Dear Neighbors

I’m not a big fan of failure, and not a big fan of spending money on wasted Special Sessions.  I’ve now voted three times, including yesterday, to pass the Coastal Zone Management bill that passed the Bi-Partisan Senate Monday, but surprisingly failed by three votes in the House yesterday.  Failure to pass  the bill gave away a big piece of state sovereignty to the federal government.  Click here for a link to my speech on the House Floor on why I believed the bill should pass, or read the text at the end of this newsletter.  

For all the talk we hear from the Governor and others who say they want to stand up to the federal government, their opposition to this bill gave the Feds the farm.  The bill, if it passed, met every FOX TV talking point we hear – local control, state control instead of federal control, and quicker project permitting.  But most House Republicans voted against it.  Here’s what was at stake, and what happened, and why I think Alaskans were “Lucy and the Footballed” – again.

The Coastal Zone Management bill would have required state development laws to apply on coastal federal waters and lands; and would have required that local communities be given a voice at the table.  By failing the bill, the federal government will now exclusively apply federal law to those projects, and those decisions will be made by bureaucrats who largely don’t live in Alaska, don’t understand Alaska fisheries and communities, and don’t necessarily share our interest in moving forward with responsible development.  Communities won’t have their concerns aired before state representatives (under the bill local comments, on fishing stream protection or other matters, could have been can be incorporated into a development project plan, but only if those concerns were consistent with state development and resource laws).  Now they’ll be allowed to comment, largely in writing, to federal officials who have the power to ignore their comments, and ignore state law.

When I was asked to go down for Special Session, I was told that we had 27 votes in the House for the Special Session on the very bill that failed.  I assumed that meant we had 27 votes.  So did everyone in the Senate.  I wouldn’t have gone down to Juneau if I knew we’d be playing “Lucy and the Football.”   We went to kick the winning field goal, and the football was removed just in the nick of time to give away state control over these projects. 

It didn’t help that at the last minute oil industry members’ organization, “the Alliance”, and the Alaska Miners Association wrote letters in opposition to the bill.  I don’t know if that changed any votes, but these companies have now bought themselves slower permitting by federal bureaucrats instead of faster permitting under state law – all because they didn’t want local communities to have a seat at the table.  Maybe oil companies didn’t want to hear about strong oil spill contingency planning, or mining companies didn’t want to hear about project amendments aimed at protecting local fishing waters.

So – basically, failing this bill gives Alaska’s destiny on development projects to the federal government, and cuts out the voices of local Alaskans, and the application of our state’s laws on development.  In addition it will slow down development projects.  Every Democrat and four Republicans voted for the bill.  Eighteen Republicans voted to end the program.  The bill failed on an 18-18 vote – with four people who wouldn’t have changed the outcome absent.

Why will development now be slower?  Because under the Coastal Zone law, all state permitting agencies acted together in reviewing permit applications.  In essence, we had streamlined permitting,

And development projects that would otherwise have moved ahead are now jeopardized.  For example, state laws on oil spill cleanups and contingency plans have historically been stronger than federal laws in that area.  When companies come up with proposals to drill for oil and gas off shore on federal lands, the state could have, with stronger oil spill and prevention laws, dulled opposition to those projects.

The reason some gave for voting against the bill was that after this bill failed during the last session, most Coastal Zone employees left to find new jobs, and that would temporarily slow down permitting.  I don’t buy it.  Those folks chose Coastal Zone Management careers and many would have come back.  We could have easily hired any of many contractors.  And under state law, if we are understaffed and don’t render a decision within 90 days on a completed development project application, the application is automatically approved.  Finally, we could have addressed this transition period as we hired our staff back by regulation if we wanted.  And this concern didn’t appear until the last minute.  The House Republican leadership wrote the bill we voted on.  If they were concerned about this transition period, the bill should have included language to address it.

The Senate, myself, and others, remain mystified about a bill House and Senate leaders negotiated, that seemed to have the votes when 2/3 of the members said they wanted to go to Juneau for a Special Session, and that suddenly was voted upon by folks with changed minds.

A Special Session that should have been a success turned out to be a waste of public money.  I’m happy to be home, but not happy with a vote tally that, in coming years, Alaskans and industry alike will regret.

Finally, my heart goes out to the family and friends of James Crump, who was killed in an accident at last week’s PrideFest parade.  I think people of all walks should be able to enjoy celebrating this community’s diversity.  Mr. Crump was brave enough to be a leader on this issue, and I offer my condolences to all those who knew him.

As always, call or email if there is anything we can help with.

Best,

Representative Les Gara
June 29, 2011
House Floor Speech
In reference to SB 45-Alaska Coastal Management Program

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I hope people end up voting on this bill based on what it says, not based on the impressions that have gone around the state about what it says. Those are two different things. What this bill says is very smart. As the representative who introduced this bill on the floor today said, a fair number of roll-backs from the version that failed this house by one vote a few weeks ago have been incorporated into this bill. There has been question about where this bill comes from. I wasn’t involved in the negotiations of it, but all sixty legislators received this bill in their email recently. They were asked if they wanted to come down for a special session on this bill. The same exact wording that’s in the bill before us today. We all had the chance to look at it, and decide whether we wanted to come down for a special session. I suppose some folks from leadership worked on negotiations, but I’m not exactly sure where it came from.

