Development / Anti-Development

I'm surprised this offering from Tom Irwin hasn't received more media attention:

Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin today spoke out against the growing trend of anti-resource development initiatives in Alaska, and defended the state's resource permitting and regulatory system as effective, fair and responsible.

"Anyone willing to connect the dots can see that our resource industry is being targeted by multiple efforts to deprive developers of the tools they need to operate in Alaska," Irwin said. "Our Constitution mandates responsible resource development for the benefit of the people of Alaska, and I take significant exception to efforts to interfere with that mandate or the corresponding public process."

Maybe it's not "news" that the DNR Commissioner supports resource development but it does strike me as odd that the commissioner would make this an issue at this particular point. Where he sees roadblocks to development, I really only see hiccups. His list of anti-development initiatives is also surprisingly comprehensive, including our very own Rock Creek mine and the cyanide ban ordinance in Bethel.

Irwin trumpets the state's permitting process, saying it will guarantee the proper result. That, I think, gets to the core of the issue, as, at least in the Rock Creek case, people are not objecting to the mine per se but to the process which allowed the mine to go forward. Process, as I have written before, can be more important than product.

On a similar note, I'm about a week late getting to this, but there was a good Compass piece on the effect of the Habitat Division re-organization during the Murkowski administration:

Recently, Ginger Johnson, board member of Truth About Pebble, the organization devoted to seeing the giant Pebble Mine Project come to fruition, said in the Daily News: "There are strict laws that must be followed for any mine to be built. Pebble will require 67 different permits. There are processes in place to ensure that developments like Pebble mine are safe."

What she and Truth About Pebble neglect to tell us is that those "strict laws" that are supposed to "ensure that developments like Pebble mine are safe" were watered down considerably by the Murkowski administration in order to grease the skids for more resource development like the Pebble Project.

I asked Irwin about the Habitat move this morning (he was commissioner when it was moved after all) and he seemed to indicate the move has worked out fine. He said when he first met with the Habitat folks, he told them to make sure their own concerns were answered but instead of saying no, "figure out how you can say yes" to a project to let them go forward.

"So many people have been through it"

I was struck by this comment from Ted Stevens on APRN last night:

It's sort of a family. The Senate family comes around when someone's got a problem. They've all encouraged me just don't get excited about this because so many people have been through it in their own states and it's not an easy thing.

Stevens, of course, is referring to the federal investigation that is apparently looking into his connection with VECO.

What does it say about our polity that "so many" senators have been through a federal investigation? Are senators particularly enticing targets for over-zealous prosecutors? Do Americans just naturally elect people with a predilection towards corruption? Is money such an important part of our political system that it skews the priorities of our elected representatives away from serving the people and towards gathering ever more money, even by potentially illegal methods?

The casualties of global warming

I was in Kotzebue last week for the meeting of the Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission. One thing that is great about big meetings like this one is that it generally brings together a lot of important players on a particular topic which gives me an opportunity to speak to them in person (rather than over the phone).

I was really impressed by the people who are community leaders in villages facing coastal erosion, like Kivalina and Newtok. (The folks from Shishmaref didn't show.) You can just hear the frustration in their voice at the red-tape that is tying them up and see the weariness on their faces at having worked for so long on a problem they really have no control over.

I interviewed Stanley Tom, the tribal administrator in Newtok, and was just overwhelmed at what that community is going through. If you want to hear my whole interview with him, you'll just have to move to KNOM country but here's a couple of highlights.

He told me the barge landing there has been eroded so fuel has to be flown in. I asked what fuel costs now:

Our unleaded gas is at $11.87 a gallon. That's way - three times, four times - much more than what the United States is crying over $3.59 a gallon. And now we're paying $11.87 a gallon. These families cannot afford to pay $11.87 a gallon.

He's been on the job for at least a decade and I asked about the personal toll:

I'm tired of fighting this erosion problem. It's really stressful work. It's like every day, five days a week, I have to do lots of e-mailing with federal and state agencies. There's competition, you know, with other villages. We need to move and we're completing the deadlines and that's a very stressful part.

We talked about global warming and he said he thought increased emissions were causing their problems. He acknowledged Newtok was a tiny fraction of overall emissions but said the community is doing its part anyway:

We all did quit using trash bags already in the stores. We're using shopping bags. And we're trying to help the problem that they are telling us, you know, and I don't think we're the big impact. We're just a small amount and we're trying to help the problem right now.

Maybe calling Tom a "casualty of global warming" is going a little too far but at the very least his life has been completely and utterly changed by what we are doing to the world. How come that never figures into the debate about global warming?

