At a minimum the state should set operating conditions and specific safety rules for the Kinross operation, recognizing that the number of trucks will likely be increased after the project gets moving because this is expected to be a highly profitable venture.
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The Dunleavy administration claims that a new analysis of the Steese Expressway bridge over the Chena River has led to a reversal of its previous position—that the ore-haul trucks should not be allowed to use the downtown bridge.
There is reason to be skeptical of the timing and substance of this revelation by the Dunleavy administration.
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When Gov. Mike Dunleavy launched his energy task force last spring, he said he wanted to see plans by the end of this year to cut electricity prices in Alaska to 10 cents per kilowatt hour by 2030.
“Now some people will say that’s incredibly optimistic, we can’t do that, etc., etc., etc. But I’ve gotta remind you of a couple of things done in history here in the not-too-distant past. 1961, John F. Kennedy said we’re gonna go to the moon by the end of the decade,” Dunleavy told his task force on April 25.
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In an attempt to escape an obvious legal snafu, Kinross and its trucking contractor now reveal in court documents that they will have their trucks run on the Steese Expressway instead of the route identified by the state.
But the court documents don’t say that would mean crossing the Chena River on a 46-year-old Steese Highway bridge that the chief state bridge engineer said in July should not be used by “heavy ore loads.” The state has long banned the heaviest trucks from the Steese bridge because of safety concerns.
Read MoreThe office of Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor is waiting to hear from the Holland & Hart law firm about whether the company wants to help hide public information about how much the state paid per hour for legal services from former Gov. Sean Parnell and others.
This is rich. The information is not a trade secret. And having the attorney general invite private contractors to define public information as a trade secret is going to fail.
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Alaska law says the director of the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska or a designee has a place on the board of the state-owned Alaska Aerospace Corporation.
The corporation board is meeting today in Anchorage, but Robert McCoy, the director of the GI and a longtime board member, is no longer listed as a board member or as chairman of the board.
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The fear that Dunleavy will refuse to ask the Legislature for the $23 million matching grant to replace the Tustumena is real enough that Sen. Lisa Murkowski wrote him this week with a reminder that Dunleavy has already promised to come up with the cash to qualify for a $92.8 million federal grant.
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Sen. Dan Sullivan gives himself some of the credit for getting Alabama Sen. Tommy “Coach” Tuberville to drop his obstruction of hundreds of military promotions, releasing a statement in which Sullivan didn’t mention the guy who created the mess.
Sullivan tried to blur the picture of what Tuberville did.
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The trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund want the annual evaluation of the fund’s executive director to be conducted in an executive session with nothing in writing. The idea is to avoid creating a paper trail that would become a public document, according to the trustees.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson is to speak Tuesday before a convention of Christian nationalists at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
Homer Rep. Sarah Vance is a charter member of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a group that promotes the creation of a theocracy in the United States.
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