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Alaska: Dunleavy Signs Capital Budget; Vetoes more than $34.7 million - Thursday at the Associated General Contractors of Alaska office in Anchorage, Governor Michael J. Dunleavy signed into law Senate Bill 2002, capturing nearly $1 billion in federal transportation and infrastructure funding, provides necessary resources to enact public safety legislation, and reinstates funding for various programs such as the Alaska Performance Scholarship, WWAMI, and Power Cost Equalization.

Governor Dunleavy reduced the final capital budget by $34.7 M through his line-item veto authority because SB2002, as passed by the Alaska Legislature, included a number of projects of local, community or legislative interest that the state simply cannot fund under its limited financial resources.

Senate Democratic Leader Tom Begich (D-Anchorage) said among Governor Dunleavy’s 27 line-item vetoes are addiction treatment facilities, homelessness assistance, weatherization, and the Interior gas project. Senate Bill 2002 passed the Senate unanimously on July 20, 2019, and the House on July 29, 2019, on a vote of 32-6. 

In a prepared statement Sen. Begich said, “Anchorage has declared a civil emergency in part because of the reductions to homeless and behavioral health services proposed by Governor Dunleavy. These vetoes are truly antithetical to his stated desire for a safer Alaska. Homeless issues in Anchorage are statewide issues and deserve a statewide response."

“This was a bare-bones capital budget to bring in Federal dollars to help alleviate some of Alaska’s infrastructure needs and to keep Alaskans working. It was carefully crafted with the entire Legislature’s input, which is why it passed with significant support - twice. I’m disappointed in Governor Dunleavy’s actions today, and they will only hurt our economy and make Alaskans less safe," said Begich. 

Begich ended his statement saying, “Governing should be done with an intent to improve the lives of all Alaskans, not through some narrow out-of-state theory of government that has failed everywhere in the past. Alaskans deserve better. We deserve a budget that respects us, not one that diminishes and places our future at risk.” 

Governor Dunleavy called the Alaska Legislature into a second special session on July 8th to resolve outstanding issues on the Permanent Fund and later the capital budget. SB 2002 completes unfinished work of the Fiscal Year 2020 budget, signed on July 10, 2019 by providing a proper funding source. - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

Alaska: Murkowski, Sullivan Lead Senate Effort to Establish Offshore Revenue Sharing for Alaska - U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both R-Alaska, along with Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Kennedy, R-La., Doug Jones, D-Ala., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., recently introduced new legislation to facilitate the equitable sharing of revenues from energy production in the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf. 

The bill, entitled the Conservation of America’s Shoreline Terrain and Aquatic Life (COASTAL) Act, includes a title written by Murkowski and Sullivan to establish a revenue sharing program specific to Alaska to provide parity with other onshore and offshore development around the country. This program will provide resources to mitigate the impacts and infrastructure needs of development while providing benefits to the State, coastal political subdivisions, individual communities, and institutions of higher education.

“Revenue sharing has been a longstanding priority for many Alaskans and remains a matter of both fairness and parity for us,” Murkowski said. “We have significant offshore resources, the willingness and ability to responsibly produce them, and it is time to institute a framework that acknowledges our important role. I believe this bill is a strong starting point for a new dialogue and appreciate my colleagues’ support for including Alaska within it.”

“Considering the vast offshore resources available in Alaska, it is critical that we continue making strides towards responsible resource development while protecting the environment and the livelihoods of Alaskans,” Sullivan said. “This bill is a positive step in working towards a system where Alaskans receive their fair share of revenues and support for our coastal communities. I look forward to working with my colleagues as we seek to recognize the essential role that coastal states play in development offshore.” - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

Alaska: Maine resident arraigned in 1993 murder of Sophie Sergie - Steven Harris Downs, 44-year-old Maine resident, pleaded not guilty Tuesday on charges of Murder in the First Degree and Sexual Assault in the First Degree in the 1993 killing of Sophie Sergie. 

Sergie, a resident of Pitkas Point and a former student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was staying with a friend in a residence hall on the UAF campus. Sergie was last seen late in the evening of April 25, 1993 when she left her friend’s dorm room to smoke a cigarette. Custodial staff found Sergie’s body in a women’s bathroom the following afternoon. She had been stabbed multiple times and shot in the head. 

