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Dear Neighbors, When we left off last, I think I was in Juneau, in the middle of heated emotions, on the verge of doing something to my fellow policymakers that we in the law call “a felony”. OK, it wasn’t that bad. Oops, a Typo. Here’s what we’ve been working on. First, we’ve been working on a correction to a mistake we made in our last newsletter on the winter heating assistance plan the Legislature passed. Through the magic of what we in the profession of “writing” call “a typo”, I think we made it sound like you’d have to apply for heating assistance, if you qualify, BEFORE you know whether you’ll need it. Oops. The corrected paragraph follows: Energy Assistance We passed legislation adding help for working families to pay their winter heating costs and for rural Alaskans to afford their high electric rates. If you need help this coming winter and meet the income guidelines (people with incomes up to $250% of the federal poverty level), call the Department of Health an Human Services heating assistance coordinator at 1-800-470-3058 or go to http://health.hss.state.ak.us/dpa/programs/hap/. You can apply for assistance from November 1st until April 30, 2010. Office Foster Care Efforts This Summer – Creating a Volunteer Mentoring Plan; Advertising for Foster Parents This summer our office will focus on doing what we can to improve the foster care system without waiting for next session, or for our and Senator Bettye Davis’ comprehensive foster care reform legislation to pass. First, with the help of Senator Johnny Ellis and great community testimony, we inserted a budget amendment that provides funds to advertise the need for foster parents. We have a shortage in Alaska and that increases the chance that children, already deprived of stability in their lives, will bounce between a series of temporary homes and shelters. We’ve started to work with the Department of Health and Human Services to make sure we can launch this advertising campaign in as inexpensive a way as possible. If you’re interested, click on the following link and you can see some of the model ads our friends at the Casey Family Foundation may be able to edit for use in Alaska (http://www.raisemeup.org/ads.aspx?lang=3D). Stay tuned. We’ve also learned in working on these issues that one of the great unmet needs in Alaska is for mentoring foster youth when they come out of care. When you think about it, children normally call their parents when they leave home. Foster youth often have no one to call, often have no one to get job and school advice from, and often have no responsible adult connection after leaving foster care. I’d like to help start a post-foster care mentoring effort so youth have someone to help guide them into school, the workforce, and success in life. Our office has started discussions with agency, non-profit and other contacts, and foster youth and alumni. We’d entertain any great ideas anyone else has as we set down this path. Stimulated by Stimulus Funds As you’ve probably heard by now, Governor Palin has now agreed that she should accept the $1 billion in Economic Recovery Act funds the President and Congress sent to Alaska. That was a contentious issue between the Governor and Legislature this session. It’s resolved (applause). There’s just one remaining tempest. The lion’s share of those funds go to road construction and repair, infrastructure construction, job training, schools, disability grants (e.g., grants for home improvements like wheelchair ramps for disabled Alaskans), and to reduce the state’s costs for Medicaid Coverage (we received $70 million in federal funds to replace state Medicaid obligations). The Governor has now agreed to accept those funds, which is the right move. These funds don’t require that we adopt any major new laws, and simply enhance efforts the state already engages in. If we didn’t accept them, they would have been sent to other states. And we’ve accepted them in a way that isn’t likely to create future funding obligations we can’t afford. If we didn’t accept the roughly $170 million in school funds, schools in Alaska would have been faced with major cuts. That’s not smart in a state where 40% of our kids aren’t graduating. So what’s the remaining tempest? The Governor says she’ll reject $29 million in energy funds we’ve been offered. Those funds could have been used to build needed renewable energy projects and, if we were miserly, could have been sued to replace state funds we’re already spending on those projects. They could have also been used to make Alaska’s public buildings more energy efficient. They could have been used for lots of other things smart people understand, and that I don’t. So what’s the hitch? To accept these funds we would have to certify that by 2017 Alaska would have an energy efficiency plan that reduces the amount of energy we use in new buildings and homes. We’d have been asked to join the many states that have adopted an energy efficiency code for new construction. The Governor said that was onerous. This isn’t a black and white issue, but I disagree with the governor’s conclusion (http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/783156.html). The reason most states are doing this, AND that the Alaska Homebuilders Association supports adopting an energy efficiency code, AND that the state’s housing agency, AHFC, has already adopted it for new construction, AND that the President wants Americans to do this is simple. Energy Efficiency is referred to by experts as “negawatts.” The cheapest way to reduce our reliance on high cost energy and foreign oil isn’t to build renewable energy. It isn’t to build wind and solar farms. It’s to increase the energy efficiency of our homes, buildings and lighting. Smart energy efficiency plans will normally pay themselves off in less than 10 years and vastly reduce our reliance on fossil fuel energy. It will make American less reliant on foreign oil (less of a concern in Alaska, where most of our energy is produced locally). It will SAVE US MONEY. And we can exempt ourselves from those code provisions that don’t make sense under Alaska’s climate conditions. I think the Governor was given bad advice about the IEEP, the code most states are adopting. It’s in truth a cost-saving code. Here’s the bigger irony. We already have spent $300 million to help Alaskans make their buildings and homes more energy efficient. Shouldn’t we save this kind of money up front, by building our homes and offices and schools to be energy efficient in the first place? (Hint, the answer is “Yes”). Also, after we’re done objecting to doing things the way they do them in other states (the Governor said Alaskans don’t like national codes), we’ll probably see the wisdom of what everyone else is doing. And we’ll adopt the IEEC. And we’ll just not get the free $29 million we’ve been offered. As long as the Governor doesn’t formally send a notice to the President rejecting these funds, a future Governor (according to the advice we’ve received so far) will likely be able to accept them. OK, that’s it. I know this is going to come back to bite me, so keep it quiet. As long as Mt. Redoubt (knock on wood) volcano doesn’t blow before tomorrow, I’m going fishing. For Steelhead. For fun. I mean so I can engage in my profession of writing fishing articles. Someone’s got to do it. And if the volcano doesn’t blow at all this weekend, I’ll be home Sunday. Tight Lines, |
