As we mature into modern statehood, or our middle adolescence, or late pre-adolescence as a state, we do well to consider the things we have perhaps outgrown and update them or trade them in for something new. This includes old timey tax structures. Our state’s motor fuel and marine fuel tax has not changed since the 1970s. Senate Bill 115 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
A First Step in Building a Healthy Economy for all: Alaska’s First Just Transition Summit
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 13, 2020 FAIRBANKS, AK: January 8-10. Local community organizations Native Movement, Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition (FCAC), Native Peoples Action, Gwich’in Steering Committee, The Alaska Center, Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AKPIRG) and Alaska Community Action on Toxics came together to create an open space for community dialogue and planning. Over the past 30 years, Alaska has …
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, …
Youth-led protest held on Delaney Park Strip against climate change
ANCHORAGE (KTUU) – Dozens of protesters gathered at the Delaney Park Strip, urging state lawmakers to combat climate change and for the governor to reinstate an environmental action committee. The protest was part of Fridays for Future, a movement started by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg who would go on strike from school every Friday to call for more environmental …
Local youths lead a growing Alaska climate justice movement
Youth around Alaska have been at the forefront of recent actions: over 300 people in Fairbanks joined 4 million people globally as part of the youth climate strikes and sixteen young Alaskans are suing the state for contributing to climate change. Young people are mobilizing at unprecedented scales to fight for our futures. Here in Fairbanks, we have drafted seventeen …
Alaskans Taking the lead for renewable future
E2’s latest Clean Jobs America report states that in 2018 3.26 million Americans were employed by the clean energy economy with an expected growth rate to be 6 percent at the end of this year. Those are huge numbers nationally and are making even bigger impacts at state and local levels. The transition to clean energy continues to build the …
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 …