Emperor’s Rants and Observations

Alaska’s Assets in Sudan Targeted.

Lauren Tibbitts-Travis, a 16-year-old sophomore at the local high school, plans to use her Alaska Permanent Fund dividend to pay for college.

But she sees a problem — a problem of conscience.

“Who wants to go to college on blood money?” she said.

Tibbitts-Travis is among supporters of a bill two state lawmakers from Anchorage are sponsoring to force managers of the $38 billion Permanent Fund to dump the stocks of companies doing business in Sudan, the African country whose government has been blamed for genocidal killings in the Darfur region.

First off I’d like to offer a tip of the cap to the 16 year old young lady Lauren Tibbitts-Travis. Regardless whether we agree with her opinion or not, it’s gratifying to see young people like her engaged in our society. Too often the news we read about teens is of the bad variety. Nice reminder that there are still a lot of good kids out there.

The Sudan/Darfur situation is absolutely appalling which I think we all agree on. I don’t believe any of us would want to support the Sudan Government in the midst of this genocide. The US government already forbids US Companies from doing business in Sudan, so all we are talking about is a handful of foreign companies. Something I’m not too excited about anyway. 22 million out of 38 billion is a minuscule percentage (%0.0006 unless I fat fingered the calculator), so I don’t really buy the cost argument against dumping those stocks.

The real question is whether we want our Permanent Fund Managers to invest in a socially conscious manner. I know that Rep Gara has set the limit at “one genocide” but the truth of the matter is that if we start down that path, there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. What if we find that we are investing in a company that is conducting stem cell research? Or a company that is using child labor? How about companies that do business in Iran or North Korea? Wouldn’t all those be considered good targets by some not to invest in? Or even my feeling about investing in any foreign company?

Other states are already investing in socially concious ways. For instance, a core group of state treasurers and controllers are moving their investments into environmentally friendly and clean tech funds, while thinking big about climate change.

I think it’s a discussion worth having, but I think we need to discuss the topic of “Socially Conscious Investing ” of the Permanent Fund, not just this one set of businesses doing business in Sudan.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report to Congress said any applicant proposing to build a multibillion-dollar pipeline to carry North Slope gas to market ideally should have firm commitments from producers to ship the gas on the new pipeline.

Many predicted this exact scenario when AGIA was “debated”.

People said there would few if any qualifying offers. We got one

People said that it was going no where without commitments from producers to ship gas through the line.

People said that AGIA would only delay the process further and we would be no closer to the reality of a Gas Pipeline at the end of Palin’s term than we were at the beginning.

People warned that Palin was not going to bully the producers into making a deal that was too risky without a commitment on taxes.

Also, let’s applaud the one man in the legislature, Ralph Samuels, that had the courage of his convictions to vote against AGIA in the wake of the Veco scandal for this exact reason.

Alaskan Best Search - Ralph Samuels

AGIA was a giant step backward. It didn’t produce the competition Palin promised. And yet she steadfastly refuses to consider the proposals of Conoco-Phillips or the Alaska Gasline Port Authority.

The fact is that Palin and her underlings have been wrong every step of the way. Each passing day we are further and further away from making the pipeline a reality.

Alaskan Best Search - Alaska Gasline Port Authority
Alaskan Best Search - ConocoPhillips Gas Pipeline

Palin has committed 500 Million dollars to a company that probably won’t even qualify to get the required permits because they have no gas to ship.

Here is the Murkowski negotiated contract.

You can find all of the supporting documents here.

There is no pipeline if there is no commitment to ship gas. There is no commitment to ship gas without stable long term agreement on costs to the producers. Nobody in their right mind would commit to hundreds of billions of dollars in any project without knowing the the long term costs. Nobody is going to bully the oil companies into making that kind of investment. Even with the bribe of 500 Million dollars the state was only able to get one “qualifying” offer. That alone should be enough to convince anyone how far off Palin is in her thinking.

I can’t fathom why these simple facts are so hard for some people to grasp.

