APRN Alaska News

Earlier this spring, Alaska lawmakers attracted national attention when they introduced legislation that would allow for the arrest of federal agents charged with enforcing gun control laws. On Wednesday, the Senate passed a version of the bill that gets rid of the controversial provision.

The new version of the bill instead would prohibit the state and municipalities from using their resources to help implement federal gun control measures. It also orders the attorney general to block federal gun laws, and it says that firearms are not subject to federal regulation in Alaska.

Sen. John Coghill, a North Pole Republican, carried the bill in the Senate, and he said he liked the original idea of making it a felony to enforce federal gun control measures. But he said that putting that law on the books would invite too many legal problems.

“I just couldn’t see how it would play out practically,” said Coghill. “It would end up as a court battle generally.”

While the changes managed to secure some bipartisan support, a few members of the minority caucus still had some concerns. Sen. Hollis French of Anchorage offered a criticism that Democrats have frequently used against Republican bills this session: It’s unconstitutional. He also described language that would make gun control measures invalid in Alaska as overly broad.

“I wonder about bail conditions. Can a judge set bail conditions that separate a person from a gun during the pendency of a trial? Can a police officer separate a wrongdoer from his gun who is using it to commit a crime? It says here you can’t do that at all.”

Critics of the measure have also described such language as a form of nullification.

The bill ultimately passed 17 to 3, with Democrats Bill Wielechowski of Anchorage and Lyman Hoffman of Bethel joining the majority caucus to support the legislation. The legislation will now be sent back to the House to see if they agree with the modifications to the bill.

During that same floor session, the Senate also passed a resolution encouraging gun manufacturers to bring their businesses to Alaska. That measure received unanimous support.

A bill setting up a missing persons alert system for seniors with Alzheimer’s, veterans with post traumatic stress disorder, and other vulnerable adults passed the Alaska State Senate on Wednesday, after already getting approval in the House.

The legislation tasks the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs with creating a “silver alert system.” It would be triggered when adults with special needs go missing, much in the same way that amber alerts are used for children who have been abducted. The bill would make participation in the system voluntary for newspaper, radio, and television outlets.

The measure was introduced by Rep. Max Gruenberg, an Anchorage Democrat. It’s the first bill from a member of the minority caucus that has gotten through the legislature. It passed unanimously in both chambers and now needs the signature of the governor.

The U.S. Senate will vote Thursday whether to begin debate on a package of new gun regulations.

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The bill aims to strengthen school safety and stiffen penalties for gun trafficking.

There could be amendments to establish an assault weapons ban and limit the size of magazines.

There will be one amendment that would require background checks for guns bought and sold online and at gun shows, an amendment that neither of Alaska’s senators has committed to.

Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey is no moderate. Before the Senate, he was president of the Club for Growth, a group that supports Tea Party candidates in primary campaigns against insufficiently conservative incumbents.

So gun control advocates are excited he’s a cosponsor of an amendment that would close the so-called gun show loophole.

Introducing his amendment, he put it bluntly.

“I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun control,” Toomey said. “I think it’s just common sense.”

While he was speaking, the NRA issued a press release saying expanded background checks will not prevent the next school shooting or stop violent crime.

One of Senator Toomey’s cosponsors is West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin. Both he and Senator Toomey have A ratings from the NRA.

When Senator Manchin first ran for the Senate, he was criticized for a campaign commercial where he fired a shot through a climate change bill.

But Senator Manchin says the Newton shooting changed the debate that the country needs to strengthen the background check system.

“If you go to a gun show, you have to do a background check,” Manchin said. “All background checks have to be recorded with an FFL, a Federal Firearms Licensed Dealer, the same as you do if you go to the gun store, that would be a licensed dealer.”

“If you go online, the same.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski discussed the amendment with Senator Toomey.

She says she has concerns on how the new background checks would be implemented in rural Alaska.

