Category Archives: news

Mat-Su legislator’s son pleads guilty to federal drug charges

KTUU is reporting that the son of Mat-Su Valley Rep. Lynn Gattis pleaded guilty in federal court to being the ringleader of an international “bath salts” distribution ring. Robin Gattis is 20 years old. He was arrested in 2012, first by the state and then by the feds, and has been in custody since. The distribution ring had tentacles in China. According to KTUU, drugs from that ring were used by another 20 year old, only described as MGS, in a fatal overdose. Bath salts have nothing to do with either baths or salts, but are a stew of nasty chemicals that when used, act like speed.

Robin Gattis faces 20 years in federal prison. Gattis’ co-defendents include Anchorage residents Kevin Rupp, 21, and Haylee Hays, 19; Palmer residents Chad Cameron, 18, and Bren Marx, 20; Stephen Kimbrell, 20, of Soldotna; and Shane O’Hare, 23, of Wasilla.

Lynn Gattis was elected to her seat in 2012, despite her son’s problems. She beat her Republican primary challenger Mark Ewing with 61 percent of the vote, and won in the general with 73 percent.

She’s smart, quick witted, and is considered one of the rising stars in the Republican Party. Her chief of staff, Erick Cordero Giorgana sent out a statement that said Lynn Gattis and her husband appreciate everyone’s prayers and they also appreciate their privacy during this difficult time.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Former Alaskan Pete Rouse is said to be leaving the White House

The highest ranking Alaskan ever to work in the White House is talking about leaving his position. According to Politico, Pete Rouse, President Barack Obama’s former chief-of-staff and one of Obama’s most-trusted advisers, has told friends he will be leaving the administration this fall.

Many, including Obama, credit Rouse with playing a key role in Obama’s rise from a little- known U.S. senator to the presidency and he’s been silently, yet influentially,working behind the scenes since.

Rouse’s mother was the daughter of Japanese immigrants and grew up in Anchorage during World War I. His cousin was a municipal attorney for the City of Palmer.

Rouse came to Alaska in 1978 and stayed to work for Lt Governor Terry Miller, the first and last Republican he worked for. He left in 1983 to work in D.C. But he kept his Alaska voter registration and has always reserved a special place in his heart for the state, its citizens and their interests.

He was instrumental in placing some Alaskans in the Obama administration, like former state Sen. Kim Elton, who ~~is the~~ until 2012, was the director of Alaska affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

When he was U.S. senator, Frank Murkowski praised Rouse on the Senate floor in 1999, and former Gov. Tony Knowles credit’s Rouse for Obama’s inclusion of the natural gas pipeline in his primary speeches.

Even today as one of the most important and powerful men in government, many Alaskans tell of meeting him in the White House, just steps from the Oval Office. .

It appears that he’s leaving the White House in the months ahead; however, given his role and behavior to date he’ll likely continue to be an adviser and confidant to Obama and he’ll always have a soft spot in his heart for Alaska and his friends here. The feeling, for many, is mutual.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

F-bomb repercussions

The legislative liaison for the Department of Health and Human Services who told Rep. Bill Stoltze to “shut the f#%k up” over what she thought was a mute phone has been removed from her position. Wilda Laughlin will no longer be the face of the department to the legislature. Her replacement has yet to be chosen, HSS Commissioner Bill Streur said.

She’s not leaving HSS, but because of the incident, she will be doing more behind the scenes work. “She’s been a good worker,” Streur said.

The “shut the f#%k up” snafu happened on July 24, during a particularly tense House Finance Committee hearing on HSS’s budget. Committee members were becoming increasingly frustrated as time went on with what they perceived as the department’s lack of preparation and inability to answer questions. This frustration reached a boiling point earlier on Wednesday during the topic of federal sequestration, when members were scolding department officials for their inability to answer even broad questions on its impact to state programs.

Laughlin was on the phone listening and assumed that the phone was on mute when she screamed, “shut the f#%k up” as Chugiak Republican Rep. Bill Stoltze was talking

Stoltze is co-chair of the House Finance Committee, which approves HSS’s budget.

Streur recently spoke to Stoltze about the incident. He described the representative as “amazingly gracious.”

