Note from Rep. Gara: Uh Oh & Woohoo! Target Limited on Glass Recycling; $aving Cold Hard Cash on Home Heating and Electricity
Here’s some good news and bad news. I’ll give you the bad news first-because, well, it’s not that bad. Don’t jump before you get to the good news. Ooh. That’s a bad sentence. Don’t jump at all, even after you get to the good news. That’s better.
Oh, and thanks to at least two of you for voting to make me an Anchorage Press Pick as Anchorage’s “Favorite Legislator”. Maybe even more than two of you sent in votes? I’ve been trading this award with Mike Doogan, I think, um, because most of those Anchorage Press newspaper racks are in our districts?
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Note from Rep. Gara: Glass Recycling is Back- Anchorage About to Enter the 21st Century on Recycling!
Most glass recycling was suspended at the beginning of 2009. I was happy to learn (thanks to my aide Rose Foley) that Target stores are collecting glass in Anchorage! The store has collection containers located along the side of their buildings next to the dumpsters at both the South Anchorage and Muldoon locations. While glass recycling efforts stopped because of the excessive cost of shipping heavy glass from Anchorage to the Lower 48, Target is able to use empty space on barge container bins that deliver their goods to Anchorage, but would otherwise leave Anchorage nearly empty. They back-haul the glass to their sorting center in Oregon. We weren’t able to find any other glass recycling options in Anchorage, so let us know if there are others we missed.
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Note from Rep. Les Gara: Guv Fear-Mongers On Your PFD: Why He’s Wrong. Very Wrong.
It seems that no matter what the issue, the Governor’s solution is to roll back oil taxes. Tuesday he did just that in announcing the Permanent Fund Dividend. He warned - very inaccurately - that “Alaskans can face diminishing dividends based upon the current dividend calculation because, in part, poor performance of the stock market, and then additionally over time because of declining oil production there will be fewer and less royalties going into the Permanent Fund unless we turn that around.”
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Note from Rep. Les Gara: Hiring Non-Alaskans in the Oil Patch Hearing Thursday & Lots More
Well, I’ve learned a lot this summer, and Thursday we can all learn more – on why the oil industry is hiring so many outside workers in place of Alaskans. That hearing will take place at the Legislative Information Office, from 1:30 to 3:30. Public testimony will be allowed from 5:30 to 7:30. Here’s what we know. Nearly 50% of Alaska’s North Slope workers since 2009 have been outsiders. On the other hand, employment in Alaska’s oil and gas industry is at an all-time high – 13,600 this year, compared to 10,100 when we had a low oil production tax under the old ELF system. So – those fancy TV ads saying we need to reduce oil taxes because we’re losing North Slope employment leave out a fact. Well, a few. That employment is up. But Outsiders are taking jobs Alaskans should get. Lowering oil taxes, when the industry is hiring more non-Alaskans, is one of those bad policy non sequiturs.
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Note from Rep. Les Gara: Oil Company “Liar Liar” Accusations: Spin, Attack on Sen. French and Yours Truly, Make Truth a Casualty
This job is hard sometimes. It becomes harder when you have to waste your time researching facts that others – in this case an oil company lobbying group – tell half-truths about to get the law changed in their $$$$ favor. Shocking that those who shill for multinational foreign corporations would not tell you the whole truth in an effort to take your money (when you lose a fair share for Alaska’s oil the next demand will be for an income tax or a cut in your Permanent Fund Dividend). Nobody likes being called a liar by well-funded special interests.
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Note from Rep. Gara: In-State Gas: Expensive and Not Yet Time to Pull Plug on Potentially Cheaper, Better Options
Do you want to be bound, by contract, to pay natural gas prices that are double what is paid in the Lower 48 – for the next 20 or 30 years? How’s that for attracting business to Alaska? How’s that for your pocketbook? The folks who held the press conference on Tuesday didn’t mention any of that, did they? Unfortunately, the gasline debate has devolved into competing sound bites. Those pushing the project want you to think the lights will go out tomorrow if you don’t do what they propose. It’s bad policy to scare people into ill-advised projects. Frankly, the sound bites on all sides are pretty trite – because this issue is too difficult to discuss in accurate sound bites.
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