Greetings from Juneau!

Thank you for signing up for my blog.  This week has been exciting.  Southeast Conference held their annual Mid-Session Summit, which was a great opportunity to catch up with folks from District One and other parts of Southeast Alaska.  Energy is the hot topic on everyone’s minds, and it is certainly a big issue we are dealing with this session.  I sit on the House Energy Committee, and I have had the privilege to be at the forefront of the energy discussion.  In the past few weeks, the Energy Committee has traveled to Nome, Kotzebue, Dillingham, and Kotlik to get a first-hand understanding of some of the issues facing Western Alaska regarding energy.  I hope that the Energy Committee continues these trips, as they are a great way to understand some of the concerns in other parts of the State and they offer an opportunity to educate others about our energy issues.  In Dillingham, a few locals opened their homes to us to show us what they were doing to help conquer high fuel prices.  A few people had wood-fired boilers, someone else had two windmills in their backyard, and another family had a Tulikivi fireplace.  Though these were big investments, it shows that people are taking things into their own hands and not waiting for prices to come down or someone to subsidize the fuel for them.  You can find photos of the trips in my Image Gallery.

I had the privilege of meeting with a few constituents this week – The Southeast Alaska Homebuilders were in town, as well as many folks from Southeast Conference.  The Homebuilders came to talk about legislation they were supporting or opposing, and other issues of concern.  We also spoke about possible funding for the construction academy in Ketchikan.  I sat on the Finance Subcommittee for the Department of Labor, and we added a 3.5 million dollar allocation for construction academies throughout the state, including the academy in Ketchikan.  The operating budget passed the House last week and is now on the Senate side.  Though this allocation will not be final until passed by both bodies and signed by the Governor, getting the allocation in the budget is the hard part.

I have received many e-mails and phone calls about HB 134, which amends wastewater “point of discharge” language.  As most of you know, an initiative passed in 2006 that enacted very stringent and nearly unattainable discharge standards upon cruise ships.  Keep in mind that no other municipalities are required to follow these same standards – the language of the initiatives specifically targeted cruise ships.  I am in full support of this legislation because I don’t like to see an instrumental element of Ketchikan’s business arena to be unfairly targeted.  Though I recognize and appreciate Alaska’s pristine environment, our already existing water quality standards prior to the passage of the 2006 initiative were stringent enough.  HB 134 is in the committee process and I hope to see it for a vote on the House Floor in the near future.

I am the Speaker of the House pro-tempore, which means that I act as the Speaker when Rep. Mike Chenault is not able to do so.  Rep. Chenault was out of town for part of this week, so I had the honor of serving as the Speaker during that time.  We had a full calendar and it was an honor to be up on the podium as the Presiding Officer of the House of Representatives.

I also had the special treat of having my oldest daughter, Jacie, and my parents, Linda and Jerry, in Juneau for Spring Break.  Jacie was a guest page on the floor.  Being away from my family is difficult during session, so it was very nice to have some of them visit Juneau.

Thanks for taking the time to stay updated on the issues here in Juneau.  Feel free to contact my office with any questions, concerns, or insights.

Best,

Post Date: Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 8:03 pm in: Legislative News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.