“If an individual wants to buy a gun over the internet, from what I understand, the only way they’d be able to do that, is if they went to a town where this a licensed gun dealer so that dealer could do the check,” Murkowski said.

The amendment does not require background checks for private sales. If a person in a remote village wants to sell a gun to a neighbor or family member, they could still do so.

And it explicitly outlaws any national registry of firearm sales.

The vote on Thursday is not on the passage of the amendment or the bill. It’s just to begin debate. And at least 13 Republicans say they will filibuster the motion.

Senator Murkowski is noncommittal on whether she’ll join the filibuster.

Senator Mark Begich, who faces reelection next year, says he has problems with the overall package, especially a provision from New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer that would monitor every gun sold in America.

Senator Begich would not say whether he plans to join the filibuster. He says he won’t decide until he knows whether the Senate will vote on his amendment that he says would strengthen mental health reporting.

“I’m still patiently waiting to hear what they’re going to tell me on my bill,” Begich said.

Both Senators Begich and Murkowski don’t have much time to make up their minds. A vote is scheduled for 11:00 Thursday morning.

Senator Harry Reid thinks he has the requisite 60 votes needed to overcome the blockade.

He’ll need yes votes from Republicans, especially if he can’t get all the moderate Democrats.

“I don’t get all the Democrats all the time, and that’s for sure,” Reid said.

One thing is certain: Any vulnerable Senator who votes yes to debate the gun package won’t necessarily vote yes on its passage.

ConocoPhillips announced today it is suspending its Chuckchi Sea drilling campaign. The company says “regulatory uncertainty” led to the decision.

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Alaska’s federally run health insurance exchange is supposed to be ready to enroll participants on October 1st. But with that deadline less than six months away, insurance companies and the state’s Division of Insurance say they have little information on what the online insurance marketplace will look like.

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Alaska’s Insurance Director, Bret Kolb, heard from a husband and wife last week. He says they wanted some basic information on the federal health insurance exchange:

“What is it going to look like? How does this play out? And unfortunately, we don’t know what a federally facilitated exchange is going to look like.”

Alaska, and 25 other states, decided not to develop insurance exchanges, which are required under the Affordable Care Act. When Governor Sean Parnell made that decision, he gave up millions of dollars in grants to establish the exchange and left the work to the federal government. The exchanges are online marketplaces that will allow consumers to shop for health care policies and determine if they qualify for subsidies to help pay for them. That may sound pretty simple, but there are a lot of complicated questions to work out. Questions Kolb says the federal government hasn’t been able to answer:

“The answers that we will get are: ‘Soon. We’ll get you an answer to that. We’ll get you guidance. We understand what the date is. We know the timeline but we don’t have an answer yet.’ Is what we’re getting from the federal government.”

The questions the state wants answers to are pretty simple: what will the exchange website look like? How much will consumers pay to use it? And when is the government going to start an advertising campaign to let people know about it? Insurers in the state have their own questions, including how they will connect electronically with the exchange. Jason Gootee is with ODS, the fourth largest insurer in Alaska. The company also offers health insurance in Oregon and Washington, where officials are establishing state run exchanges. And he says the difference between those states and Alaska is stark:

“We have weekly exchange implementation meetings and I sit in on all of those and there’s always a big flurry of activity for Oregon and Washington and when Alaska comes up, it’s basically we’re still waiting on what’s going to happen there. So we’re quite frankly on pins and needles because we want to be able to do this well.”

The state’s largest health insurer, Premera, is also eager for information about the federal exchange in Alaska. Jeff Davis is President of Premera in Alaska. He had hoped Alaska would set up its own exchange, so the state could design it to fit the needs of Alaskans. He says the company is committed to participating in the federal exchange. But Davis says so far, the federal government has provided very little information:

“We have tried and many, many others have tried and the answers range from, we’ll get back to you on that soon, we’ll have that for you the first of spring. Those sorts of answers are what we’re getting. It’s simply not available and I anticipate that means it’s not been worked out yet.”