According to the charging document, Downs was identified as a possible suspect after investigators submitted DNA evidence taken from Sergie’s body to a lab that uses genealogical databases to identify possible suspects in unsolved criminal cases. The lab compared the DNA sample collected from Sergie’s body to DNA profiles included in a public DNA database and identified Downs’ aunt as a likely relative of the unidentified suspect. Downs attended UAF from 1992 to 1996 and was living in the same building where Sergie was killed at the time of her murder. - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

Alaska: Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s new land swap deal to bulldoze a road in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge - Conservation groups sued the Trump administration Wednesday by challenging a land swap deal between the Interior Department and King Cove Corporation aimed at putting a road through the heart of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Izembek which the conservation groups say is one of America’s most ecologically significant refuges with wetlands that support wildlife of all kinds and millions of migrating birds, fish, and caribou. 

The court threw out a previous land swap in March 2019 after successful litigation by Trustees for Alaska on behalf of the same groups. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt responded by executing a new deal on July 12 without public knowledge or input. Unlike the previous deal, the new one does not limit use of the road to health, safety, and non-commercial purposes. It is otherwise similar to the previous agreement rejected by the court. 

“The Department of Interior has attempted an end run around the recent federal court decision that halted its plans to desecrate the Izembek Refuge Wilderness and its wildlife,” said David C. Raskin, president of Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges. “This new backroom deal adds to a long series of actions by Interior to give away public lands to serve special interests at the expense of the American people. We are disappointed by this continuation of the illegal and unethical efforts of the current administration to circumvent decades of legislation and regulations enacted to protect public lands and natural areas from destructive developments and preserve them for the benefit of all Americans. We will use every means at our disposal to continue the fight to save the Izembek Refuge.” - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

Alaska: Bill Reintroduced to Incentivize Homeowner Transitions to Cleaner, More Efficient Wood Heaters  – U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, reintroduced a bill  recently that would improve indoor and outdoor air quality and encourage manufacturing job growth by advancing the deployment of cleaner burning wood stoves, which are used by an estimated 11.5 million families throughout the United States.

 The Wood Heaters Emissions Reduction Act (WHERA) would establish a grant program at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that would award $75 million annually to incentivize the removal and replacement of old, inefficient residential wood heaters with efficient, clean-burning heaters. WHERA also requires that tribal and rural communities are fairly represented in funding allocations. 

Older wood stoves are a major driver of particle pollution in this country. EPA data indicates that nation-wide, inefficient residential wood heaters emit five times more particulate matter pollution than the U.S. petroleum refineries, cement manufacturers, and pulp and paper plants combined. 

“With our record-breaking summer heat it might seem like winter is a long way off, but the reality is it will be here before we know it. Unfortunately for many Alaskans, the thought of winter inevitably brings concerns about the cost of heating their homes,” Senator Murkowski said. “For many Alaskan communities, burning wood is the most affordable option to stay warm, but older heaters can contribute to local air pollution and affect public health. Our bill capitalizes on the benefits of woody biomass as an energy resource by taking important steps to help Alaskans, in a cost-effective way, transition to more efficient and cleaner-burning wood heaters. Giving Alaskans more affordable home heating options and reducing air pollution is a win for us and our environment.”

 “Many Americans in Delaware, Alaska and states in between rely on wood heaters to keep their family and property safe from harsh winter temperatures. While these appliances protect millions of families from the cold, many older wood heaters harm indoor and outdoor air quality because they emit a wide range of harmful air toxins – creating higher risks of respiratory illness and exacerbating breathing difficulties for those living with asthma,” said Senator Carper. - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

Northern wheatears now on remarkable journey
By NED ROZELL
A northern wheatear flies near Wales, Alaska,
with a geolocator device on its back.
Photo by Heiko Schmaljohann

Alaska: Northern wheatears now on remarkable journey By NED ROZELL - Birds that spent their summer next to muskoxen are now leaving Alaska to spend winter with zebras.

Northern wheatears are robin-size songbirds with tan bodies and handsome black eye bands. Wheatears are now gobbling insects in the rocky hills above Wales, Alaska. The birds will soon fly into the moist air just after sunset, maybe tonight, and cross the Bering Strait.