(Update: Jason Hooley, who is the director of Boards and Commissions, will be taking Laughlin’s job).

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

More strange things done ‘neath Whittier’s midnight sun

There are only about 200 who live in the strange little town perched on this harbor in Prince William Sound. But in Whittier’s case, size doesn’t much matter. The people sure know how to kick up the controversy. First, in July, the citizens of the city recalled Mayor Lester Lunceford for supposedly violating an open meetings act during one of the city council meetings. Now Pete Heddell, one of the city council members who pushed for the ousting, has himself resigned on the heels of accusations that he violated city code.

Lunceford had the position for 11 years. After the recall vote, the talk of the town was that many of those who voted to oust him were actually residents of Anchorage rather than of Whittier. So, ten residents signed a petition to try to contest the recall vote, but they didn’t read the fine print that stated that all of them had to be present when they turned in their petition and that their signatures needed to be notarized. Only five showed in person and none had their signatures notarized, said city manager Tom Bolen.

It’s unclear however, even if they had done everything right, that the recall would have been overturned.

The city goes by where the state says someone is registered, and the state is less concerned where a person claims his or her home to be than if they are voting twice. In other words, residency documentation is relatively loose. Whittier city code does little to clarify the state’s position.

City code is clear, however, that a person’s primary residence must be in Whittier if they are on the city council.

Councilman Heddell had been receiving the senior citizen tax exemption for a property that he owns in Anchorage. In order to get that exemption, he claimed that the Anchorage house was his primary residence.

On Monday, Heddell told Bolen that he was resigning to spend more time in Washington state.

Bolen who took the job in March, has also been caught in the controversy. The open meeting act that Lunceford allegedly violated involved the firing of the former city manager and Bolen’s hiring. Bolen, however, has no plans on going anywhere. He just hopes all the drama is over and everyone can focus on running the city.

When he walked into the job there were about $8 million worth of state grants to the city that had yet to be used and some of those grants are on the verge of expiring. In other words, if they don’t use it, they could lose it. Some of the money is for projects that had never moved forward from design to construction. At least one of them—a $325,000 grant for railroad improvements—had even yet to be conceptualized.

The city is now working with the Railroad to push that project forward. It’s also working on replacing a culvert, a road project, and environmental restoration project and is applying for grants for harbor and road improvements.

The big issue, however, the one that’s plagued the city for nearly a half a century, is what to do with the Buckner Building, the dilapidated concrete mammoth structure built in 1953 with the intention to withstand bombs and keeping as many as 1,000 soldiers safe if a Cold War army invaded.

It now sits on the edge of town, bruised but not broken, taking up precious land, but because it would be so expensive to tear down, no one knows what to do with it.

“It’s so amazing that Whittier’s such a small town and that there’s so much going on,” Bolen said. “It’s somewhat overwhelming to grasp it all.”

Amanda Coyne amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

DOR Commish Bryan Butcher takes over AHFC

Bryan Butcher, the commissioner of the Department of Revenue, will now be heading up the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the corporation announced today. Butcher will be taking over from Dan Fauske, who will be running the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., where he hopes to oversee the construction of an in-state natural gas pipeline.

Fauske is making $366,000 a year. Butcher was making $135,000 when he took the commissioner job in 2011. He will now be making $250,000 a year. Angela Rodell will be the acting commissioner of Revenue.

AHFC is a state owned corporation formed in 1986 and finances roughly 30 percent of Alaska’s mortgages. In 2012, it financed $416.2 million in such loans. The corporation also has bonding authority. At the end of 2012, it has more than $4 billion in assets and contributed more than $9 million to state coffers during that year.

Butcher has a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communications from Oregon University. Before working for Revenue, Butcher worked for AHFC as a legislative liaison and in public relations and government affairs.

Butcher took the job as revenue commissioner in 2011, and was put in the hot seat nearly immediately over oil taxes, where he was often criticized by legislators over his sometimes confusing and contradictory statements.

He was all but absent during the last legislative session, when an oil tax bill passed. Mike Pawlowski was Revenue’s face and voice for the tax break. Nonetheless, Gov. Sean Parnell praised Butcher’s role in the tax debate.

