housing, and to train Alaskans to do the certifications.

HB 93 is now in the House Rules Committee after having cleared the Labor and Commerce Committee on April 3.

Sumner is also sponsoring a bill requiring Alaska utilities, including Matanuska Electric Association, to commit to hard targets for renewable energy, including 80 percent renewable by 2040. A similar bill is in the state Senate, sponsored by Sen Loki Tobin, D-Anch.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy sponsored a similar bill last yesr but it didn’t pass. This year the governor has let legislators take the lead.

Also in the Senate, veteran Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Mat-Su, is sponsor of SB 110, which would allow school districts and municipalities to merge with the state’s health care plan for its employees, which would likely lower costs and result in savings for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District.The bill was before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, April 5.

Mat-Su school Supt. Randy Traini said he strongly supports the bill: “Our District currently spends approximately $41 million on health insurance benefits each year in its general operating fund – roughly 15 percent of all expenditures. With the averafe cost of health care increasing by about 8 percent annually, our school district could potentially experience a $3.3 million increase, which is the equivalent of 33 teaching positions

“In an effort to preserve money staying in the classroom for student learning and to control escalating costs, we fully support the concept of a statewide insurance plan,” Trani said. A similar bill is in the House, sponsored by Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District also support the bill for the same reasons.

Meanwhile, another Mat-Su veteran lawmaker, Rep. George Rauscher, R-Palmer, has introduced HB 95, which would have the Legislature, rather than the state administration, establish a system of so-called Tier 3 protected streams and water bodies.

The U.S. Clean Water Act requires states to develop a process for naming protected water bodies, which are designated Tier 3. In the absence of having a process developed for Alaska the Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation has the authority by default, which essentially puts it in the lap of the Commissioner of DEC.

Because classification of a Tier 3 stream also extends protected status to adjacent uplands the stream classification also becomes a land-use decision which DEC feels it not well equipped to make, agency officials told the House Resources Committee in hearing on HB 95.

Rauscher argues that because governors and commissioners come snd go such far-reaching decisions should have broad public involvement. The Legislature is best able to do this through its process of public review and hearings, Rauscher feels.

Meanwhile, Sumner’s local lumber-grading bill, as well as the Senate bill, could stimulate local building and home construction in rural communities, where there are serious needs for more and better housing.

Andrea Gusty, president of The Kuskokwim Corporation, or TKC, said her corporation is currently working on a housing project using local wood resources, to build a local economy around harvesting wood from the Middle Kuskokwim.”

TKC is a consortium of Alaska Native village corporations in the mid-Kuskokwim River region north of Bethel.

“We are creating local capacity around sawmill production and operations and creating home packages that will be used to create lower cost, energy efficient housing that are constructed by a local labor force,” Gusty told a legislative committee.

Support is also coming from Interior Alaska. Joe Young, owner of Young’s Timber, Inc., which operates sawmills in Tok east of Delta, said interior Alaska white spruce Young’s mill uses to make lumber for local purchase, “isn’t graded or certified, but is comparable to Douglas Fir in test loads, compression strength and elasticity.”

The ability to have Alaska lumber graded and certified in state “will increase our lumber sales as well as sales of all Alaska lumber producers,” Young said.