From Wales, the birds will travel the length of Russia and then Kazakhstan before crossing the Arabian Desert and then the Red Sea. The trip of 9,000 miles — perhaps the longest migration of any songbird — will take three months, until the birds stop for the winter months in eastern Africa: Sudan, Uganda or Kenya.

Franz Bairlein is a German biologist and director of the Institute of Avian Research in Wilhelmshaven who helped discover the wheatear’s migration route. In June 2009, his team members captured 30 of the birds at Eagle Summit north of Fairbanks. They fitted them with backpack geolocators, lightweight devices that record the time and whether it is light or dark outside.

The next summer, the scientists recaptured three of the birds at Eagle Summit and retrieved the geolocators. From the information recorded on the tiny devices, they teased out the wheatears’ incredible journey from Alaska to Africa, and then back again the next spring.

At the same time, the scientists performed an identical experiment with another population of northern wheatears that spends summers on Baffin Island in Arctic Canada. The one bird whose geolocator they were able to recover on Baffin Island spent its winter in Mauritania, in western Africa. That bird traveled southeast on its fall journey to Africa, starting its trip with a 2,000-mile Atlantic Ocean crossing, from Baffin Island to the British Isles.

The Alaska and Baffin Island populations of wheatears probably never meet, either on the tundra or on the savanna. The scientists determined this by examining their feathers using isotope analysis, to determine the water sources from which the birds drank.

Scientists don’t know for sure how the two groups of wheatears developed those parallel life strategies on different halves of the globe. Bairlein said that during the last great glacial period, in which much of the far north was ice-covered, wheatears may have been holed up in the Middle East. When the glaciers shrank from the continents, one group of wheatears may have expanded to the northeast, reaching Alaska, while the other drifted northwest, reaching Canada via Europe and Greenland. Somehow, they lost touch. - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

RICH MANIERI: Self-Examination Would Be a Good Start in Response to Mass Shootings - IF the circumstances weren't so awful, the predictability of the response would almost be laughable.

Every mass shooting inspires new calls for gun control, as politicians and pundits retreat to their partisan bunkers and lob blame where they believe it will do the most damage. 

I believe in the Constitution, though I don't view every piece of legislation designed to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals or the unstable as a slippery slope toward repeal of the Second Amendment.

It seems pretty naive to think that someone bent on mass murder is going to forget the whole thing because he can't get his hands on a particular weapon. Criminals tend to be resourceful. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and never fired a shot.

"Assault weapon" is a made-up political term designed to expand the list of firearms that gun control proponents believe should be banned. The AR-15, which is a hunting rifle, falls into this category. It fires one round at a time, like a pistol or a revolver. It can fire about 50 rounds in a minute as opposed to a fully automatic, military issue carbine which fires about 1,000 rounds per minute. The U.S. banned the sale of new, fully automatic weapons in 1986.

You want to ban the AR-15? Fine. There are tens of millions of legally-owned AR-15s in the U.S. And keep in the mind that the man responsible for the deadliest school shooting in American history - Virginia Tech in 2007 - used two handguns. - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

WILL DURST: The Best Words - Nobody knows what the earliest word used by humans was. The general consensus is the Sumerians developed the first written language around 3500 BC, using wedge-shaped symbols called cuneiform. Scholars hypothesize that the first word was either "ouch" or "me," although "pie" had to have been up there since the shapes surely reminded the Sumerians of it.

For the last 5,500 years humans have spent lifetimes searching for the best words to communicate. The precise word can make the difference between understanding and confusing people to the point of banging their heads against metal railings until blood drips out their ears. It doesn't help that individual words can have many definitions, such as "gross," which can mean... icky, large, 144 or the thought of Mitch McConnell naked.

President Donald Trump claims he knows the best words, though while he keeps saying he's got them, curiously, we never get to see or hear them. 45 obviously realizes how precious they are and keeps them locked up in order not to waste them. Along with his best people.

The Democrats' think they have some pretty good words, too, and trotted out some superlative ones in the debates last week. As we have learned, those words can be inspirational, aspirational, confrontational, nondenominational or generational, but are definitely not necessarily connected to reality. And as predictable as finding blueberry muffins the size of aspirins at a breakfast buffet. - More...
Friday AM - August 09, 2019

Political Cartoon: Uh Oh Joe
BY Bruce Plante ©2019, Tulsa World
Distributed to paid subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.