The U.S Department of Health and Human Services declined to make someone available to interview for this story. A spokesperson says development of the exchange- or Marketplace- is underway and that “we are deeply committed to public participation in the building of the new Marketplaces.”

Stan Dorn is not surprised the federal government has been slow to provide information about the exchange. He’s a health policy expert with the non-partisan Urban Institute in Washington D.C. He says the politics surrounding the controversial health care law have hampered the process:

“Federal officials are very cautious and understandably so, they don’t want to make the slightest misstep, so they need to think very carefully, long and hard before they release any plans for what they want to do. It’s really a shame, it really takes what are usually slow processes and makes them even slower.”

Dorn expects the federal exchange to be up and running in Alaska on time. But he says it won’t have all the “bells and whistles” that will be available in states that are establishing their own exchanges:

“They’ll be able to get the basic job done, no question about that, but a lot of the more exciting features won’t be available until later years.”

One of those features that won’t be ready in time would let small companies give their employees a choice between several plan options when they use the exchange.

This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes APRN, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

The Alaska State Legislature is putting the finishing touches on a $2 billion capital budget. Even though it’s small in comparison to previous years, it still funds hundreds of projects big and small across the state. But how do lawmakers decide which ones take priority? APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez takes a look at how one set of players figure into that process: lobbyists.

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Lobbyists are well aware of their reputation. It’s not the sort of job that six-year-olds say that they want to be when they grow up. From the looks of it, it involves a lot of ducking in and out of legislators’ offices and lingering on benches outside of committee rooms. One of their own describes them as seagulls ready to feast on a stream full of rotting salmon carcasses.

But if you have a project you want funded, you might want to turn to one. Ray Gillespie has been lobbying for 25 years, and he helps cities like Kodiak and Unalaska navigate the politics behind the capital budget.

“Hiring a lobbyist smooths out the process,” says Gillespie. “It also I think increases the chances that you’ll be funded because the lobbyist presumably understands the process — understands who to talk to, who not to talk to, who’s in the majority organization, who isn’t, who’s on Finance, who isn’t. Most municipal employees and a lot of municipally elected officials don’t understand the basic fundamentals of how the process works.”

Nearly 40 cities and boroughs hired lobbyists for this legislative session. Combined, they spent well over a million dollars to make sure that legislators heard about their priorities.

According to state filings, the Northwest Arctic Borough spent the most, putting $110,000 toward a salaried government affairs staffer. It seems to be paying off. When the Senate picked over the governor’s proposed budget — basically a first draft of the document — they didn’t take out items. They added them: There was money for the borough’s magnet school, ultrasound equipment, and an upgrade of their fuel dispenser. All told, their district got $45 million.

Meanwhile, Unalaska spent about $80,000 on Gillespie’s services. Mayor Shirley Marquardt says that they haven’t gotten everything they want, but they’ve managed to protect $6 million in funding for water treatment plants. She’s pleased with the arrangement.

“Communities all over the state think it’s a worthwhile expenditure to have someone, if you can afford it and if you’re lucky enough to get somebody who really understands the process,” says Marquardt.

Marquardt says that by having someone in Juneau, the city saves a lot of staff time and travel money. Their lobbyist can schedule a meeting with a senator’s office without having to board two flights.

As co-chair of the Senate finance committee, Anchorage Republican Kevin Meyer plays a major role in crafting the capital budget. He says that there are a lot of factors that come into play. They have to look at what the governor wants; they talk to all the other lawmakers to see what they want; they factor in how much districts have traditionally gotten. They also collect project request forms from communities and organizations across the state. This year, they got nearly $4 billion worth of asks and whittled that down to $2 billion in funded projects.

Meyer downplays the influence that lobbyists have, but says they do have their place.

“I look at them as a hired gun,” says Meyer. “I mean they’re representing their client, maybe not necessarily what’s best for the whole state, but what’s best for their client.”

Gillespie gets that a lot.

