Anchorage Daily News

Alaska's housing prices have dropped the fastest in a year. Bloomberg News names five states where home prices fell the most from May 2007 to May 2008. Alaska was listed along with California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. Collectively, these five states saw a 14.5 percent price drop. The report comes from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, "suggesting no end to the three-year housing slump."

Update: Readers correctly note that the OFHEO report does not include sales figures for individual states and that California's sharp real estate declines would affect a regional number. According to Dan Fauske, CEO of Alaska Housing Finance, the average residential sales price for Alaska has declined less than 1 percent, from $275,558 in May 2007 to $273,362 in May 2008.

***

Sen. Ted Stevens speaks out against oil speculation. NPR reports that a bid to curb oil speculation survived a Tuesday test vote, though many Republicans question whether oil speculation is just one of many factors that have driven up gasoline prices in the U.S.

But Stevens has very strong views about oil speculators and told Bloomberg.com exactly what he thinks. "Americans are being taken advantage of not only by OPEC but by speculators right here in our own country,'' Stevens said. "Historically, this has not been a bad problem. Only recently has speculation reached these unsustainable levels.''

***

Putting politicians through a car wash. Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, Mark Begich, has a new TV ad out, 30 seconds of politicians getting hosed in a car wash, reports Politico. "There's little doubt that the Alaska Senate race between Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich would revolve over ethics," says The Scorecard blog.

***

Passing TransCanada: What House lawmakers had to say about their vote. Plenty of news outlets reported the 24-16 vote in the House to pass HB 3001 and the subsequent deadline for the Senate to decide by Aug. 2. Here's what a few lawmakers had to say about their decision:

From Reuters UK:

> Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks: "We have players here that have an absolutely impeccable record of getting the gas to fill their pipelines. TransCanada has got a proposal before us that absolutely follows the procedure that we set out in this body. It's time to award the license."

>Rep. Harry Crawford, D-Anchorage: "When the producers would come in, they'd talk about how big the project was, how difficult it was going to be, how hard it was to get the financing and all the reasons why it was going to be so, so hard to get this pipeline built. I never heard any enthusiasm from them," Crawford said. "But when we heard from TransCanada, what we heard was this project is integral to their future. This project is integral to Alaska's future. We're in alignment, Mr. Speaker."

From KTUU:

> Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage: "I think we have to make it clear, and I just ask folks please remember in the public that this AGIA license is not a commitment to do anything other than process a whole lot of paper."

> Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage: "This is not a clear path to a gas line. There is no clear path to a gas line. This is the clearest path to a gas line that protects the state's interests. That's all it is."

> Rep. Jay Ramras, R. Fairbanks: "When this governor has gone on to better things, we're gonna see AGIA come to a crash and an end, and the urban legend will be over."

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:

> Rep. Jack Coghill, R-North Pole: "I do like free-market dynamics better, but this is not a free-market situation."

> Rep. Ralph Samuels, R-Anchorage: "Government interjecting itself into a marketplace has seen colossal failure after colossal failure after colossal failure."

Meanwhile, APRN reports that the Senate Finance Committee says the administration should not expect to get $500 million for AGIA all at once.

***

Former Alaska journalist becomes ombudsman for Pennsylvania Wilds. Ta Brant, who reported for the Anchorage Press and the Anchorage Daily News before leaving the state a few years ago, now promotes tourism in a 12-county region in northcentral Pennsylvania, reports Marketwatch.com

The Pennsylvania Wilds is described as the largest block of land between New York and Chicago that is open for public enjoyment. It includes 29 state parks, eight state forest districts and 1.3 million acres of public forestland and the largest elk herd in the Northeast. It sounds like Alaska's wilderness was a pretty good training ground for the job.

***

The gee-whiz F-22 Raptors at Elmendorf: The Honolulu Advertiser wrote about expecting 20 F-22 Raptors by 2010 at Hickam Air Force Base and in the story described some of the amazing features of the new fighter. The stealth fighters can reach supersonic speed without afterburners and are highly maneuverable and almost invisible to radar. "This airplane is about twice the size of an F-16 and can turn inside an F-16 with no problem," said Jim Conlin of Lockheed Martin.

The cost of an F-22 is $137.5 million, Lockheed said. The Air Force wants more than the 183 Raptors budgeted, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been critical of the costly jets, saying the U.S. military needs to be more focused on the type of asymmetrical guerrilla warfare that is taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than overly expensive technology like the F-22s.