“Under Commissioner Butcher’s outstanding leadership, the More Alaska Production Act became a reality, Alaska achieved and maintained a AAA+ credit rating, and Revenue put in place a more reasoned and accurate long-term oil production forecast,” Parnell said.

AHFC’s board made the hiring decision. The job was not advertised. In an interview, Frank Roppel, chair of AHFC, said that because Butcher was such a good candidate, there was no need to conduct a hiring search.

“We felt that we had a very capable person and I doubt that we could do better in the open market,” Roppel said.

Roppel also said that it gives Wall Street comfort to hire a known quantity. Such comfort, he said, can translate into lower interest rates which are passed on to borrowers.

Contact Amanda coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Roundup of super exciting local utilities news

Utilities aren’t the sexiest of subjects to write about. But they do keep the lights on, the heat running, text messages coming, etc…And there’s a lot of big money at stake for those who run them. So, though the subject makes me nearly soporific, the past week or two have been busy times for many of our local utilities. And some of it’s actually interesting enough to wake me up. Here’s a rundown of the highlights:

The FCC approved the ACS/GCI wireless deal, forestalling what some predict as the imminent death of ACS, the one that’s been coming since Liane Pelletier took the reins, over-inflated the value of the stock by guaranteeing high dividends, and then left the company with an unsustainable business model. She was either a hero or villain, depending on when you bought or sold your stock in the company. One thing’s for sure: private equity puts her in the former category. In any case, both of the companies have done well with the announcement, and will need to continue to do well if they want to compete against Verizon and AT&T. GCI’s stock closed on Tuesday at $9.43, up from $7.69 on June 26, a week before the FCC approved the merger. ACS’s stock was as low as $1.55 this year. Tuesday it closed at $3.40.
Speaking of AT&T: the company announced yesterday that it has invested $45 million in its wireless and wired network in Alaska during the first half of 2013. Among other things, the investment now provides mobile AT&T broadband to Healy, Whittier, Hope, Gustavus, Angoon, Hydaburg and other sites along Sterling, Glenn and Richardson Highway
ML&P requested that the RCA consider and approve a 22 percent rate increase and it’s rumored that Chugach Electric maybe also looking at a rate increase. I’ve overheard people saying that the ML&P rate increase could provide an avenue of attack if for whatever reason at ambitious politician wanted to go after Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan. But then again, ambitious is the operative word here.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai toured the state meeting with regulated industry types and policymakers. I don’t know if he learned anything about, say, how important the Universal Services Fund is to Alaskans and a certain high profile, politically connected telecom business in Alaska. But I’m told he did learn quite a bit about how silver salmon run.
ENSTAR had a ribbon cutting ceremony in Homer commemorating the first delivery of gas to the community. Dozens of business leaders were there. Gov. Sean Parnell showed, as did a handful of local elected officials. After the speeches the ENSTAR meter was turned on and the crowd cheered for the community’s first delivery of natural gas. Unfortunately, the contractor was behind schedule, the invited guests we’re already committed and the decision was made to move forward with a commemorative event knowing that gas was just days away.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

BW2 : A “squared” idea that sounds cool to some of Parnell’s opponents

Fourteen percent of Alaska voters are registered Democrats. About 27 percent are Republicans. The rest belong to the Libertarians, Alaska Independent Party and the vast majority are undeclared. So those who want to beat Republican Gov. Sean Parnell, whose term is up next year, had an idea: put parties aside and join the independent candidate for governor with the likely Democratic nominee.

And if those candidates are both named Bill, and both have last names that start with W, you’ve at the very least a good campaign logo: Meet “BW².”

It also doesn’t hurt that Bill Walker, the gubernatorial candidate, is a Republican at heart and that he’s friends with Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski, the potential lieutenant governor, and that both have the potential for populist appeal.

To be clear: right now, the scheme seems more of a quixotic Facebook campaign than anything. But the two have been talking about the possibility. Walker said that although he’s a Republican, he and Wielechowski agree on more issues than they disagree, particularly oil taxes.

Walker isn’t the firebrand on the issue that Wielechowski is, but he doesn’t think that the bill that passed, SB21, had the necessary investment assurances and said that he wouldn’t have voted for it if he were in a position to do so.