“Yeah, of course. We’re salesmen, but most lobbyists have some experience and background in government or in the legislature.”

And he says that in a state with so many small communities and such a small tax base, state funding can play a big role in a city’s budget.

“Their goals and objectives reflect that they are political subdivisions of the state,” says Gillespie. “They have limited ways of raising money. In some cases, they have very little taxable property and very little in terms of local revenues.”

Gillespie says that the most successful municipalities are the ones who can argue how their project is good for the state at large. But even if you’ve got a project that helps more than just your community or that has a long-term benefit in terms of safety or education or even future revenue, it still might not get funded. There isn’t a limitless supply of money, and there’s plenty of competition for that pool. And then politics enters the process.

Gillespie understands that can be confusing to most people.

“Well, if you’re looking for reason and logic in the process, you’re probably going to be disappointed. It comes together, and it’s a mystery to me sometimes how it happens, and I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years. So, it’s not an exact science. But for the layperson, you know, the average Alaskan, the process probably makes no sense at all. And I totally understand that. I get that.”

And that confusion is exactly what keeps Gillespie, and the dozens of other lobbyists around the Capitol, in business.

The Alaska Senate is scheduled to vote soon on a controversial piece of legislation that’s part of Governor Parnell’s effort to streamline the permitting process for developments on State land.

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Every spring, Unalaska prepares to do battle with the national bird. Eagles become territorial when they nest, and that sometimes leads to attacks on unsuspecting pedestrians. This year, the city tried to preempt the bird blitz by destroying the nest of a particularly combative pair. But as KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce reports, the eagles weren’t so easily thwarted.

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A Gwichin’ Athabascan version of Shakespeare’s King Lear is going on statewide tour.

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The Anchorage Assembly got an update on how the review of ballots from last week’s election is going at last night’s regular Assembly meeting. KSKA’s Daysha Eaton has more.
They’re still reviewing ballots from last week’s election at City Hall. Anchorage Clerk Barbara Jones briefed the Assembly on the work of the election commission and the clerk’s office since last Tuesday’s municipal election. Jones said officials have been reviewing absentee and questioned ballots and they’re preparing for the public canvas on Thursday.

“There’s approximately 50 votes that are in the process of being reviewed to be rejected. The public session of canvas will be held on Thursday, April 11th from six until seven, or until completed in the assembly conference room 155 at City Hall.”

The total number of questioned ballots cast on election at precincts on election day is just over 1-thousand. There were 48-hundred in-person and by-mail absentee ballots issued throughout the city. People whose ballots are being questioned are being notified so that they may appear at the canvas to defend their votes. Jones says, after the public session of canvas is finished on Friday, officials will run the remaining question and absentee ballots through an AccuVote machine for a final count. Saturday, the hand-count of the close race in the West Anchorage Assembly District begins. Just 93 votes separate Assembly Chair Ernie Hall and Write-in Candidate Nick Moe in the race. The hand count begins at at 8:30 am at City Hall and runs until 5pm. It is open to the public.

The Alaska Republican Party has undergone something of a coup. Party Chairwoman Debbie Brown has been ousted, and state party vice – chair Peter Goldberg has become the new chair.

 Goldberg’s accession Monday [last] night marks the latest chapter in the saga of the Republicans’ messy internal politics. Brown, reached on her cell phone, said the actions of the executive committee itself was illegal under party rules:

 ”It’s just a couple of factions that are basically at war within the Alaska Republican Party. It’s very unfortunate that we cannot look for ways to have dialogue and conversation and move ahead in a respectable, honorable way with one another but we’ve got a group of people who want to circumvent our party rules. They want to alter them to accomplish an end to which many Alaska Republicans are opposed. to.”

On January 31, newly – elected party Chairman Russ Millette was ousted by the party’s executive committee, literally an hour before he was to take his seat. Vice- chair Brown was then named chairwoman in his place a day later. Millette and Brown were initially elected to party official seats in 2012, when a wave of presidential candidate Ron Paul supporters flooded the party’s statewide meeting.