Elmendorf is one of three operational Raptor squadrons. The others are in New Mexico and Virginia.

***

"Gang of 10" argues for more drilling, including ANWR, in U.S. Congress. Politico takes a litmus test of the U.S. Congress as it continues to wrangle over when and where to drill for oil.

Tuesday evening, five Democratic senators met with five of their Republican colleagues to hash out a plan that would include far more drilling - from the land and from the sea - than would be allowed under any current Democratic proposal.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said the new "Gang of 10" is just trying to overcome "strongly drawn" battle lines that prevent party leaders from finding common ground. "We're not undermining leadership," Nelson said. "This is not a coup."

Meanwhile, Republican House Leader John Boehner of Ohio just returned from a resource visit to Alaska and said he saw more caribou in the National Petroleum Reserve, where Democrats advocate more drilling, than he saw in ANWR.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner decries to rhetoric on both sides, and The New York Times reports on a Department of Interior proposal to give oil companies a royalty tax break when they go after the harder-to-exploit oil shale.

***

Given high plane ticket prices, how about a round-the-world trip --- by bus. One company is already in business, announcing a London to New York trip, the long way, including through Alaska. One caveat: the single flight necessary will be across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska. A trip with Ozbus, as the British company is called, will take 18 weeks and cost you almost $9,986 one way. The first bus leaves March 2009.

***

Exxon Valdez decision: Now wait just a darn minute. APRN and the Huffington Post blogger Riki Ott advance today's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee questioning the Supreme Court's Exxon Valdez decision. The title of the hearing is "Courting Big Business: The Supreme Court's Recent Decisions on Corporate Misconduct and Laws Regulating Corporations."

APRN's interview with committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., offers his strongly stated view that the Supreme Court erred.

"We will raise the question at the hearing of why the Supreme Court has given a windfall to Exxon Valdez and delivered a very bad blow to the people of Alaska."

"For the life of me I can't understand why these Supreme Court justices, who have lifetime positions and are paid well, feel they have to follow the dictates of a Republican president."

Leahy said people in his own state couldn't understand the recent decision. "How could any court treat the people of Alaska that badly?"

He said his committee would not seek to censure the justices but "make it very clear that we rely in such cases on jury judgment, not second-guessing by the Supreme Court."

Ott calls for Congress to overturn the Supreme Court decision.

***

If you're feeling chilly this Alaska summer, you aren't alone. Bethel blogger Tundra Medicine Dreams, in a post titled "Cold and Miserable July," is feeling the pain right along with you. She finally wrote about the weather.

The landscape had no color but gray, and the clouds were so thick there was no hint to the sun's position in the sky. It went on for four days. The rain came and went, but the wind never stopped blowing night or day. ... It is an amazing creature, this wind, like a live thing. It can suck the breath right out of your lungs. The sound of it gets on your nerves after awhile. People get irritable when it doesn't stop for days. It becomes an enemy you can't see directly, but evidence of its presence is everywhere.

***

Fairbanks Strykers get training in Mideast culture. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has a reporter following members of the 25th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team as they train at Fort Irwin in California on how to move around in an imaginary Iraqi town.

Sgt. Frank Dow is a 12-year Army veteran. Here's what he thinks of the new cultural training: "The last couple of wars, it wasn't about cultural awareness, it was about shooting people in the face. Now you talk to him to find out who to shoot in the face."

Dow has had five foreign deployments; this will be his second to Iraq. He has also served in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Somalia.

The story points out the Army's changing mission, away from shooting massive amounts of artillery to becoming more of an infantry unit. Dow describes it this way: "In theory, we shoot howitzers. In reality, we run around the desert like monkeys without a purpose."

***

Other headlines of interest to Alaskans:

> This blogger says global warming will force the U.S. Congress to move to Alaska (Northwardho.blogspot.com)

> Palin expands her Anchorage office space but not her staff (APRN)

> State watches whooping cough cases carefully (APRN)

> Alaska employs 1,000 fewer construction workers this summer (Alaska Journal of Commerce)

> Distant wildfires cool the Arctic (Smashits.com)

> Governor pitches $1.5 billion in energy bills (KTVA)

ADVERTISEMENT