Pollster Ivan Moore, whose been pushing the BW²idea, is sure that this is the only chance to beat Parnell, whose support is relatively strong statewide and especially among Republicans.

“The only ticket that could possibly beat Parnell right now is a ticket that unites moderate Republicans, independents and Democrats,” Moore said.

“If the Democrats put someone in the race now, it dooms the Democrats and independents and instantly reelects Parnell,” he said.

Word is that the Democratic Party is none-too-happy about the possibility and has been trying to pressure Wielechowski to abandon the idea. But the party doesn’t really have that much leverage these days. Its numbers are down. Campaign finance reform that the Dems pushed for has greatly limited its fundraising ability. And its bench of candidates is dismally short.

If nothing else, it would be fun and could provide the kind of excitement that Parnell seems incapable of generating.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Washington Post sold to Amazon.com founder

The media world is being rocked by news that the Washington Post has been sold to Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family’s more than 40 year ownership. Bezos will pay $250 million in cash for The Post. No word on the fate of the other products owned by the Washington Post Co., including Slate, Foreign Policy, and The Root. This follows the sale of the Boston Globe to billionaire Red Sox owner John Henry, which was announced on Saturday.

Why the Washington Post sale?

“Our revenues had declined seven years in a row,” writes Don Graham, CEO and chairman of The Washington Post Co. “We had innovated and to my critical eye our innovations had been quite successful in audience and in quality, but they hadn’t made up for the revenue decline. Our answer had to be cost cuts and we knew there was a limit to that. We were certain the paper would survive under our ownership, but we wanted it to do more than that. We wanted it to succeed.”

Walker goes Independent and Wielechowski takes his time

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker is now Independent candidate Bill Walker. Walker thinks that he’ll have an easier time bypassing the primary and challenging Parnell as an Independent, and he’s likely right.

Parnell’s numbers are strong. A recent poll conducted by local pollster Marc Hellenthal shows Parnell’s approval rating is 57 percent positive and 26 percent negative.

Where Parnell could be vulnerable is on oil taxes. Hellenthal said that his poll showed that roughly as many people would vote for a candidate who would support repeal of the oil tax bill than a candidate who wouldn’t support repeal. However, 22 percent are undecided.

That’s a lot of undecided voters and a big opportunity to change some minds. And the next legislative session will likely provide that opportunity. Because of the tax break, the state will likely be facing a deficit. Oil production will not have increased, and the opportunities for talking points and great campaign ads will be numerous, on both sides of the issue.

Because Walker has been more focused on issues surrounding a natural gas pipeline than on oil taxes and has never fully embraced the repeal crowd, there’s also room for a Dem in the race to take on that issue. Both Democratic Sens. Bill Wielechowski and Hollis French are considering a run. Wielechowski, whose seat isn’t up, has less to lose than does French. However, French has a strong challenger in Rep. Mia Costello. And he can only run in one race.

Wielechowski, apparently not an Andrew Marvell disciple, said that “there’s plenty of time.”

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Are PPP’s Alaska polls pure propaganda?

The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling, also known as PPP, is once again proving that it values publicity above all else. And in Alaska right now, the interest is the looming race against U.S. Sen. Mark Begich. Throw in an off-the-cuff statement that Sarah Palin made about considering running for Senate, and you’ve got the makings for some screaming headlines, no matter that the numbers buried under the headlines are suspect, at best.

A recent poll that the firm conducted via robo calling shows support for Begich’s job performance at about 42 percent. That might make it sound that Begich is in a little bit of trouble. However, Alaska-based pollster Marc Hellenthal, who actually knows the state and uses real-live people to do his polling, has Begich’s approval rate at about 60 percent in a recent poll.

Hellenthal’s got some other numbers which contradict PPP’s poll, but before we get into all of that, let’s get the elephant out of the room: Palin might have considered running for Senate, in the same way that I have considered taking belly dancing classes. I’m not going to take belly dancing classes. Palin is not going to run for Senate. She would lose.

According to PPP, most Alaskans want Palin to run. That might be true, in the way that dogs think they want that car that they’re chasing. But from the headlines the poll has generated, you would think that Palin is still popular in Alaska. Palin is not popular in Alaska.