Media sources reported that last night, the Republican executive committee attempted to meet at party headquarters in Anchorage, only to find themselves locked out of the building. Apparantly, Brown had changed the locks. The executive committee cooled it’s heels in a blizzard for a while, then went to a nearby office building to conduct business. The first order of business was to oust Brown. Brown said yes, she changed the locks, not an uncommon move for a new party leader

“…in that there were a lot of keys that were out there. No one really knew who had the keys, who did not have the keys, and so I felt it was the responsible thing to do.” she said.

Russ Millette says the issue is money. Party leaders in February said Millette was ousted because he had failed to raise funds for the party since his election in April of last year.

‘It is about money, and it is not about the Ron Paul folks. If you go back to last April, when I won, I got the majority of the vote. I got 54 percent of the vote. When I was elected, there was a longevity rule that nine months later I would take office and be trained for nine months. I didn’t get any training. Nobody ever said ‘Russ come here, I want to show you something.’ I would always have to ask questions and get partial answers,” he said.

Millette has an appeal pending before the Republican central committee. He alleges that if his appeal is heard, Party books will have to be opened.

Brown now headed for a Republican National Committee meeting in California, says she hasn’t decided if she will appeal the ouster:

“I’m not certain that I will appeal it. My biggest concern is that if I do appeal it, it will be an appeal to something that I believe was illegitimate in its origin. The meeting that occurred on the evening of the eighth day of April, although I was not in state anyway, the point is that it was an illegitimate meeting. And so you’ve got a small group of individuals called the executive committee where, some of the members that participated, had been terminated, because these members serve at the pleasure of the chairman. ”

Brown says she had terminated some party officials who had served under former Republican Party of Alaska chairman Randy Ruedrich.

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Ruedrich did not return phone calls Tuesday.

In January of this year, Anchorage Republicans transferred more than 34 thousand dollars in party funds to the Juneau chapter, essentially putting the cash out of reach of Millette and Brown.

The Republican central committee, a larger committee of ninety or more members, meets again in late May in Homer. Stay tuned.

Right now, the state of Alaska is obligated to provide Medicaid funding for all “medically necessary” abortions. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill that would narrow that definition.

It’s the first time the Senate has voted on an abortion bill since 2006. The legislation would only allow for Medicaid payments if a woman is at serious risk of physical harm if she goes through with her pregnancy or if the woman is a victim of rape or incest. It specifically excludes mental health conditions. Supporters of the legislation have characterized that as a loophole through which women can get Medicaid coverage or elective procedures.

Anti-abortion groups have gotten behind the bill, saying that it would reduce the number of abortions in the state because low-income women are less likely to go through with the procedure if they can’t secure payment. Sen. John Coghill, a North Pole Republican, sponsored the bill, and he says that his intent was narrower than that.

“This debate is not about limiting anything,” says Coghill. “It’s really about defining who pays for what. So, they hope it limits, I tend to agree with them. But that’s not the debate.”

Opponents of the bill still say the measure chips away at reproductive rights, and that it’s unfair to poor women. Democrats in the minority also questioned its constitutionality and suggested it could open up the state to a number of legal problems. Anchorage Democrat Bill Wielechowski noted that crime victims couldn’t use the vagueness of a mental health exception to get Medicaid to cover an abortion.

“We’re statutorily forcing women to disclose rape and incest and what that does is — we heard about this in Senate judiciary [committee] — it puts physicians in an extremely difficult position
and it puts potentially the State of Alaska in an extremely difficult position.”

One amendment was made to the bill. Sen. Berta Gardner, an Anchorage Democrat, offered a change that would expand the state’s Medicaid program to offer more family planning and women’s health services, with the idea being to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. The

The bill sponsor removed his objection after Lesil McGuire and Anna Fairclough, two moderate Republican women from Anchorage, voiced their support for the change. McGuire described it as a “pro-life” and “pro-women” compromise.

