| |
Contact Information:
Toll Free:(800) 665-2689
Fax:(907)465-2689
Website:
Email:
CONGRATULATIONS TO MITCH SEAVEY
I know that we’re all proud to have someone from the Kenai Peninsula win the "Last Great Race." The Seavey’s have a long
history in competitive dog mushing, beginning with Mitch’s father Dan, who was one of the founder’s of the Iditarod. Mitch
has competed in 11 Iditarod’s since 1982, as well as many other dog sled races over the years. Mitch’s sons carry on the
family tradition of dog mushing and also race competitively. It was my pleasure to sponsor a legislative citation honoring Mitch
Seavey’s win. Congratulations to Mitch and his family. I’m sure we will continue to see the Seavey name in future Iditarods.
PAGE FOR A DAY
On Thursday March 18th, Seward High School senior and student council representative Dutchess Marolf volunteered to be a
"page for a day" in the Alaska State House of Representatives, where she got a chance to see the inner workings of the
legislature. After graduation Dutchess plans to join the Coast Guard where she will serve as an Operations Specialist. Dutchess
was visiting Juneau with two other Seward constituents, Cathy Byars and Lynn Hohl. Cathy is the membership chair for the
Seward PTSA and a parent of a Seward middle-schooler. Lynn is the Region 5 vice-chair for the state PTA and is also the
vice-chair of the Seward PTSA. These ladies were in town for the state PTA meeting and are working hard for education
funding; I enjoyed meeting with them and appreciate their efforts. If you are planning a trip to our Capitol please call my
office and let me know. I am more than happy to help set up meetings for you with other legislators, tours of the Governor’s
mansion or other activities that may be of interest to you.
WAYS TO BE EFFECTIVE IN JUNEAU
With over 850 bills in the legislature I am relying on constituents to keep track of the issues that personally concern them and
also to keep me aware of problems affecting our district. Many people have had a difficult time figuring out how to
successfully track legislative issues that are important to them. The following section is meant to help your efforts be most
effective in Juneau. It is extremely important that you request changes while bills are in committee because no bill goes to the
floor for a vote until it has enough support to pass. Amendments to bills are rarely accepted on the floor, the majority of
changes to bills are made in committee. During the committee process members have time to work on bills, get additional data
and listen to testimony. With the information below, you can easily follow committee changes to a bill, listen to past
committee hearings, as well as meetings while they occur in "real time" from your home computer. If you want to get changes
made to a bill it is far better to submit your suggestions ahead of time and have a committee member ready to submit a written
amendment. Preparation will increase your chance of success many fold. You may also call my staff for help with individual
projects.
HOW TO TRACK A BILL
Get online and type Alaska Legislature into your browser. Choose Alaska Legislature Home Page from the list, then click
on Bill Search once the page loads. This will take you to another page where you then want to click on Subject Summary,
then select a topic from the Index that comes up. Click on the Bill Number you want from the list that appears. This gives
you the option of clicking on the full text of the bill or the bill history, and shows committee referrals as well as committee
actions. If you are interested in listening to an upcoming or past committee hearing, note the date of the meeting you would
like to listen to and then click on the link to Live KTOO streams at the bottom of the page. After the Gavel to Gavel page
loads, click on Listen. *If you don't have "Real Player," "Windows Media Player" or "Winamp" on your computer, you will
need one of them to listen to the committee meetings; these programs are free and can be downloaded from the Gavel to
Gavel page. Select the Calendar Date of the meeting you want to hear on the upper left of the page. Click on New Date to
listen to meetings from a different day. Select the Meeting you want to hear from the list that appears. You may need to
press the Play button on your media player to start the tape. You can fast-forward to listen more quickly to discussion on the
bill you are interested in. If these instructions do not work for you, you can search for bills at
and listen to Gavel to Gavel at .
COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT PLANS
Last year’s HB 191 mandated that all coastal zone district’s rewrite their Alaska Coastal Management Plans (ACMP). I have
asked for the federal government to consider the rewrites of the ACMP’s be deemed significant modifications rather than
minor revisions. It is not possible for total rewrites of all the plans to be accomplished by the July 2005 due date, especially
since the state’s requirements are not going to be established until June of 2004. I sent a copy of Homer’s resolution
requesting legislative relief for the ACMP plan changes along with my request to the federal government.
SHALLOW NATURAL GAS UPDATES
- is the companion bill to SB 312 (see below). This bill has now had two hearings in the House Oil and Gas
Committee, but has not yet moved, despite wide Committee member support. The bill was amended to limit the discretion in
extending non-productive shallow natural gas leases. is not scheduled for another hearing at this time. This bill ends
the shallow natural gas lease program of much controversy and replaces it with a “gas only” leasing program that requires a
best-interest-finding, public notice and public comment review process. This new program corrects the problems of the
existing Shallow Natural Gas program but fails to address the concerns surrounding the leases that have already been issued.
SB 312 was heard and held in Senate Resources on February 23rd. was not heard again in the House Oil and Gas
Committee this week. As I indicated in the last newsletter, this Sponsor Substitute, as amended, preempts the reissuance and
extension of the recently issued shallow natural gas leases in the Homer area if the leases are not proven economically viable
by the end of their three-year term. The bill also establishes a moratorium on future Shallow Natural Gas leases in the Homer
area. This is a less expensive and more politically feasible way of safeguarding the interests of local residents. - The March 19th hearing on HB 395 in the House Resources Committee was canceled due to personal commitments of one of the
Co-Chairs. The HB 395 sponsors are hopeful for a Resources Committee hearing on this important bill early next week. HB
395 was moved from the House Oil and Gas Committee on Tuesday March 9th. The version moved from the O&G
Committee addresses water quality, notification, bonding, and public complaint resolution issues, but does not now repeal the
Commisioner of DNR’s override authority of local ordinances.