In fairness, PPP’s numbers show that she’s got a high disapproval rating here. And the firm can be forgiven for not understanding the intricacies of Alaska’s politics, nor is it responsible for a lazy media. What isn’t forgivable is that the group’s polling methodology stinks. In this particular poll, Democrats are way over represented, as are women and older people. Law dictates that pollsters aren’t allowed to robo-call cell phones, so there goes about 50 percent of the population that use them all the time or most of the time. And those are just a few of the problems with using machines to do the work that humans should.

Alaska, as uber poll cruncher Nate Silver points out, “is perhaps the most difficult state in the country to poll. Its residents are in a strange time zone and keep strange schedules; it has very high rates of cellphone usage; it has highly unusual demographics.” (It should be noted here that Silver himself has used Alaska PPP polls and therefore gotten Alaska horribly wrong in the past).

Couple Alaska’s idiosyncrasies with PPP’s sloppy work, and you might as well throw numbers on a wall.

PPP isn’t a stranger to using such suspect methodology. It conducted an absurd poll in May that showed that Sen. Mark Begich actually lost support in Alaska as a result of voting against Obama’s gun control bill. In that poll, Democrats were over represented by a whopping 9 percent, women were over-represented by 12 percent, and the firm just couldn’t figure out the nonpartisan/Alaska Independent Party thing.

They got it a little better on this one. But the sampling error is still way off. Dems in this poll are over represented by six percent, women by 10 percent, and the ages are all screwy. The numbers show it.

Hellethall’s poll was conducted for a private citizen who is not involved in any of the races.

Here’s a few examples of how Hellenthal’s poll numbers compare with PPP’s:

Begich has 60 percent approval and 24 percent disapproval rating. Prior to the gun control vote, Hellenthal had Begich at a 53 percent positive and 35 percent negative. In other words, Begich’s vote helped him enormously, which is in direct contradiction to what PPP reported.
Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell has a 30 percent positive approval rating, a 16 percent negative rating, 30 percent had never heard of him, and the remaining are neutral about him. PPP reported a 29 percent unfavorable rating.
As for unannounced Senate candidate (DNR Commissioner) Dan Sullivan: PPP has his negatives at 28 percent, which is absurdly high for a commissioner. Hellenthal didn’t poll him, but the only thing that could figure is that people are confusing Commish Sullivan with Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan.
Gov. Sean Parnell’s approval rating is 57percent positive and 26 percent negative.PPP has those numbers at 44 percent and 42 percent respectively.
Both Hellenthal’s poll and PPP’s poll show that Democratic Sens. Bill Wielechowski and Hollis French would have a way to go in name recognition if either chooses to run for governor.
Rep. Don Young’s wetback comment didn’t seem to hurt him much. He’s got a 56 percent positive and 28 percent negative approval rating. PPP has Young at 47 percent approval 43 percent disapproval rating.

PPP didn’t poll on her, but another interesting finding from Hellenthal is Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s numbers. According to Hellenthal, she is the most liked politician in the state with a whopping 69-24 approval/disapproval rating. This number might just quell the squirrels who are chirping that Murkowski is so unpopular that she’s not going to run again in 2016.

Another pollster in Alaska, Matt Larkin, who has taken over for long-time Republican pollster Dave Dittman, declined to take on the PPP poll, saying that he didn’t want to get into the back and forth of who was a better pollster. He did say that generally bad polls “undermine the integrity of the whole field.”

He also reminded me how wrong PPP got the 2010 Senate race. In the last poll PPP conducted before the vote, it had Scott McAdams tied with Lisa Murkowski. It showed that Miller would take it by 7 points. On election night, Murkowski had 40 percent of the vote. Miller got about 35 percent and McAdams 23 percent.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Whittier mayor ousted in recall

Mayor Lester Lunceford, who has served as mayor of Whittier for more than a decade and who also currently serves on the state’s Human Rights Commission, has been officially recalled. On election night, he survived the ballot count. There were 50 votes in favor of the recall and 55 votes opposed. There were also 29 uncounted absentee ballots. On Tuesday night, the absentee ballots were counted and Lunceford lost by 15 votes.