“Here’s what the bill does. We can take the objections and letters of support, and give them as much weight as we want. The [Alaska Support Industry] Alliance obviously opposes it, many local communities support it, and we heard testimony. If you want faster permitting that gets projects online more quickly, you vote for this bill. This is one of the few places where we do coordinated permitting in the state; where the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Conservation, [all] our resource agencies together, permit at the same time. Projects go online faster. That’s good for jobs. That’s good for the economy.

“I’ve heard repeatedly in this building how people don’t want the yoke of the federal government on our necks. [Failing] this [bill] invites the yoke of federal around our necks, because right now, under this bill if it passes, state law applies in federal waters and federal lands. If this bill fails, federal law, decided by federal bureaucrats, apply on federal waters and federal lands and off-shore drilling and off-shore ports, which we may need on the North Slope to make oil and gas production work up there. So, failure of this bill is seeding the states power to the federal government.

“I’ve heard people from both parties in this building say they want the exact opposite - for the state to control our destiny, [and] for the state to control our sovereignty. I’ve heard throughout my career in this legislature that we believe the local people should have a voice. This bill says local people can have a voice, and their concerns shall be deemed valid as long as they’re consistent with state law and as long as the evidence supports them.

“If this bill fails, we lose the local voice, and it gets replaced with the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process. Let me tell you a little bit about the NEPA process. The NEPA process is a weak process. Right now, state law has to be followed if we pass this bill. If we don’t pass this bill, the State of Alaska-just like an individual citizen, gets to write a letter to the federal government. All the federal government has to do, under the NEPA process, is say, ‘We considered your comments.’ And then, of course, they reject them, and they do what they want. [If this bill fails], state sovereignty will be given away to the federal bureaucrats who don’t want to do what the state wants.

“There has been some discussion that I heard for the first time today, which is that the program doesn’t exist anymore and a lot of the employees have [already] left. Many will come back. This is what they chose to do for their careers. But in the meantime, as the program is being built up again-and we had a short debate in the [Finance Committee meeting this afternoon], and we called Legislative Legal, and that’s why I’ve distributed the statute. In the short-term, while we don’t have enough employees, all an applicant has to do is submit a complete application. All the governor has to do is tell agencies not to play games with the ‘completeness’ rule. Don’t keep telling people their application is incomplete just to extend the timeline. If you look at (N) of this section, ‘Once an applicant files a complete application, it’s deemed to pass the consistency review within 90 days, if they get no response.’ So, if Coastal Zone offices are so under-staffed that no response is given within 90 days, the project is approved under the consistency process. There was a question whether this applied to just state lands of federal lands. It [does apply] on federal lands as well, and that is under (K-2) of this statute. Activities on federal land and federal waters are governed by this 90-day rule. Development will move forward if they get their consistency review permits within 90 days, for that short period of time when we don’t have enough staff. So that addresses that issue.

“The Attorney General came up, and said that the new standard they came up with in the last version of the bill talked about local knowledge. Some people didn’t like that, so they came up with a new version in this bill called ‘aggregate evidence’ on page 14, line 18 [of the bill].The decisions will be made based upon aggregate evidence, which means the most complete and competent information that’s available. That’s the standard courts use every day. Which evidence is better? Which evidence is stronger?

“So, I’ve heard people say, ‘God, this is a really confusing standard.’ It’s the standard courts use. It’s the standard juries use: which side’s evidence is more convincing. There is nothing secret or nefarious or confusing about that.  And even if there were, it will take one court ruling to clarify what the rule is from now on.

“The State is going to lose roughly $28 million in projects in coastal communities that we would otherwise get over the next few years under the Coastal Zone Program, if we don’t pass this bill.

“Mr. Speaker, there’s another thing. The shadow behind this bill, for some people, has been- what are we going to do about off-shore drilling? With this bill, I think there is a greater likelihood that we’ll move ahead with off-shore drilling in this state, because the state has always had a much stronger oil spill contingency program than the federal government. You saw that in the Gulf [of Mexico oil spill] last year. The state has jealously put together an oil contingency plan. And the big question by those that oppose off-shore drilling is whether a spill can be cleaned up. If we don’t pass this bill, the federal rules on oil spill clean-ups will apply. If we do pass this bill, state rules on oil spill clean-ups will apply. The commissioner of [the Department of] Environmental Conservation has said in the past that [state’s input] is an important thing. We are going to lose the right to impose stringent state standards on the clean-up of oil spills and blow-outs, if we have off-shore drilling on the North Slope. Now we’ll feed into the opposition to more drilling in the state.

“So this bill, if it passes, Mr. Speaker, I think will create more jobs and it will continue in faster permitting, rather than slower federal permitting. If people want a bill that is pro-development, that also allows for a fair local voice, everything that we always say that we want, this is the bill to pass. And I think folks who try to find the compromise between what failed in this house, what passed in the other body, and then ended up writing this [bill] I think, I felt, I found that compromise. I think this is a good middle ground. But I think the truth about this bill is much different than the impressions about this bill that we hear outside of the halls of this building. And I hope people will look at the bill, and listen to the debate from other folks who will follow me, and decide this bill based on what this bill is, not what the impression of the bill is. Not, maybe, what the representatives of some of the industry groups or some of the special interest groups say-but based on what this bill says. It is a good pro-job, pro-development bill. It is also pro-local control and pro-state sovereignty.

Thank you.”