Alaska News

AK Beat: Social services department, lawmakers get a little chippy

Tensions flare over social service budgets: Lawmakers' frustration over a perceived lack of information on how the federal sequester will affect Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services programs led to one employee telling telling a representative to "shut the fuck up." Things became heated Wednesday during the third day of meetings before the House Finance Subcommittee when representatives, upset over vague information from the department, threatened to end the meeting early and cut the budget altogether. The committee is tasked with overseeing the Health and Social Services $2.6 billion budget, of which $4 million may be lost to sequester. Whether the state will cover those losses is still to be determined; the department will submit its budget to the governor later this year.

Alaska telecoms join forces: Alaska Communications System and GCI announced FCC approval Tuesday to merge wireless resources and form their own subsidiary -- the Alaska Wireless Network. The merger should mean expanded coverage in rural Alaska and "increased competitiveness from a timely transition to LTE." The two will continue to sell separate retail products and customers will keep receiving bills from whichever wireless provider they're using. The network won't be the youngest network in the 49th state for long, with Verizon Wireless positioning itself as a competitor with plans to open retail stores next year.

Alaska health exchange coming in weeks: Alaska's health exchange is scheduled to go live Oct. 1 and at least two insurers have applied, though not much other information is available as the state seems ill-equipped or ideologically opposed to helping Alaskans prepare for the looming rollout of Affordable Care Act requirements, including mandatory health insurance for every man, woman and child in the state, effective Jan. 1. Other states report dropping premiums and have been successful using the exchanges as bargaining tools to ease increasing medical care costs, while Alaska lawmakers have listened to insurers warn of higher premiums around the corner. Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell didn't see fit for the state to have a hand in developing Alaska's exchange, despite the 49th state's unique geographical and cultural challenges and the 139,421 uninsured residents here under the age of 65. Consequently, the federal government is building Alaska's exchange.

Tightening the screws to protect Kenai king salmon: The hammer dropped on Alaska's most famous sport fishery this week as commercial fishermen, anglers and the state were in court fighting over who should get how many fish. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game decided the run of world-famous Kenai king salmon is now so obviously weak that anglers should get almost none for the remainder of the season. By emergency order, the department decreed that from Thursday until the July 31 end of the sport season, anglers will be allowed to keep only kings over 55 inches, an extreme rarity, or under 20 inches. The latter are immature fish that come back before they are ready to spawn. Assistant Kenai area sport fisheries biologist Jason Pawluk told the Peninsula Clarion of Kenai that there hasn't been a king over 55 inches caught in three years. Fish and Game also canceled one of the twice weekly openings of the east side setnet fishery that harvests kings commercially. It is the east side setnetters who earlier filed a lawsuit arguing the twice-weekly fishing periods this year weren't enough to begin with. They charge that the state's efforts to manage a weak king salmon run is cutting into their red salmon profits. The netters seek reds, but unfortunately they catch a significant number of kings because the fish travel together.

Spurring production or overreach?: Fortune Magazine took a closer look Big Oil's "long-awaited Alaska victory" after the passage of Senate Bill 21, otherwise known More Alaska Production Act, this spring. Opponents say the bill's passage amounts to a giveaway. Gov. Sean Parnell says it will mean economic growth and more jobs in the state, and the oil companies, well, they don't say much. The article notes that when asked for comment, two of the big three -- ConocoPhillips and BP -- citied previous announcements of investments in May. ExxonMobil did say that passage of SB21 signifies achievement, but that it won't necessarily assist in spurring production on a natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope to tidewater.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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