Timing is Everything

I was intrigued by the timing of DNR's decision to allow cyanide heap-leaching at Fort Knox: late in the afternoon before a holiday. Hmmm... want to shuffle things off the radar screen now, do we?

(Speaking of timing, why is the governor releasing the RFP for a gas pipeline right before a holiday?)

The News-Miner article is - as you would expect - solid and even takes pains to mention how the use of cyanide has become an issue in both Bethel and Nome, which I appreciate.

The Fort Knox application shows one important part of mining: you should never assume the first permit application is the final one. At Rock Creek in Nome, we've been hearing that cyanide vat-leaching is a lot safer than heap-leaching and that's why they picked the former. What happens when Rock Creek ends up with a big pile of low-grade ore? Back to DNR they go, asking for a heap-leaching permit is my guess.

Public comment

Commerce Commissioner Emil Notti was in Nome the other day and, when I asked him what his goals for the department were, responded, in part, with this:

When you start talking about alternative energy, the costs are prohibitive and the hundreds of millions of dollars to put that in place around rural Alaska just take too long to do it if we had the money even. So the other way to approach that is to enable the people out here to earn enough money to pay the cost of fuel and living out here and that means jobs.

He had many comments about life in rural Alaska (he is a bit of an expert after all) and many were intelligent and insightful. But this particular cut provoked the longest e-mail I've ever seen in response to one sound bite:

I heard on KNOM, Commissioner Notti's comments on the high cost of renewable energy in rural alaska; that we as a state couldn't afford the investment in renewable energy infrastructure; that economic development and jobs was the answer in rural alaska to the ever increasing cost of heating oil and gasoline.

Well, that was a stupid... dumb... and an unreal comment from a commissioner of what... Economic development... community sustainability... where has he been living...urban Alaska! What sandbox has he been playing in?

Does he expect rural alaskans to work on a natural gas pipeline to sustain an urban Alaska...
with an ever increasing world market price for natural gas? Tell me, which Alaskans,
urban or rural... can afford to pay for natural gas to heat homes and power utilities with electricity... how high will the fuel surcharge be... in 5... 10... 20 years...

Doesn't he understand "peak oil depletion"? Tell me again... Commissioner of WHAT?

Doesn't he know that the ever increasing cost of fossil fuels is unsustainable for subsistence
economies in rural Alaska.... and when does urban Alaska become unsustainable...

As customers paying heating and utility bills...What will AVEC and NJU charge this year and every year after.... as fuel increases in price? Is the Commissioner expecting oil and gas to decrease in price over the next 20 years for rural Alaska?

Or will rural Alaskans work in urban Alaska in 9 to 5 jobs and fly home on weekends
to pay the AVEC and heating bills, oh, I forgot the babysitter...

Rural Alaska without renewable energy is the end of sustainability... unless we use past oil profits to build a renewable energy future, we'll be unable to sustain ourselves or have any rural jobs, or continue with subsistence.

We will never control the price of oil and gas. We will control the cost of renewable energy.
It will always be affordable...our way of life is affordable once we adopt renewable technologies. How long has the wind and sun been in rural Alaska?

This is the path we must follow... every windy...sunny day in rural Alaska is another 1000 years of sustainability... we will endure forever with renewables in every village, every home, and with every mode of transportation...

Rural Alaskans own the same resources that urban Alaskans own... the oil and gas on the Northslope... we as Alaskans have an endownment of past oil profits... what's the name of that fund?

What other path is there; sustainability from our past oil profits for wind, solar, geothermal
hydro, and tidal energy projects is the beginning of a 1000 years of sustainability.

BP can only offer us 50 years of what... higher profits for oil company shareholders!

What shares do we own? What's the name of that fund... that we as Alaskans own!

SOMEBODY... YELL IT OUT... LOUD AND CLEAR... I CAN"T HEAR YOU... AGAIN HOW MUCH HAS IT GROWN...

Is it nearing 40 billion dollars? Do we as rural Alaskans need to hire VECO to get the votes we need to follow the path of RENEWABLE ENERGY IN ALASKA from the Alaska Legislature?

Where is our path to sustainability in Alaska!

Is milk production in Alaska sustainable... with or without renewable energy?

Dear Gov. Palin:

Our wellbeing... our opportunities to sustain ourselves... to work... depends upon our ability to invest in renewable energy in Alaska... our schools, our public infrastructure are sustainable with renewables as the initial investment in WHAT, IN WHO... OURSELVES.

Texas is the #1 wind producing state in the US. What year did TEXAS deplete it's oil and gas as a sustainable source of energy, of revenue...!