Are we, as a State and people, willing to invest the billions of dollars and take all the risk to develop our vast resources? For instance, are we willing to invest the nearly 40 billion dollars in the Permanent Fund into developing and bringing our resources to market?

There is a good deal of empty rhetoric about how the resources are “ours” and we should dictate and control how and when they are developed. However, whether it is Oil, Gas, Fish, Timber or Minerals it’s private enterprises that take the risk, make the investments and provide the labor and expertise needed. What role should the State take other than landlord, and recipient of taxes, fees and royalties?

Alaskan Best Search - “Natural Resources“

I’ve done a little reading at Alaskans For Clean Elections. I’ll admit, I warming to the idea. Like many others, I was put off by money going to candidates that I wouldn’t support. But now, I’m beginning to see it another way. The money is really being paid to improve the system. If public financing can improve the system to produce better candidates, better representatives and better government, it’s something we should at least consider.

Over the years I’ve known a number of people that would have made excellent elected officials. One of the things that stopped them was needing PAC and Party support. I think public financing could give us better people and more diverse candidates.

It follows if we can improve the candidates, then we should see an improvement of our representatives as well. Perhaps more frequent challengers to the incumbents, I still like term limits though.

A few election cycles down the road we could see the majority of both houses elected in clean elections. The majority of both houses beholden only to the citizens they represent. Imagine the possibilities. So yeah, I think it may be worth it invest in the system to improve results.

I’m going to do some reading at Arizona’s Citizens Clean Election Commission website. Looks like a good place to start.

With or without “Clean Elections” I have another idea I’ve been harping on here.

Excuse me if you’ve read this before.

A candidate may only accept donations from registered voters eligible to vote for that candidate.

I would be more likely to support a candidate that would make a commitment to that ideal.

I don’t see the “Freedom of Expression” argument here. We already place limits on what the candidates can legally accept. I’m just suggesting that we use my phrase above (or similar with the intended meaning) as THE rule for donations to candidates. Unless you mean that you want to remove all restrictions on candidates in the name of freedom of expression.

Bottom line is that we have to do something to change the status quo.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

Alaskan Best Search - Campaign Finance and Election Reform

During the campaign our Good Queen P promised she would favor the Mat-Su Valley. Although it’s the only campaign promise she has kept to date, she has taken care of her Mat-Su Valley constituents, even if it is at the expense of the rest of the state.

Our first hint of her intention to follow through with her “Valley First” promise was when she replaced the Agriculture Board with all Valley residents with the exception of one token Anchorage member who just happened to be from the Valley.

Our Good Queen really out did herself with her vetoes on the 2008 Capital Budget. With the notable exception of the veto of spending from the Railbelt Energy Fund, the Mat-Su got off relatively unscathed. But more than just the obvious favoritism shown to Mat-Su Valley is the lack of any consistency.

As Andy Halcro writes in his Blog:

She vetoed $1 million for the University of Alaska to design a new sports complex saying the should pay for it themselves, while approving $3 million for a meeting hall in Fairbanks and $630,000 for a new kitchen at the Wasilla Sports complex. She vetoed $1.5 million for deferred maintenance for Anchorage public facilities because it wasn’t a state’s responsibility, while approving $3.8 million for a new kitchen for the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

I’m not complaining about the bulk of the vetoes. This isn’t me whining about my ox getting gored, I just want everyone’s ox to be gored equally. It doesn’t appear to me that the cuts were made along philosophical lines, which I would respect even if I didn’t agree. It almost seems like she targeted particular areas or legislative districts to reward or punish.

All she had to do was use the same criteria for her vetoes regardless of their region or election district. If improvements to sports facilities are not a “State Responsibility” in Anchorage, then they shouldn’t be a “State Responsibility” in Wasilla. You want to talk about “bias”? The Queen’s photo should be next to the word in the dictionary. You don’t find a better definition of the term than our Good Queen P.