“It is imperative that the members of this body send a message to those with pregnancies about the value about the unborn, but also their life.”

The bill passed 14 to 6, mostly on caucus lines. Sitka Republican Bert Stedman and Juneau Democrat Dennis Egan both broke with the majority to oppose against the bill, while Bethel Democrat Lyman Hoffman voted for it.

Companion bill is currently moving through the House, with just one committee left to review it.

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The future of the Knik Arm bridge project is now in question.

A bill advancing the project was pulled from floor consideration last night, and now a member of the House majority is pushing for a change that would take away the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority’s independence. Anchorage Republican Mia Costello’s amendment would fold KABATA into the Alaska Housing Financing Corporation, a state agency that’s shepherded projects like an in-state gasline in their early stages of development.

Rep. Mark Neuman, a Big Lake Republican who sponsored the bill, opposes the change. He told the Rules Committee this morning that it could kill the project. The bill is being held until legislators can get more information on the legal ramifications the move.

Uncertainty over the project comes after state auditors released a report Friday, concluding that revenue projections for the bridge were “unreasonably optimistic” and could open the state up to financial risk.

A recent D.C. court ruling has left state officials with a lot of legal uncertainty. The court said the Secretary of the Interior can take land into trust status for tribes in Alaska and can not treat tribes here differently than in the lower 48. Michael Geraghty is the state’s Attorney General. He told APRN’s Lori Townsend the decision was a disappointment that creates a big question mark.

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The Alaska Republican Party has ousted Party Chairwoman Debbie Brown, and state party vice – chair Peter Goldberg has become the new chair.

Goldberg’s accession last night marks the latest chapter in the saga of the Republicans’ messy internal politics. Brown says the action of the executive committee was illegal under party rules.

“It’s just a couple of factions that are basically at war within the Alaska Republican Party. It’s very unfortunate that we cannot look for ways to have dialogue and conversation and move ahead in a respectable, honorable way with one another but we’ve got a group of people who want to circumvent our party rules. They want to alter them to accomplish an end to which many Alaska Republicans are opposed to.”

On January 31, newly – elected party Chairman Russ Millette was ousted by the party’s executive committee, literally an hour before he was to take his seat. Vice- chair Brown was then named chairwoman in his place a day later. Millette and Brown were initially elected to party official seats in 2012, when a wave of presidential candidate Ron Paul supporters flooded the party’s statewide meeting.

Alaska Dispatch reported last night, the Republican executive committee attempted to meet at party headquarters in Anchorage, only to find themselves locked out of the building. Brown says she changed the locks, not an uncommon move for a new party leader

“in that there were a lot of keys that were out there. No one really knew who had the keys, who did not have the keys, and so I felt it was the responsible thing to do.”

Brown is now headed for a Republican National Committee meeting in California. She says she hasn’t decided if she will appeal her ouster.

“I’m not certain that I will appeal it. My biggest concern is that if I do appeal it, it will be an appeal to something that I believe was illegitimate in its origin. The meeting that occurred on the evening of the eighth day of April, although I was not in state anyway, the point is that it was an illegitimate meeting. And so you’ve got a small group of individuals called the executive committee where, some of the members that participated, had been terminated, because these members serve at the pleasure of the chairman.”

Brown says she had terminated some party officials who had served under former Republican Party of Alaska chairman Randy Ruedrich. Ruedrich did not return phone calls today (Tuesday).

In January of this year, Anchorage Republicans transferred more than 34 thousand dollars in party funds to the Juneau chapter, essentially putting the cash out of reach of Millett and Brown.

The Republican central committee, a larger committee of ninety or more members, meets again in late May in Homer.

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You could spend a lifetime exploring the terrain an Alaska couple traversed last year.   KUAC’s Dan Bross has more on the human powered mega adventure.

