Tag Archive for: Dunleavy

The Fight Against Discrimination Enters A New Round

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No legislative session is complete without controversy, and often this controversy is time-consuming and a distraction from the deep work needed to build up the state. The Governor’s introduction this week of a policy proposal to directly discriminate against LGBTQ youth in schools and prohibit discussion of gender identity and sexual education, among other items – under the guise of a “parental rights” bill – checked the box for the session.

The fact that this bill was never designed to pass, nor doing anything beyond whip up those on either side, is readily apparent due to the State Senate numbers. There is absolutely no chance, especially so after the Senate organized around a moderate majority, that this type of legislation will go anywhere. The Governor is apparently not a vote counter; instead, he is a counterproductive bully pulpiter. This invention of the far-right that LGBTQ individuals and Drag Queens represent an existential threat to America is perhaps the most deranged symptom of the far-right’s current illness.

The idea that the religious right-wing believes they own the term “Parental Rights” is sad, misguided, and arrogant. There are many more parents in this state and in America who believe they have a Parental Right to send their children to public schools so they can learn respect for all, how to treat those with differences with dignity, and how our long struggle as a society for equality and justice continues with our youth. A vast majority of American parents have a right to want their children equipped for the challenges and opportunities ahead and to attend well-funded public schools. A vast majority of American parents have a right to see their kids head off to the future following opportunity, to explore, learn, to keep an open mind and an open heart. A parent has a right to home-school their kids, send them to a religious school, or an academy, a charter school, an online school or other option – a zealous minority does not have some exclusive right to impose discriminatory policies on not just LGBTQ youth, but to all other students and parents who seek a just education system.
The Governor is not an imaginative sort, apparently, as this type of policy is a cookie cutter from other states where politicians want to appeal to a malicious strain in the American electorate energized by Trump. It is a sickening policy approach, designed to punish an at-risk minority, and to put an authoritarian thumb on public school teachers and public education. Guess who is emerging as a major fan girl in the State House? Representative Jamie Allard. Shocker. Maybe the Man Without a Caucus Rep. David Eastman will hoot and holler in support. The bill will surely get airplay in the House, and the would-be discriminators will fill hearings with their sanctimony while those already dealing with discrimination will respond with factual accounts of discrimination. (Like for instance, the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights deleting equal protections for LGBTQ Alaskans against most categories of discrimination on the advice of the State Attorney General, and refusing to investigate complaints.)

The fight for LGBTQ protections in Alaska and nationally has been long-standing, and the struggle continues today. From attacks on our LGBTQ youth, particularly trans youth, in schools and extracurricular sports, to the Dunleavy Administration’s attacks on workplace protections and privacy for LGBTQ Alaskans – our leadership has made clear they do not see LGBTQ people as their constituents – but as a problem to attack. Alaskans do not take these attacks lightly. We stand committed and will fight to ensure policies like these are defeated. We are grateful for partners like Planned Parenthood Advocates Alaska and Native Movement, tracking these policies and working with our elected leaders to secure protections. You can take action now by calling the Governor’s office (907-465-3500) or emailing your representatives and telling them that Alaska is no place for hate and signing on to Native Movement’s letter. LGBTQ Alaskans deserve better; and have the right to live free from bigotry and oppression. And we will fight to ensure it is so.