Iceland has made a 50 year commitment to hydrogen production as the sole source for transportation fuel... for buses, private vehicles, and their fishing fleet. SAY IT AGAIN, FISHING FLEET...

The Gov. of Iowa has set up a 100 million dollar fund for making IOWA a renewable energy state. Am I worried about ALASKA... YOU BET I AM...

GM is planning on shipping the first hydrogen/electric vehicles to CHINA called the VOLT by 2010. The car will have a 300 mile range. HOW MANY MILES ON THE NOME ROAD SYSTEM!

Gov. Palin... the commissioners that will lead Alaska on the path of renewable energy...who are they... where are they... are they... OUR CHILDREN.

All Alaskans will benefit from renewable energy infrastructure, make the commitment to us today... DEAR GOVERNOR...future generations will know we wasted no more time on pipe dreams...

PS. Commissioner Notti needs a good press secretary to review his comments! DON"T LET HIM MAKE ANYMORE STUPID COMMENTS about renewable energy!

Dear KNOM:

Needless to say, I'm passionate about renewable energy... you have my permission to air it, talk of Alaska it, as much as you like, AP-it to the rest of Alaska...

We have to wake up the State...winter is coming.

Jim Stimpfle

I particularly like the line about hiring VECO to lobby for our interests.

Check 'er out

Seen APRN-dot-org recently? It's changing quickly - and for the better. Not quite as staid anymore. Nice work.

With apologies to Mastercard

Standing strong on "public safety, transportation, and education" in the capital budget: $237 billion, give or take;

Cost to governor's popularity: a few points, maybe

Keeping Matanuska Maid open for a handful of Valley dairy farmers: $600,000

Amount of teen centers in Savoonga the Mat Maid money could buy: 8

Being "biased toward the Valley": priceless.

(Thanks to a reader for pointing this out.)

(Yes, I admit consistency is false goal. I just wish politicians would be a little more upfront about it and not try to insist that their decisions are perfectly defensible.)

Every day

I'm a bit of a Luddite, I'll admit, despite my perch on the cutting edges of social media revolution (that lofty perch high in the Alaska blogosphere - oh dear, this is all going to my head).

So it is was with surprise that I learned about RSS feeds from a comment on a recent post of mine. I was trying to minimize my importance by pointing to my tinsy-wheensy number of hits. But then I learned you can actually read this blog without activating the hit counter.

I'm curious, then, just how many people read this blog off an RSS feed. If you do, wouldn't you please be so kind as to click over here and leave me a comment? A simple anonymous "hello" would do. It's in the interests of science, don't you see?

Principled Stand?

The more I think about the governor's capital budget vetoes, the less I think the ADN's editorial page is right:

BOTTOM LINE: Some of Gov. Palin's cuts are pretty painful, but they reflect solid principles.

My initial inclination was to agree with that but now I'm beginning to wonder. How, for instance, do you say your three goals are "education, transportation, and public safety" and then go and cut $4-million for a public safety building in Nome. Your goal is in the title of the project!

(Yes, I am being parochial. So is everyone else when it comes to the capital budget.)

Rather, I think what happened is that the governor wanted to show off her fiscal conservatism and started cutting projects, not at random but neither with the impartial, even-handed due process that seems to be attributed to her.

(Andrew Halcro is persistently critical but worth reading on this.)

Of course, perfect consistency is an impossible goal. If 60 lawmakers in 121 days can't produce a near-perfect capital budget (or even a moderately decent one), we shouldn't expect one governor to do so with only the power to subtract.

And yet I imagine the sniping will continue for some time. To the point of any veto overrides?

How did it happen?

Very good article in the Juneau Empire asking just how the feds managed to pick up on corruption in Alaska before any state agency did.

Two of my favorite parts:

Berkowitz has another entity to blame for corruption problems in the state. He thinks the media bears a share of the responsibility as well.

"The media failed to engage for too long," Berkowitz said.

Alaska's media didn't do enough to tell the public about what was happening in the state's government, he said. It is like when drivers slow down when they see a state trooper. Legislators would not have attempted some things they did if they knew the public was going to find out about them.

"The media was not peering into the workings of government," he said.

Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear me say a big "Amen!" to that. (How come the ADN didn't write this article?)

Also:

Equal numbers of Democratic and Republican legislators on the committee ensure balance. The Republican members last year included Stevens, who is under investigation, and former Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch, R-Juneau, who has been indicted on corruption charges and is awaiting trial.

Sounds like a classic case of foxes guarding the hen house.

Anyone in Juneau willing to push for the necessary institutional change? I thought not.