Anchorage Daily News

Fairbanks can't wait for AGIA. At least that's part of the message 800 folks had for legislators meeting at the Carlson Center Thursday, reports the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.

Ladd McBride attended the rally with a homemade sign that read: "Fairbanks Winter 90 Days."

"I'm very much in favor of AGIA, but we need something done now," the retired Navy man said. "I'm on a fixed income. I haven't seen an increase in my Navy retirement pay since I started getting it. It's coming down to food or heat. We really don't know what we're going to do come winter.

"Alaska is our home. We can't afford to stay, and we can't afford to leave," he said. "What do they want us to do?"

A young mom, Mariah Rice, brought her baby in a stroller to learn why heating her home is costing so much. She expects heat to double this winter, making her utility bill higher than her mortgage. Moving back home with mom might be the only answer, she joked.

APRN's account of the Fairbanks session is here.

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Other quicker-fix energy solutions surface around state. Two other energy solutions percolated in the news yesterday. Bernie Karl, who runs the hot springs and ice museum that is Chena Hot Springs, suggested Alaskans get a chance to swap their PFDs for cheap fuel, reports KUAC in Fairbanks.

In Karl's vision, residents would have the choice to trade the PFD for a co-op card that they'd swipe at the pump for $1 a gallon fuel with limits set for conservation purposes.

He acknowledged that some people call his idea socialist. "But we need to get there, and we can't let everyone suffer while we're trying to get there. This plan can be done in 90 days. Everything else is all 'Hope we're gonna do something by 2018, 2020.' But what about this winter? What about now?"

And quietly in the background, Enstar continues to study bringing natural gas to Fairbanks and Southcentral from the Anadarko property in the Brooks Range via a 700-mile, 20-inch-wide bullet line, reports KBBI in Homer.

This option isn't an AGIA rival because it pulls natural gas from a different field. Proponents say it'll save Fairbanks $100 million annually in energy costs and can happen three to six years faster than AGIA. Enstar will wrap up its study and make a decision by 2009.

So no solutions are appearing on the horizon to heat Fairbanks cheaply next winter.

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In the middle of the energy debate, a favorite acronym: ANWR. Yesterday Newsreader cited a federal study that says opening ANWR now would result in saving consumers a penny on a gallon of gas beginning in 2018.

Nonetheless, this energy strategy is on the lips of many politicians, including Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Begich, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young.

Begich couched his strategy in a several-point plan he took to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, reports the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. "If this isn't an energy crisis, I don't know what is," the Anchorage mayor said. Begich's plan is published in the Arctic Sounder for Bush readers.

Young's views also were reported in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. A bill he introduced last month to drill in ANWR has 120 co-sponsors. The House has said yes to ANWR 12 times in Young's 35-year congressional career, only to be turned back at almost every turn by the Senate. The one year the Senate said yes, President Clinton vetoed the legislation.

"The Democrats are doing nothing, nothing, nothing," Young said. "They have this illusion that they are going to solve the problem with all these exotics."

"Realistically, I believe the public will eventually say ‘Let's drill.'"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski chimes in to blame Clinton for $4-per-gallon gas, reports KTUU.

"If (Clinton) had not, ... more than likely we would be seeing an additional 1 billion barrels of oil flowing into the market right now," Murkowski said. "I contend that oil would have prevented the prices from reaching today's exorbitant levels."

And from the blogosphere, here and here, a challenge to John McCain to visit ANWR.

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Sen. Ted Stevens is "bad news" for Republicans. Washington Post political blog The Fix lays it out in harsh terms for the senior senator:

"Sen. Ted Stevens continues to show absolutely no sign that he is planning to do anything other than run for re-election in the fall. And that's bad news for Republicans.

"Stevens, a legend in Alaska politics, has seen the shine taken off his reputation over the last few years as he has found himself entangled in a pay-to-play lobbying scheme involving an Alaska energy company.

"Poll after poll shows the incumbent trailing Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a well-known name in the state who is taking the fight to Stevens by releasing plans on energy and ethics aimed at framing the parameters of the debate in the Democrat's favor.

"Begich isn't the best Democrat running for Senate this cycle, but he is plenty good enough unless Stevens can change the dynamic of the race."

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Palin, please, as a GOP keynote. Once she bowed to John Thune in an early round of the Veepstakes, the bleacher-stomp for Palin as VP has gone quiet. The next generation wants to hear her speak at the September Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

"The Spy would like to see Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, get a keynote slot. This lady is dynamite and would send several critical messages for the GOP. She doesn't mess around and, if there is any truth to the Straight Talk Express, Sarah Palin will have a prime place on the train."

But not the main address. That would go to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Not to advance their national careers "but freshen a stale image, an image all the more encrusted by the Obama show."

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Salmon still wafting from the barbecue but from which river? Salmon was in the news Thursday, its fortunes rising and falling with the price of Copper River reds.

Blogfish, a writer on oceans, fish and conservation, headlines a post with "Market crash for Copper River salmon," and includes lots of links to recent coverage of the hype, the price and the swearing-off of spendy Copper salmon.

Despite the Christian Science Monitor's loving ode to the Coppers and a letter in today's New York Times from Trout Unlimited's Tim Bristol urging us to buy Bristol Bay sockeye to keep fishers employed, heads and noses are turning to kings from the Stikine River near Wrangell.

A Pacific Northwest chef took his cooking crew out on fishing boats there so they could see how the fish are caught and treated, reports KSTK in Wrangell.

"It's a wild experience for them," said chef Duke Moscrip, who runs six Chowderhouse eateries in the Puget Sound area.

"We buy the best salmon," he said, and "this is as good as you get anywhere in the world."

Diners are getting more sophisticated and asking more questions. He wants his staff to educate them on the difference between wild and farmed and which rivers deliver the tastiest fish.

When the Stikine reopened after a 30-year hiatus, Moscrip researched it and found that the long river leads to lots of fat and oils in the fish and good flavor on the plate.

He expects to buy 40,000 pounds, meaning one of every five Stikine kings is headed to a Chowderhouse, where you can find it as ginger salmon in a balsamic reduction or served with blueberries and goat cheese.

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Alaska bishop says raising morale of priests is next job. The Associated Press reports that Anchorage's Archbishop Roger Schwietz, meeting with a group of American bishops, participated in a discussion about the pain and trauma clergy have suffered since the sex abuse scandal surfaced in 2002.

Embarrassment ran so deep that many priests removed their collars in public.

Schwietz said bishops are trying to learn directly from clergy what church leaders should do to improve morale.

"I'm hoping with the priests to work out an equitable and just way to preserve the reputation of priests and also take accusations seriously," Schwietz said.

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Other headlines of interest to Alaskans:

< Ketchikan tribal leader charged with drug misconduct (Juneau Empire)

< Sen Ted Stevens earns street cred with his Blackberry (Politico)

< Juneau cops "roll" their beat on Segways (Juneau Empire)

< Fairbanks musician Karl Carlson remembered (Dermot Cole column, News Miner)

< GLBT Alaskans reorganize, offer marriage advice (Bentalaska.com)

< Rod Serling's brother profiles Alaska Airlines, comes to Anchorage (Earthtimes.org)

< Village basketball players tool up in Southcentral camps (The Arctic Sounder)

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