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The Air Force has grounded the 18th Aggressor Squadron at Eielson Air Force Base due to federal budget restrictions.  The Squadron of F-16s is the same one the Air Force has considered relocating to Joint Base Elemendorf Richardson near Anchorage.  But the Air Force says the groundings have nothing to do with the potential relocation.

According to the Air Force, the F-16s will stand down for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends September 30th.  Captain Joost Verduyn is the Chief for Public Affairs for 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson Air Force Base.  He says federal budget cuts eliminated over 40-thousand flying hours across the nation.

“Flying hours that were originally assigned to the 354th fighter wing have been cut and reassigned to pilots preparing to deploy and would need those hours more than we would,” he says.

The 18th Aggressor Squadron is a training squadron. No jobs will be lost from the groundings and Verduyn says the economic impact will be minimal. The pilots will use flight simulators, conduit academic training, basically they’ll do a lot of things to make sure they’re ready to fly when it is time to.  As a part of it, maintenance on the aircraft just doesn’t stop,” syas Verduyn.

“You can’t just let them sit, the same way you can’t let your car sit and expect it to turn over six months later.”

Because the F-16s won’t be flying, support operations for a squadron of F-22s based at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson outside of Anchorage will also end. The Air Force is currently working on an Environmental Impact Statement related to the military’s plan to relocate the 18th Aggressor Squadron to JBER, but Verdyn says the grounding is unrelated.

“They are two separate actions,” he says.  “One doesn’t have much of an effect on the other because you have lots of other bases being grounded as well.  It’s not only us standing down flying.”

The announcement comes a week after the Air Force announced the cancellation of the Northern Edge and Red Flag training exercises both based at Eielson.  Those operations draw thousands of military personnel from outside the state and nation.

Both Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski are weighing in on the news.  Senator Begich recently left his seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.  The Senator’s spokeswoman says it’s unlikely maintaining his seat would have made a difference, because the grounding is the result of Congress’s federal budget sequester.   In an email, Begich says he is “working with the Department of Defense and colleagues on better ways to address [the] country’s budget crisis without compromising military readiness.”

On Tuesday, Begich introduced a bill he says would reallocate funding from what he calls the military’s “bloated and inefficient missile system,” known as MEADS, to “necessary operations like Red Flag and the 18th Aggressor squadron.” Both Begich and Senator Lisa Murkowski supported federal sequestration. Matthew Felling is a spokesman for Murkowski. “We think that not all buckets of money are created equally,” Felling says.  “So, we think this creates a vaccumof capacity and readiness in the entire area.”  Via email, Senator Murkowski says she would have like to have seen “sequestration implanted in a less harmful way.”

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State Representative Bryce Edgmon introduced a bill last week that would allow Village Public Safety Officers across the state to carry firearms.  KYUK’s Mark Arehart has more.

Since the program began in the 1970’s, VPSOs have often been the only permanent law enforcement presence in many rural Alaskan communities.

But, they have never been able to carry firearms. House Bill 199 would change that.

Edgemon said it would allow VPSOs to carry firearms will better equip them to protect their communities and “have the ability to protect themselves in instances of harms way.”

Last month a VPSO in Manakotak was fatally shot in the line of duty, stirring up debate across the state.

The Association of Village Council Presidents runs the VPSO program in the YK Delta.

“Why do we send our VPSOs into a situation that can result in death like in this incident down in Manakotak and send him in there without any firearms?” said AVCP President Myron Naneng.

Naneng said out of the 27 VPSOs in the YK Delta over half were in support of carrying firearms. Though several others were undecided, he said.

Representative Edgemon said the bill wouldn’t just put guns in VPSOs hands right out of the gate.

“Nobody is suggesting VPSOs should be allowed to carry firearms without the proper training. And we wrote that into the bill. And that’s part two of the bill, that we want our VPSOs to be properly trained as well,” he said.

Edgemon said he has gotten bipartisan favor in Juneau. “Instantly, without really much effort, a lot of support has cropped up here in the capitol. And I think, looking at my emails, there has only been support from across the state. It has generated lots of responses.”