Lunceford, who has been mayor of the town for 11 years, has long been the target of complaints. Most recently, the complaints stem from the way the city’s manager Tom Bolen was hired.

Vice Mayor Daniel Blair will take over the city reins immediately as acting mayor.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

For the first time Pebble Mine will have a hearing on Capitol Hill

For eight years, even the idea of the Pebble Mine, that humongous gold and copper deposit in Southwest Alaska that sits on the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon run, has fueled heated arguments. More recently, as the companies involved make the slow, steady march toward permitting, the controversy has morphed into an out-and-out brawl, one that’s pitted, villager against villager, family member against family member, Alaskan against Alaskan.

For all the brouhaha that it’s created in Alaska, the fight has managed to largely remain in-state. Some national groups have gotten involved, but given the scope, the size and the potential ramifications, it’s been relatively silent on the national scene.

That, however, appears about to change.

“The decibel level is rising,” Peter Robertson, senior vice president for corporate affairs with the Pebble Partnership, told the D.C. based The Hill. Indeed, and it’s going to get louder.

The final draft of the EPA’s Bristol Bay’s watershed assessment is expected to be released this fall. In earlier drafts, the EPA has said the mine could wipe out as many as 90 miles of streams and alter stream flows. The agency is unlikely to change its mind about that.

So a trove of Pebble lobbyists are hard at work, trying to buffer the outcome. Even the usually reticent Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively took to Washington D.C. with a bang. In early June, he spent four days on Capitol Hill, meeting with members of Congress, including Rep. Don Young.

That lobbying effort has proved fruitful. On Thursday, the Science, Space and Technology subcommittee on Oversight will take on the proposed Pebble Mine. It’s the first time that Congress has taken the issue up.

The hearing has been called a “factual review of a hypothetical scenario,” and is chaired by Republican Rep. Paul Broun, who has already let his views on the assessment be known. In March, Broun wrote to EPA chief administrator Lisa Jackson about the assessment.

“Unfortunately, it appears as though EPA is happy to continue spending scarce resources on an assessment of questionable value all in order to create additional, unnecessary, and duplicative regulatory burdens,” he wrote.

Broun is from Georgia. He’s one of the most conservative members in the House. He proposed making 2010 the “year of the bible.” He’s been married four times. He calls global warming a “hoax.” Last year, he told a church group that theories of evolution and the big bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”

Broun also believes that the world is less than 9000 years old and was created in six literal days.

And, most importantly for Pebble, he’s running for U.S. Senate and wants to abolish the EPA.

Four witnesses will testify at the hearing, three whom are considered “pro-Pebble,” by those who label people such things. The other witness is a former EPA administrator.

It’s unlikely that fair-minded people will take much away from such a heavily stacked hearing. But, more are going to follow, and as many Alaskans will tell you, and as many in the country will soon understand, fair minded, when it comes to Pebble, is relative.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Thank God it’s Friday: The shut the f#%k up edition

Wednesday was not the best day for Wilda Laughlin, the legislative liaison for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. In fact, it might be forever remembered as “F-bomb Wednesday.” As many in the state knows by now, Laughlin thought her phone was on mute when she was listening to a House Finance Committee hearing on the department. The hearing was not going well. Legislators were getting frustrated by the lack of answers to their questions. And as legislators are wont to do, they didn’t hide their frustration.

In the middle of a scolding of the department by Chugiak Republican Rep. Bill Stoltze, Laughlin blurted out over the phone, “shut the f#%k up.”

After a long silence, Stoltze recovered gracefully. It’s unclear, however, if Laughlin will, which might seem unfair. The political arena is full of “hot mic” gaffes, and many have committed more serious ones than hers, both inside and Outside. The difference, however, is that Laughlin’s fate is left up to bureaucrats, who tend to be less forgiving than voters. And of course, she is a she and people tend to be less than sympathetic to foul-mouthed women than they are to men.

Below are some more well known “hot mic” mistakes made by both Alaskans and national figures. Some of them were punished for their mistakes. Others, mostly men, were forgiven.