How she can call herself a fiscal conservative when the Operating Budget is larger than ever is beyond me. The fact is both the operating and the capital budgets came in at a combined $350 million higher than what she promised. A far cry from the “Bare Bones Budget” she promised while campaigning.

Speaking of broken promises, what ever happened with “open and transparent” government? Why were these cuts made behind closed doors without discussion with legislators or other government leaders? Why can’t we get access to the information hidden behind this password protected page? Why is the budget information not presented in the original format of a spreadsheet? It’s nearly impossible to do any serious analysis when it’s presented in a PDF format that you can’t sort and query. Is that done on purpose, just so those of us that are interested in doing so, can’t? Take a look at the options provided for the viewing the 2007 Budget and compare that to what the options are for the 2008 Budget. Is this really what we thought we were going to get with the Queen’s open and transparent government?

As if favoritism, inconsistency, hiding and obfuscation of the data wasn’t bad enough, the worst is the lack of leadership and vision provided from the Queen’s throne. Why wasn’t she working more closely with Legislators and communicating her vision? Why wasn’t she speaking up during the legislative process to lead rather than react? Why isn’t she out front on this now explaining the favoritisim and inconsistencies? It is almost as though our Good Queen set this situation up so she would be seen as the hero of the people. Why no comment on the ballooning cost of the State’s operating budget?

She has failed to deliver on her promise of a bare bones budget. She has failed to even begin to address the operating budget. She has failed to step up and take a leadership position or provide any vision for Alaska’s future. She has failed to deliver on the promise of transparency and openness in the State Government. She has failed to treat all Alaskans equally across regions.

From where I sit it looks as Queen P was ill-prepared to take office. As I feared without any experience at the state level. It’s too bad that the people of Alaska have to suffer through her on the job training.  Perhaps the problem is that she hasn’t surrounded herself with competent people. Perhaps she is spending to much time making appearances and videos for late night TV, rather than working on the things that she was sent to do in Juneau… like being a leader, cutting the budget and making government open and transparent.

Clouds — Not Storm Warnings — Enter Forecast for Alaska’s Stevens and Young - New York Times

And while campaign contributions play a role in the controversies dogging Stevens and Young, there is little doubt they will enjoy formidable financial advantages in their re-election bids. Stevens as of March 31 had $663,000 cash on hand in his Senate campaign account, while Young had a whopping $1.9 million in reserve.

It’s time to do something about campaign financing and elections. Seriously.

I have voted for Stevens and Young every chance I’ve had since 1978. Back in the day, you may have even caught me working on their campaigns. I have gone to them for help with federal agencies, and their staffs have always responded promptly and courteously. I appreciate all they have done for Alaska and the country. Particularly I appreciate all of the money they have brought to Alaska as funding for so many projects, services and agencies. I’m not going to criticize them now for doing what I have praised them for in the past. Their longevity in office as provided them with powerful committee assignments and leadership positions that have served Alaska well. I’ll be very disheartened if the accusations, innuendo and controversy surrounding them now, turn into actual criminal charges or worse yet, convictions in the future.

That being said. It’s time for them to go. It’s time not because of anything they have or haven’t done. It’s time because the system is broken and the only way the system gets fixed is by removing the road blocks to radical change. Those road blocks include those that benefit most from the status quo like Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young.

Make no mistake about it, nothing but radical and sweeping changes at all levels of government will be sufficient to fix what is wrong and return the power to the people.

Whats wrong.

• The current practice of using seniority as the method for making committee and leadership assignments effectively shut out new ideas and new perspectives.
• Incumbents have an unfair advantage over their challengers. There is no way that a challenger can compete with an incumbents ability to raise campaign funds. An office holder has the ability to help now whereas a challenger may only help in the future.
• Campaign contributions from businesses, groups and political parties dwarf those of individuals. Whether they admit it or not, politicians are influenced by those that support their campaigns. Businesses, groups, and political parties don’t donate huge amounts of cash out of any sense of civic duty, they do it because they want something from the politician, namely their support in return.
• Political Parties have usurped power by restricting ballot access making it much more difficult for third party or independent candidates with their new ideas to get elected.
• Campaigns have become so expensive that candidates (particularly challengers) must spend a good amount of time and effort into obtaining contributions from those with the deepest pockets. This eliminates many potential candidates that find this practice distasteful.
• Too often voters are presented with choosing between the lesser of two evils.

