Anchorage Daily News

The Alaska Federation of Natives on Saturday called on the state and federal governments to declare an energy emergency in rural Alaska, and to cap the price of heating oil and gasoline in villages across the state.

Some village residents pay twice as much as city dwellers for heating oil and gasoline, and rural delegates meeting for their annual convention in Anchorage voted to ask the government to pay the difference.

That should last until low-cost, alternative energy projects are up and running in rural Alaska, said Loretta Bullard, president of Kawerak Inc., a Native nonprofit operating in the Bering Strait region.

AFN delegates also demanded that Gov. Sarah Palin appoint more Natives to influential state posts and commissions, saying Natives have "suffered from inattention."

"It was an extreme struggle to get an Alaska Native on the Board of Game," Timothy Andrew, chairman of the Native village corporation in Marshall, told the crowd.

Palin spokesman Bill McAllister said the governor will continue appointing Natives to state posts.

On the final day of the convention AFN delegates voted for a slew of resolutions tackling the unofficial theme of the meeting -- soaring rural energy bills. They include:

• A call for Palin and the Legislature to inject the state budget with supplemental money to offset costs in rural schools, clinics and other public buildings

• A resolution telling state officials to build a comprehensive state energy policy by this summer that would include more money for the Power Cost Equalization program and for renewable and alternative energy projects.

• A call for Alaska Natives to team with local governments to try and save energy.

Rosita Worl, a Sealaska Corp. board member, told delegates that there's no state agency focused on rural and Native needs. She successfully proposed an amendment to a resolution that asks Palin to resurrect the state Department of Community and Regional Affairs.

The state merged that department -- which was the main state agency handling rural issues-- with another in 1999, creating what is now the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.

"This is making sure that we have a strong advocate in state government," Worl said of Saturday's resolution.

Palin is running for vice president, and told delegates in a taped message Thursday that she has formed a subcabinet to tackle energy bills and what delegates consider to be a related problem -- more and more people moving from villages to cities to escape the high cost of living.

In the Saturday resolutions, the federation said that wasn't enough and called for the governor to create a special task force as well.

The stakes will be high for Alaska cities too as they struggle to accommodate rural newcomers, the resolution says.

In response, McAllister said it was Palin who called a special legislative session on energy relief this summer. The state is working on a long-range energy plan that will be unveiled in time for the Legislature to consider in January, he wrote in an e-mail.

Other AFN resolutions approved Saturday included:

• A call for Congress to "provide permanent protection for the subsistence uses of Alaska's Native villages."

• A move to expand ferry service around the state.

• Support of a "zero tolerance" policy for sexual abuse crimes in Alaska's villages, along with a call for villages to work with troopers to "design traditional, culturally relevant" ways to deal with such crimes.

Find Kyle Hopkins' political blog online at adn.com/alaskapolitics or call him at 257-4334.

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