In solidarity,
The Alaska Center

The contradictions of Gov. Dunleavy’s energy conference

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[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][cs_element_text _id=”4″ ][cs_content_seo]Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s carefully curated energy conference in Anchorage this week was loaded with contradictions and fell far short of the sustainable mark it was aiming for.
We want to applaud the regional electric cooperatives, renewable energy leaders, small businesses, policy leaders and scientists who endured three days of natural gas and nuclear energy hype to share their important experiences. We heard inspiring stories from Alaskan leaders about hydrokinetic energy projects from Igiugig to Port Mackenzie and solar projects in the Northwest Arctic Borough. We learned about innovative financial approaches to implementing renewable energy at the consumer end using rebates and on-bill financing and on the production side. And we heard loud and clear the urgent need for more support to build the clean energy infrastructure of Alaska’s future.
$16 per gallon diesel and $1 per kWh of electricity is all the evidence we need that rural Alaska’s reliance on diesel for electricity is neither tenable nor fair. While the overdue announcement of $200 million for Railbelt grid improvements is a momentous step forward, we hope similar announcements for rural improvements will soon follow. Unfortunately, those announcements and conversations were too often overshadowed by hyper-partisan natural gas marketing. Keynote speaker after keynote speaker spoke about the necessity for natural gas, as if our reliance on fossil fuels wasn’t the very thing that has brought Alaska into financial and energy crisis.
Hilcorp CEO Luke Saugier said it best when he admitted during his Day Two keynote, “You’ve got to be thinking we’ve gone off the rails at the Sustainable Energy Conference when you’re hearing from fossil fuel executives.” Indeed, the conference was off the rails. With a speaker lineup so disproportionately white, old, male and fossil fuel heavy, the conference was off the sustainability rails more often than it was on topic.
If there’s one thing we took away from the conference, it’s that our communities already know what we need — affordable, reliable renewable energy from wind, solar and salmon-friendly hydro. And we need the money to build them. We don’t have time to waste on doomed pie-in-the-sky projects like the Alaska LNG Project.
Even the many oil executives in the room acknowledged that social, environmental and economic forces are converging to end Alaska’s fossil fuel industry in the next 10-15 years.
The better we prepare for that transition, the better off we’ll be. Luckily, many shovel-ready renewable energy projects are waiting around the state to meet our need for affordable clean energy right now and for generations to come. Compared to boondoggles like the Alaska LNG Project, clean energy projects look like better investments for our state every day.
Matt Jackson is the climate organizer for Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, and Alyssa Quintyne is the interior organizer for The Alaska Center. Both attended all three days of the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference.
Originally published June 1, 2022 by The Anchorage Daily News.\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

A DEC Budget Trap

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[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][cs_element_text _id=”4″ ][cs_content_seo]So far, only three states in the United States have assumed primacy for dredge and fill permitting in wetlands. One of those states – Florida – assumed permit primacy in the waning days of the Trump administration. Like Governor Sean Parnell before him, Governor Dunleavy wants Alaska to pay for wetland permitting that is now being paid for by the federal government. The rationale for this proposed forever budget increase paid for by our schools and universities and roads in lean years is that there is an expectation that there will be a return on investment. Through far more relaxed permitting requirements, zero Tribal consultation, and minimal enforcement, Alaska will see a massive influx of Mines.
Governor Dunleavy convinced the state House Finance Committee to add $5 million to the operating budget so that the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation could hire 32 full-time staff. This means 32 new full-time salaries, benefits, travel budgets, etc., to create a state wetland dredge and fill program that is equivalent to the program already paid for by the federal EPA. Perhaps the Dunleavy administration is going to pay these new workers peanuts. $5 million is a far cry from the cost estimate in 2013 when Governor Parnell foisted primacy on the Legislature. At that time – EPA had 49 positions administering its permitting program at a cost of $7.9 million in 2013 dollars. You don’t have to read a crystal ball to see how this will play out for Alaska should the Senate adopt the House numbers and we start a wetland permitting program. You can bet that if the Legislature agrees to this initial $5 million allocation, we should more realistically expect to pay at least a 10 million dollar figure, subject to inflation, moving forward in countless budget years.
It will require more money than was described initially by a less than trustable Dunleavy Administration and the former Pebble spokesperson running DEC now – you can bank on that as a fact. It will lead to costly litigation for the state – bank on that. It will be a messy and costly tug of war between the state and federal government–look at what happened in Florida.
In Florida, with a Governor who is predictably combative with the federal government, there is significant disagreement on the scope of what are to be considered wetlands. Florida continues to apply the Trump EPA version, a predictably and significantly restrictive definition. This definition (Waters Of The United States – WOTUS) was invalidated by a district court opinion, and the Biden EPA is applying a pre-2015 version of WOTUS to which Florida disagrees. Alaska has 65% of the nation’s wetlands and a Governor who loves nothing more than to spend state money fighting the Feds, so the Legislature should anticipate this allocation to DEC will also kick off endless increases in “Statehood Defense” spending. 
The return on investment for paying to take over wetland permitting is likely to be this: 1. Good grandstanding politics for Governors. 2. Mine development plans that factor in lax state permitting and no Tribal consultation, so Mines are freer to destroy salmon habitat, and 3. Jobs–mainly for State attorneys paid out of the General Fund to fight with the EPA. That sounds like a great deal!
The State Senate should say No to this allocation of our money.
Sincerely,
The Alaska Center\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”5″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”6″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_button _id=”8″ ][cs_content_seo]Bills to Watch This Week\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”9″ ][cs_element_button _id=”10″ ][cs_content_seo]More Bills This Session\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]

