Dear Colleagues:

Our Twenty-third Alaska State Legislature has come to an end. We faced challenging times over the past two years, but your patience, overwhelming efforts and dedication made both sessions a success. It has been an honor to work with each of you to enhance this great State of Alaska.

When we started the Twenty-third Legislature I laid down a challenge: It is no longer enough to say Alaska is open for business; we need to change the way the government does business. I believe we were successful in meeting that challenge. There are many accomplishments we can highlight when we return to our districts.

This binder contains a compilation of our successes for the first and second session of the Twenty-third Legislature. It is intended for you to use as a collection of quick-to-find facts when speaking at public events, educating constituents and reminding Alaska voters what we accomplished during our time in Juneau. In it, you will find legislation passed in both sessions along with a short description explaining what each piece of legislation does. This year we have also added fact sheets, which can be found in the back of the book. You may remember using the sheets as a guide when introducing a bill on the Senate floor. The sheets offer a summary list of what the bill does, the benefits of the bill and a brief background.

Developing our resources was a definite priority for the Twenty-third Legislature. In the first session we streamlined permitting process standards for natural resource development and passed legislation to entice companies to explore for and develop our oil and natural gas. We had success. In January 2004 the state received its first natural gas pipeline application. Our work continued during the second session as we invested funds in the Department of Revenue to continue negotiations under the Stranded Gas Development Act. Legislation also passed to enable the Department of Natural Resources to assist in potential pipeline right-of-way work. We also moved up the earliest possible date for proposed lease sales on the Alaska Peninsula, from 2007 to 2005.

There are many more successes to embrace, so I encourage you to look over this year's adjournment packet to see the highlights for yourself. The work of the Twenty-third Legislature is now history and you were a part of the making. Again, I thank you for your hard work and commitment to changing the way government does business and to making Alaska even more prosperous than it already is.

Sincerely

Sen. Gene Therriault Senate President

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