Ethics and more ethics

A pair of ethics bills -- SB 19 and SB 20 – passed the Senate last week and are expected to meet up with the House ethics bill – HB 109 – in the House Judiciary Committee. Just what the result of that meeting will be is anybody's guess.

The Senate bills didn't go quietly. Gov. Sarah Palin criticized the Senate majority for not adding some things in her ethics bill – SB 64 – to the bills that passed. The criticism dinged Sen. Hollis French, who is the prime mover on ethics in the Senate. That was very scary and wrong, since French was a valiant campaigner for ethics reform before things like indictments and FBI raids suddenly made ethics really, really, really important to absolutely everyone.

I'm hopeful that this kind of political maneuver won't keep us from passing good ethics legislation, but in this building you never know.

Gas pipeline bill revealed

I read the governor's gas pipeline bill over the weekend. What did you do for fun? When I finished I had a bunch of questions. Hopefully, they'll be answered during hearings by the powerful Special Committee on Oil and Gas, of which I am a powerful member.

The bill (HB 177 or SB 104) sets up a process to award a license to build a gas pipeline from the North Slope, and to approve a winning bidder. The important issues seem to be of two types: financial and procedural.

Among the financial questions are:

• Why are we giving away $500 million?
• Why would we want to freeze gas taxes for 10 years?
• Why could a bidder without enough money to finance the pipeline win the bid?
• Why would the bill allow a successful bidder to finance construction through government financing?

Among the procedural questions are:

•  Are the state's so-called must haves the right must haves?
• Are some more important than others? If so, should the legislature weight them to reflect their importance?
• Should we allow two commissioners – really, one governor – to decide who wins the bidding contest without any evaluation criteria?
• Are the public comment period (60 days) and the legislative approval period (30 days) long enough?

I'm sure there are lots of other questions as well, but I'm just not smart enough to recognize them. I'm learning as fast as I can, but it really is tough to teach an old dog new tricks.

Who wants to be an Ocean Ranger?

Some issues – like ethics and the gas pipeline – you get to pick. Some issues pick you. An example of the latter is the Ocean Ranger program, part of the cruise ship initiative approved by voters last August.

The Ocean Ranger program was intended to put observers on big cruise ships to make sure they are following the pollution rules in state waters. The cruise ship industry spent $2 million or so to defeat the initiative and lost. Now they are around trying to get the initiative changed. At the same time, the Department of Environmental Conservation, which is supposed to set up and manage the Ocean Ranger program, has been dragging its feet because, apparently, the bureaucrats don't like it, either.

Now, the chairman of the powerful House Transportation Committee, of which I am a powerful member, has a bill – HB 164 – to make big changes in the Ocean Ranger program. Both the industry and the bureaucrats will like the program a lot better if the bill passes.

I don't really have a dog in this fight. Cruise ships don't sail along the coast of House District 25 and industrial tourists don't do much shopping in Spenard. But I can't sit by and let the committee make big changes in an initiative without compelling reasons, and I haven't heard any compelling reasons yet. We either have an initiative process or we don't, and if we do, we have to do everything we can to recognize the will of the voters and follow it, as long as we aren't following it to disaster.

Plowing ahead

I'm working to keep our sidewalks clear during the winter. One of the problems is that the state plows some roads, while the city plows the sidewalks. Sometimes that means the state is plowing snow onto sidewalks the city has already cleared, burying them. I put some language in the budget of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, which plows the roads, telling them to coordinate better with the city. And I sent a letter to the city manager asking him to make sure the city coordinates with the state. Hopefully, this will mean cleared sidewalks stay clear. If it doesn't, I'll have to try something else.

Best Wishes,