Gimme an E! Gimme a T! Gimme an H! and so on

The ethics bills that passed the Senate (SB 19 and SB 20) meet up with the all-in-one House ethics bill (HB 107) on Monday for a week of work in the House Judiciary Committee. Tune in to your local broadcast of Gavel to Gavel for the exciting action.

Powerful House Transportation Committee 5

Not-so-powerful member of the powerful House Transportation Committee (that's me) 1. That was the final score on the bill substantially changing the Ocean Ranger program set up by the cruise ship initiative that passed in August. I think the bill changes the initiative too drastically and for no good reason. (So does the Anchorage Daily News). But the other members of the committee somehow managed to withstand my logic, wit and legendary personal charm and vote for the bill. The bill (HB 164) moved on to the House Judiciary Committee.

Agia, the musical

I spent five hours in the powerful House Special Committee on Oil and Gas, of which I am a powerful member, this week listening to Pat Galvin, Gov. Sarah Palin's choice as Commissioner of Revenue, explain the Alaska Gas Inducement Act. All I can tell you for sure is that Mrs. Doogan didn't raise her boy to be a petroleum wizard. I had to listen so hard to try to understand what I was being told that by the end of the second hearing Thursday evening my brain was the consistency of Wheatina.

There are, as they say around here, a lot of unresolved issues in HB 177. The House is working on the bill (after Oil and Gas, it is slated to move on to Resources, then Finance) and the Senate is working on its version (SB 104), too. We'll be hearing from pipeline companies and gas producers and gas explorers and lawyers and the public and who knows who else, and I hope that in the end I'm a much smarter guy than I am now.

All I can tell you for sure right now are two things.

First, the efforts on this issue are, so far anyway, really bipartisan. The Republican members of the powerful Oil and Gas Committee, all of whom went through the gas pipeline wars with Frank Murkowski last year, have been a big help to the two Democratic rookies (yours truly and Rep. Scott Kawasaki), and I really appreciate that. I also hope we can keep party politics pushed to the side on this issue. But I've spent too much time in the Capitol to be confident that will happen.

Second, I am constitutionally incapable of keeping a straight face on even the most serious matters. Which is why this morning I found myself humming the tune to the song "Maria" from the musical West Side Story. And before I knew it, this had appeared on my computer screen:

Agia, I've just read a bill named Agia,
And hopefully Slope gas will begin to pass quickly.
Agia! I've just heard a bill named Agia
And suddenly the route to all that gasline loot is free.
Agia, say it loud and there's welders working.
Say it soft and we're all off FERCing.
Agia, I'll never stop working on Agia.

And the longest bill title award goes to…

A Judiciary Committee bill on trusts, HB 197, wrested longest-bill-title lead from HB 179 by Rep. Mike Kelly. Kelly's title weighs in at a robust 148 words, but the Judiciary bill squeaked past it at 151 words.

Looking for cheap pizza?

Don't forget, if you live in my district or the districts of Rep. Lindsey Holmes and Sen. Hollis French, you can drop by to chat with us, eat some pizza and watch a clown – stop that, I'm the one making the jokes here – from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 31 at the Spenard Rec Center.

Best Wishes,