The bill will not be voted up or down this year as the session is close to ending, Edgemon said.

There may be public hearings held this winter to discuss the issue.

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Oregon investigators are taking the lead in the case of an assistant Juneau high school football coach who allegedly knocked out a student during a sparring match.

Juneau Police Sargent Chris Burke says the Juneau School District notified them about the incident on Friday.

“We have seen the video. So we’re assisting the agency in Oregon that will be the lead investigators on it. We still working with jurisdictional things right now. But, because most of the people that were involved in it are here in Juneau, we’ll be assisting them with interviews and things like that.”

Prosecutors in Curry County, Oregon prosecutors will likely decide whether to press charges after the investigation wraps up.

The incident during last summer’s trip to football camp in Gold Beach was apparently captured on video. Assistant Thunder Mountain High School coach John Wahl engages in a boxing match with an incoming freshman player. Both were reportedly wearing gloves. Wahl allegedly sucker punches the boy, and the boy collapses unconscious as Wahl allegedly celebrates.

Juneau Schools Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich did not return a call for comment before deadline on Monday.

But in an earlier email he stated that two coaches, which he did not name, were placed on administrative leave pending outcome of the investigation.

Wahl is also a sixth-grade math teacher at Floyd Dryden Middle School.

Gelbrich said that they turned the matter over to the Juneau Police Department, filed a report with the state’s Office of Children’s Services, and are cooperating with the investigation.

Gelbrich also said that he’s concerned about emerging details of the allegations, and that it went unreported for nearly nine months.

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Dr. Moniz is a respected physicist who has spent years working at the intersection of policy and scientific research.

Before returning to MIT in 2001, he spent four years as undersecretary of the Energy Department. So he’s had practice artfully dodging questions and providing diplomatic, often-vague answers.

Both the committee chairman Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and the panel’s top Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski used their first comments to pin the nominee down on exporting liquefied natural gas.

Sen. Murkowski asked whether he supports exports of LNG, and Dr. Moniz responded:

“I believe the Natural Gas Act suggests we should move forward with licenses unless there is a clear public interest issue.”

Dr. Moniz went on to say that cumulative effects, including overall cost, need to be examined before the Energy Department would grant an export license.

“But fundamentally, I think all of these issues have to come together,” he said. “And we’ll make a transparent, analytically based evaluation application by application.”

A case by case approval process could be what export skeptics want to hear. Sen. Wyden, a critic of exporting natural gas, said he’s concerned what exports would do to prices at both the national and regional levels.

Confirmation hearings provide senators a chance to rally a base and bring up parochial, home-state issues.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from increasingly Republican West Virginia, asked Dr. Moniz some pointed questions about threats to coal.

“How much longer will taxpayers have to subsidize renewables?” he asked. “Until they’re able to compete in the marketplace on their own?”

Dr. Moniz dodged the question; offering up a long, winding answer. He said the role of the government in energy production is to “make sure the marketplace has options.”

The Department of Energy oversees all sorts of programs: from a controversial loan program for energy firms to regulating fracking to assuring the safety of the country’s nuclear weapons.

Sen. Murkowski made note of the heavy load.

“You are not signing up for the easiest job here,” she said in her opening remarks.

One thing the Energy Department is not responsible for is federal tax policy. But that’s what Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Tea Party favorite, asked about. He wanted to know whether Dr. Moniz supports a carbon tax.

Dr. Moniz responded in a fairly straight forward way: He’s not the right person to ask.

“First of all, it’s important to note the administration has not proposed a carbon tax and has no plan to do so,” he said. “That’s the first point. The second point, the Department of Energy is not the locus of discussion for such fiscal policies.”

Dr. Moniz is expected to pass through both the committee and full Senate. Sen. Wyden supports the nomination, and he hopes to bring the nominee back for a vote sometime soon.

Because in Wyden’s words, “the sooner he’s confirmed, the sooner he can get to work.”

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