The Fixes. Ten points of change.

• If the President of the United States is limited to two consecutive terms, every office holder at any level should have the same term limits.
• Campaign contributions restricted to individuals eligible to vote for the candidate. No cash or in kind contributions from ineligible to vote individuals or any entity including businesses, organizations, political action committees or political parties.
• Remove political party designations from ballots, registrations and voter information pamphlets.
• Make ballot access the same for every candidate for office. Nomination by petition with 1% of the registered voters in the election district the candidate is running for.
• Replace primary elections with instant runoff.
• Prohibit candidates from accepting campaign donations prior to one year of the date of their election.
• Campaign contributions left over from a campaign must be converted to personal income or donated to charity, not held over to the next campaign.
• Add “None Of The Above” as a ballot option.
• Change election cycles so that 25% of every legislative body is up for election each year.
• Bar politicians from working as a lobbyist for two years after they leave office.

There is no chance of these changes being made as long as we keep electing candidates that benefit from the current system. You can bet the political parties and political action committees will fight till their last dying breath anyone that would dare propose such sweeping changes that would eliminate their ability to buy elections and politicians. Any organization that was created to further these ideas by supporting candidates would run afoul of the very idea of returning the power to the individuals, not groups.

So what to do? We act as individuals and ask candidates to check off yes or no on each of the ten points of change. For myself, I’ll simply write in “none of the above” if there isn’t a candidate that supports all ten points of change. Others may choose to decide to vote for whichever candidate supports the most, or perhaps there are some “must have” points for others.

The bottom line is that each of us can be a catalyst for change, but we have to be willing to turn our backs on the existing power structure. That will take real courage of conviction to vote against short term benefits that status quo offers.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Politics, Ted Stevens, Don Young, Campaign Finance Reform, Election Reform, Ten Points of Change

Agriculture in Alaska has had a rocky and tumultuous history with government involvement going back to 1897. From the “Evolution of the Cooperative Extension Service in Alaska“:

The earliest reference to this work is found in a report by Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson: The first appropriation “to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate and report to Congress upon the agricultural resources of Alaska, with special reference to the desirability and feasibility of the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in the Territory,” became available July 1, 1897

Throughout the history of Agriculture in Alaska long, vulnerable supply lines have been the primary justification for expending government funds and resources on development and support of agriculture. Not much has changed in 100 years. In fact, Alaskans may be more vulnerable to supply disruptions today. Man made or natural disasters could cut off supplies for an extended amount of time. Rising fuel costs could push the cost of food, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat and poultry, up to the point where many Alaskans couldn’t afford to feed themselves without assistance.

So what is the right and proper role of government in supporting Alaskan agricultural self sufficiency? At one extreme we have the school of thought that it should be left completely to the private sector and allow the free market to determine the winners and losers in agriculture. This would be fine in principle, but ignores the fact that there is no incentive for the free market to protect Alaskans from disruption in the supply of food. Unlike other segments of the private sector farming takes years in some cases to bring a product to market in competitive response to high prices. The size of investment required to start a farm would be too great of a risk for the private sector. At the other extreme would be heavy government subsidies, price supports, ownership, control, and management of transportation, storage and processing facilities. Government simply is not structured to take on the responsibilities of the private sector in this manner. This is a recipe for waste and mismanagement. I think it’s evident that there is a role for government to play in Agriculture in Alaska some where between these two extremes.

