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Leg With Louie: Obituary for House Resolution 12

The short, happy life of HR 12 ended this week. HR 12 was born last spring and died this winter, and we won’t spend long mourning it, but we will mark its passing with a few brief words: HR 12 was a house resolution that sought to establish a House Special Committee on Climate Change. At the time of its …

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Leg with louie: The Condition our Condition is in

Our Governor does not look comfortable standing tall to the scrutiny of our 60 State Legislators. No, he looks short of breath and even nervous. I have met the man and shook his hand, and by gosh, he looks dashing when he smiles. If I were working in his office, I would find a way to employ a smile coach …

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Leg With Louie: It’s Business Time in Alaska

The Governor recently submitted to the legislature a small squadron of bills as a part of a self-proclaimed “Open for Business” platform. Not only is this catchphrase redolent of the wonderful Flight of the Concords song “Business Time” it also bears the burnish of historical use. It is what Vitus Bering reported back to Peter the Great in 1725. It is …

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Leg With Louie: hope for the future in the dim light of a dawning decade

Under a newly proposed Trump Administration rule, Environmental Impact Statements on major federal actions, say permitting a Pebble Mine or a transnational oil pipeline, would be limited to a maximum of two years of agency and public review and among other limitations, the analysis of cumulative impacts is not allowed. Trump’s new EIS rule change would institutionalize the same shoddy, …

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First big local politics forum draws 18 of 28 candidates

Candidates for local office agreed Tuesday that people have the right to unionize, to drink clean water and breathe clean air. They agreed there’s a need to better address suicide, that first responders need more de-escalation training and that major factors associated with climate change are human caused. They disagreed on issues such as whether transgender students may use the bathroom …

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Ready or not, candidate forums signal municipal election season

A political candidate forum at noon today at the Carlson Center will focus on business and the economy. A second larger forum tonight at the JP Jones Community Development Center will spotlight issues such as climate change and equal rights. The two events kick off a series of forums involving candidates for Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, the Board of …

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It’s time to act on climate change

You can’t live in Fairbanks for more than two years and not feel the impacts of climate change. Sleeting storms, excessive snowfall, intense forest fires, thawing permafrost, increasing humidity, high winds, sinking roads, flooding, fishing closures. For 19 years, I’ve seen these “rare incidents” become the norm, and I’ve seen and felt how these impacts threaten our homes, jobs and …

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Opinion: Stand up for equality and support House Bill 82

Celebrating Pride is just as important today as it was in 1969. Fifty years ago, bricks thrown at Stonewall Inn in Manhattan sparked a riot that ignited a global liberation movement. We have trans women of color at Stonewall like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera to thank for responding to police violence with direct action, and making it possible …

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Press Statement: Alaskan Voices are Heard on Pebble at Federal Level, But We Demand More.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 19, 2019 Anchorage, AK- Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed amendment 90, being called the “Huffman Amendment,” to the Energy and Water Appropriations Act (H.R. 2740) bill that would suspend funding for permitting of the proposed Pebble mine in federal fiscal year 2020. The Alaska Center salutes Representative Huffman and House members for taking decisive …

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Alaska Teens Come to Washington, Lobby Against Pebble Mine

A group of Alaska teenagers met with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) June 12 and asked that she help stop the planned Pebble Mine, but were left disappointed by the senator’s unwillingness to make any commitments. The seven teens visited Murkowski in her Washington, D.C., office for half an hour to talk not only about the proposed massive gold, copper, and …