HESS COMMITTEE
The HESS heard and moved , jury duty exemption for certain teachers. This bill would exempt teachers working in
schools not making "adequate yearly progress" from jury duty. Teacher absences can be disruptive to the class; it can also be
difficult to find qualified replacement teachers. After much debate and intensive questioning, passed out of
Committee on March 18th. This was one of the most complicated issues that the HESS Committee has considered this
session and I appreciate all the thoughtful discussion on how the Certificate of Need (CON) process works in Alaska. The
Department of Health and Social Services presented the Committee with detailed information that answered many of our
questions relating to the cost, application, administration and public notice aspects of CON. Thanks to everyone who provided
information to answer the questions I had about the effects and procedures utilized for CON. Unfortunately, there was a
shallow natural gas bill up in the Oil and Gas Committee at the same time as the HESS meeting and I had to choose between
the two. I knew from individual conversations that there were enough votes to move the CON bill from the HESS Committee,
so I decided to attend to the other priority issue and get HB 531 changed to District 35’s advantage.
EDUCATION COMMITTEE
was the only bill heard in the Education Committee this week. This bill establishes an endowment for K-12 education
and the University of Alaska based on a percentage of all new revenues generated from state lands. I am very supportive of
stabilizing education funding in this state; establishing an endowment is one way to reach this goal in the long-term. HB 333
was moved from Committee and will be heard in the HESS committee on Tuesday the 23rd of March.
HOUSE FISHERIES
The House Special Committee on Fisheries heard this week, which is a straightforward resolution to the University of
Alaska asking them to develop fisheries education programs. Currently, there are no programs in the state offering a seafood
business degree, roe technician certificates, or seafood-processing equipment maintenance certificates. SCR 19 was
recommended by the Joint Legislative Salmon Industry Task Force and was sponsored by our Senator Gary Stevens. SCR 19
was moved onto its next committee of referral, the HESS Committee. We also heard , which attempts to clarify the
relationship between the Board of Fish’s (BOF) management plan regulations and the Commissioner of Fish and Game’s
emergency order authority. This bill idea comes out of the Kenai River area. Its goal is to address the problem where certain
salmon species that have already met escapement goals are underutilized because managers are concerned about escapement
levels of other salmon species in the same river system. This bill would recognize one species of salmon as “dominant” and
focuses management and utilization efforts on that species. The Department of Fish and Game has many concerns about the
far reaching and unintended consequences of this bill. The bill seems to seriously alter the relationship between BOF and the
Commissioner of Fish and Game, giving the Commissioner some of the allocation authority currently reserved to BOF.
Although many of the members of the Committee, including myself, are very concerned about the decreased commercial
salmon fishing time in the Cook Inlet region, this bill proposes a major change in how salmon stocks are managed in this state,
and was held over for further review.
STATE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
State Affairs Committee still has a very busy schedule. Last week we held an oversight hearing on the announced move of the
Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) office from Juneau to Ketchikan. There is a lot of anger in Juneau and within the
ferry system because there was no public notice or public process prior to the announcement of this move. I was concerned
about the real reason for the move since it does not appear to save any money and there are no definite plans for the Juneau
building, which has 10 years remaining on the lease. It appears that Ketchikan may be attempting to leverage in more
advantage for its shipyard over the competition in Seward. Although I received commitment from AMHS that this was not
their intention, we will need to be vigilant that more subsidies and internal pressure from Ketchikan do not disadvantage
Seward. The Committee passed the following bills: , which is a clean-up bill for Lt. Gov's oaths, affirmations,
notaries, and certificates; -Municipal Dividend Bill and -Commerative Quarters Commission. Due to the
backlog of bills, the Committee will be meeting three to four days a week until the end of session. -the $20,000 PFD
payout is expected to come up for discussion again this week.
SENATE BILL 63
SB 63 was concurred by the Senate on March 17th. A number of my newsletters have detailed the path of SB 63, so I will
keep it brief. The week before last, the House passed out the bill after cleaning it up in the Community and Regional Affairs
Committee. The bill as amended and passed by both bodies, sets a time frame for when taxes may be collected for newly
incorporated or annexed areas. The bill was a direct result of Homer's annexation two year's ago. Cheers to Homer resident
Mary Griswold for helping us move the bill through the process.
WAYS AND MEANS
Last week the Ways and Means Committee passed - "An Act imposing a tax on employment." - "An Act
relating to the distribution of appropriations from the Alaska permanent fund under art. IX, sec. 15(b), Constitution of the
State of Alaska, and making conforming amendments," was also moved from Committee. The House will continue discussing
revenue generating proposals in the Ways and Means Committee the week of March 22nd with - "An Act relating to
taxes on cigarettes and tobacco products; relating to tax stamps on cigarettes; relating to forfeiture of cigarettes and of property
used in the manufacture, transportation, or sale of unstamped cigarettes; relating to licenses and licensees under the Cigarette
Tax Act." The Committee will also be discussing - "An Act relating to the levy, collection, and administration of sales
and use taxes on tourism services."
BILL ACCESS SYSTEM
All bills can be found on the State’s BASIS system. You can
see what committee a bill is in, when it will be heard, how
committee members voted, and much more. You can access the
system from the website below:
LIVE ON THE WEB
Remember that you can hear most committee hearings or tune into just about any legislative session, present or past, by going to Gavel to Gavel, which transmits TV and public radio broadcasts of the state legislature as they occur. Gavel to Gavel also has an online archive of past meetings. Click on the link below to connect to Gavel to Gavel:
If you need to contact the staff please click on one of the links below:
Lauren Radcliffe,
Cameron Yourkowski,
Chris Knight,
# # # |