Renewable Energy Goals

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[cs_content][cs_element_section _id=”1″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”2″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”3″ ][cs_element_text _id=”4″ ][cs_content_seo]We don’t often say nice things about our Governor, and that is because we disagree with many of his policies and tactics wholeheartedly. For instance, one of his first moves as Governor was to dismantle the Climate Action Leadership Team that The Alaska Center, Alaska Youth For Environmental Action, numerous partners, and frontline community members worked hard to help establish under the previous administration. However, in the case of a policy that will help our state do its part to combat emissions, we agree wholeheartedly with his proposed Renewable Portfolio Standard introduced today.
What is a Renewable Portfolio Standard, or an RPS as it is commonly called? It is a policy that requires utilities to sell electricity from renewable sources by specific dates or face financial penalties.
In short, an RPS for Alaska will push our electric utilities to accelerate their trajectory away from fossil fuel power generation. It will push utilities toward wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and hydro projects, either funded by the utility itself or purchased from a company called an Independent Power Producer.
We at The Alaska Center, through programs such as Solarize Anchorage, Solarize MatSu, and Solarize Fairbanks, have actively organized Alaskans in support of increased renewable energy. We have helped elect members to Utility Boards that support increasing renewables. An RPS is something we are confident Alaska utilities can achieve when working together.
SB 179 and HB 301, the Governor’s bills call for regulated electric utilities to achieve benchmark renewable energy goals: 20% by the end of 2025, 30% by 2030, 55% by 2035, and 80% by 2040. Numerous exemptions are designed to accommodate utilities and help them reach the goal. For instance, should a major natural disaster impact a utility’s ability to meet its renewable goal, it would grant an exemption from the non-compliance penalty.
Faced with steadily increasing natural gas prices, many utilities, pushed by their members and their boards of directors, have moved toward renewable energy. The Homer Electric Association has adopted an aggressive goal of achieving 50% renewable energy by 2025. Large batteries are being incorporated into the renewable energy strategy to help balance the variable energy inputs of renewable energy production.
The recent passage of legislation requiring the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to approve an Integrated Resource Plan for the railbelt will help guide the process of integrating an increase in renewable energy and will provide the public and utilities with a process-oriented approach to the construction of new generation facilities. This legislation will help Alaskans avoid an ad-hoc, willy-nilly scramble by individual utilities toward renewable energy projects and instead will set standards and requirements for the projects on a regional basis.
While the Governor’s bills have a long and winding road through the committee process, the fact that this policy has been introduced is a good thing.
In hope,
 The Alaska Center

\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][cs_element_section _id=”5″ ][cs_element_layout_row _id=”6″ ][cs_element_layout_column _id=”7″ ][cs_element_button _id=”8″ ][cs_content_seo]Bills To Watch This Week\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][cs_element_layout_column _id=”9″ ][cs_element_button _id=”10″ ][cs_content_seo]Learn More About Bills This Session\n\n[/cs_content_seo][/cs_element_layout_column][/cs_element_layout_row][/cs_element_section][/cs_content]