Like many other issues in Alaska, there is a lack of vision and long term goals for agriculture in Alaska. Perhaps the most valuable contribution that government can make would be to bring together all of the stake holders to create that vision and set goals for the industry. Their doesn’t appear to be an governmental entity that is charged with that function. The Alaska Board of Agriculture and Conservation (BAC) should have their function expanded to include overseeing the process of developing long term goals and identifying areas where the state may assist private industry in attaining those goals through loans, research, marketing support and coordination with other government agencies and services. If government is going to be involved it has to be in a coordinated, planned support role. Not just tossing money around in the hopes that something will stick and work.

Since Queen P has fired and replaced the members of BAC, this would seem to be a good time to consider expanding their role. However, the first order of business has to be to address the Matanuska Maid crisis. Closing the dairy prematurely could be the tipping point for the demise of agriculture in Alaska. There will be plenty of time to figure out what went wrong and why the Creamery Board decided to close the dairy so abruptly. Right now we need to protect the fragile agricultural industry while moving as quickly as possible to get the dairy into private hands without the constraints of being a government owned entity. Saving agriculture in Alaska depends on propping up the dairy industry in the very short term - three to six months. That should be sufficient time to provide longer term solutions not requiring significant government cash support.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Matanuska Maid, Dairy

adn.com | money : Governor gets a frosty reception from Mat Maid

“We can’t have a whole entourage waltzing through the dairy,” he said. “You just can’t do that unannounced like that and come in. I don’t care what anyone says. The fact is everybody is treated the same. I don’t care whoever you are.” Palin and the board, which oversees operation of Mat Maid, have been sparring over the decision to close the dairy.

…give me a minute while I compose myself. I have been having laughing fits everytime I think of the Good Queen P sitting in the lobby of a dairy waiting for permission to enter the STATE OWNED DAIRY. I don’t care who you are, that’s funny rite thar.

Ok. So where to go from there.

It really doesn’t make much sense to throw good money after bad. I’m sympathetic to the farmers and the employees of Mat Maid. It also concerns me because any disruption in the supply lines into the state like another Teamsters strike, and we could be without fresh dairy products which isn’t a good thing.

What can we do to keep the farmers and dairy in operation without wasting more money. What could be profitable?

Alaskan Premium Ice Cream.

HotLicks Homemade Ice Cream in Fairbanks has a proof of concept operation. We connect them with Authentic Alaskan Native Made Syrups and Alaska Wild Berry Products. We cut a deal with Princess Lodges and Tours to be the exclusive Ice Cream source for them. We get it into the finest restaurants around the state. We get it into the duty free stores wherever Alaska Airline flies. We package 1/2 pint sizes for sale on Alaska Airlines flights like they do with Alaskan Beer. Alaskans passion for Ice Cream is legendary. We should capitalize on that status and market our own brand of Premium Ice Cream. Let’s get this thing going, who do we contact at Made In Alaska, Alaska Grown (sell it at the farmers markets around the state) and Buy Alaska. Perhaps the Alaska Small Business Development Center can help develop a business plan and find investors or a loan. Are there any grants available for the Dairy Farmers that may help?

Perhaps we need to look at this as an opportunity rather than a problem. Clearly a new approach is needed, and trying to bully the creamery board didn’t work out so well. Perhaps an approach like Cooperative Community Marketing would work where we involve a wider circle of stake holders. It’s part of Alaska’s history, and is worth saving if we can. I’m ready to help if others are interested, you can email me.

Young dismisses tradeoffs for cash claim

“Every story that comes out is the same, with different players and different projects,” he said. “When you are the chairman of the largest committee in the House, and a senior member, and in charge of writing a $290-odd billion bill, it’s a guarantee that you are going to be raising more money than other less senior members. It’s also a guarantee that there will be a plethora of projects for people to look at and pick apart. This is a recycled story.”

Unfortunately Congressman Young is absolutely correct.  This is the never ending story. Until we stop voting for candidates that accept contributions from any source other than their constituents, the story will continue.

Young isn’t the issue here.  The integrity of our elections and representatives across the board is the issue.  It’s not just the Republicans.  Democrats stuff their campaign pockets with cash from special interests just as much as the Republicans.  If you looked closely at the contributions and votes of Democratic members I’m certain you would see the same type of pattern.  It’s the way the system works.

The system is corrupt.  It takes big money to run a campaign to win.  So candidates are forced to whore themselves out to special interest groups if they have any chance of raising money to compete.  Don’t fool yourself, or buy into the nonsense that contributions don’t buy influence.  Of course they do, and any politician that says otherwise is flat lying.  Perhaps lying to themselves as well.

Technorati Tags: Alaska, Politics, Don Young

Palin is a self described Conservative Christian Republican. She is an ideologue. The most dangerous type of corrupt politician. She represents an ideology, not constituents. At least honest crooks can be bought off with cash and prizes. She suffers from “Bush II syndrome”. She thinks she is right even when most reasonable and knowledgeable people know she is wrong. She picks the wrong people to put her trust in and sticks with them too long. Loyal to a fault some would say. Sound familiar? It should because those same things are true about our President. There were plenty of warning signs about Bush that people failed to acknowledge. Let’s hope the people of Alaska aren’t so stupid as to repeat the same kind of mistake with Queen Palin. I have hope because we did boot Murkowski to the curb after only one term, but in the same breath we elected a weak sister of his, so the jury is still out. Let’s also not forget that Murkowski started out very popular, he actually received a majority of the vote (56%) unlike the Queen who had more people voting for anyone else than her (48%).

What is most troublesome however is the blind allegiance that her loyal supporters (members of the Queens Court) have for her. It’s as if people just buy into what ever garbage she sets in front of them. Take her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act for instance. First of all, she flat out states that she would veto the bill if it contained any significant changes that would have allowed more flexibility to encourage a wider range of offers and participants. Of course that came at a very opportune timing with the federal indictments being handed down by the FBI for Vic Kohring, Bruce Weyhrauch, Pete Kott and Bill Allen. The gutless wonders (with the exception of Ralph Samuels) wouldn’t dare even appear to be on the side of the Oil Companies so they just basically rubber stamped Her Highness ill-advised bill.

So what is so terrible about the Queens pet bill AGIA? AGIA only works if stockholder and public pressure force the leaseholders, (also known as the producers, the shippers, or basically the Gasline Customers) to agree to commit billions of dollars to long agreements with basically no security. They are counting on the good will of the oil companies essentially. That’s her plan. Her Highness has committed the State to up to 5 years and 500 Million dollars without having any idea (or caring) if the producers will even ship the gas through the pipeline. The state can’t force them to ship the gas, or they wouldn’t even bother with this silly pretense. Yet the members of the Queens court are adamant that this pie in the sky, build it and they will come, scam… uh scheme is the best and surest way to get progress on the Gas line. Murkowski was a signature away from a deal that at least had the pipeline customers talking to us. That would have seemed to be at least a good starting point. However, the Queens advisers thought AGIA was the better way to go, so negotiations with the only entities that have what it takes to get the deal done were dropped. Her loyal supporters cheered, Long Live the Queen. Her cheer leaders like lotsofpipe over on Halcro’s Gasline Hotline are going to be few and far between 4 years from now when we are no closer to a pipeline than we are today, and likely out 500 million to boot.

The Queen is trying to bully the oil companies into something that they don’t think makes financial sense.  There is no way that will or can work, despite what her groupies may think.

So I’ve been posting over at the Anchorage Daily News blogs as of late. Particularly the Alaska Politics and Halcro’s Gas Line Hot Line. There are some fairly bright and articulate posters, and as always, there are some bona fide idiots as well. What I’ve found interesting is how polarized opinion is on most topics and how quickly discussion can deteriorate into name calling and personal attacks. I’m as guilty of that as anyone, I am just surprised that others are like me in that regard.

Even though I’ve enjoyed the interaction over at ADN, I’m going to spend more time posting here rather than over there. Over the next few days I’ll try to catch up with the topics that I’ve been most involved with. Hopefully others who would like to continue discussion of topics a little more in depth over a longer period of time will participate here as well.

Stay tuned.