Dan Fauske, the director of Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, once called the Senate Finance Committee Chair Steve Frank a “moron,” after a private telephone conference, when he thought the line was dead. Fauske is now the state’s highest paid worker.
During the Hickel administration and the huge retroactive back tax fight, there was a teleconference between BP officials and the Speaker of the House Ramona Barnes, who was supporting the industry’s position. She changed her mind quickly after someone from BP called her a “bitch.” He assumed the line was dead. It wasn’t. The mistake looked like it might cost BP billions. However, after an extensive lobbying session, Barnes calmed down, resumed her pro-industry stance and saved BP billions.
In South Korea following a 90-minute meeting between Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, journalists overheard Obama tell Medvedev, on a hot mic, to give him “space” on missile defense, saying, “This is my last election … After my election I have more flexibility.”
During his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush called New York Times reporter Adam Clymer a “major league asshole” just before a campaign speech to Vice-President Dick Cheney, whose response “big time” was also said on a hot mic.
Before a Fox-News interview in 2008, a hot mic picked up Jesse Jackson telling a fellow guest that because Obama was talking down to black people, he wanted to “cut his nuts off.”
In October 2010, a voice-mail was accidentally left on Joe Miller’s spokesperson’s cellphone. The voices belonged to KTVA reporters, who were discussing a Miller campaign event. At the event, could they find a registered sex offender, they wondered? Will there be violence? And if so, how best to publicize it? Though even Fox News said that there was no bias in the stories that the station produced, two producers were fired after Sarah Palin got involved, calling them, not so originally, “corrupt bastards.”
Speaking of corrupt bastards. Who could ever forget oilman Bill Allen getting caught on tape telling former legislator Pete Kott that he “owns his ass?” Or former Rep. Vic Kohring, who is now running for Wasilla City council, all but begging Allen for money for his child’s Easter eggs?
Speaking of sex offenders? Unfortunately, there was never a hot mic moment when Bill Allen was allegedly having sex with teenagers in his hot tub.
Speaking of animals and Sarah Palin: Everything was going fine. Thanksgiving 2010 was right around the corner. It was a beautiful day and the turkey was pardoned. The trouble started, as it’s likely to start with Palin, when she decided to give an interview to a local TV station. As she spoke about freedom, this great country, blah, blah, the camera focused in on a worker in the background, shoving turkeys neck first into a grinder. That’s not quite a hot mic moment, but anytime a writer can get animals and Sarah Palin into the same paragraph, he or she should stretch to make it work.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Bye bye oil taxes. Hello gas taxes.

Most of us have been enjoying the glorious summer and trying to forget the last two oily legislative sessions. Trying to forget the endless committee hearings, the excruciating testimony from oil executives. Progressivity. Hyperbolic curves. Internal rates of return. Capital expenditures. New producer areas, etc …

While we have been catching fish and amnesia, ExxonMobil is rumored to be hard at work trying to convince Gov. Sean Parnell to call a special session this fall to create a statutory framework to establish and provide authorization to negotiate issues related to gas commercialization.

In other words, just when you thought it was all over, now gas taxes are going to again rear their gaseous heads.

Currently, gas is taxed at an effective rate of 35 percent prior to credits, roughly the same rate as oil. But it’s much less valuable.

According to sources, Parnell isn’t going for the special session idea. He’s upset, they say, that Exxon hasn’t committed enough resources this summer to advance the fabled, up to $65 billion large diameter natural gas pipeline.

In a press release sent last month, Parnell said that although there was progress being made, the companies aren’t “moving as quickly as Alaskans expect.”

Still, Exxon, the North Slope’s biggest gas lease holder, continues to push, and is trying to convince the other major producers — BP and Conoco Phillips – – to push with them.

The Department of Natural Resources has engaged a contractor to model various tax regimes. Acting Commissioner Joe Balash and Department of Revenue’s Mike Pawlowski are said to be working with the contractors and meeting with the producers.

It’s unclear if Exxon’s push has to do with the large diameter line, the one that has been dreamed about for more than 30 years. Or if the push is about the bullet line that’s supposed to bring natural gas to Alaskans if the big line doesn’t.

Or if has to do with the 200 million barrels of liquid condensates at Point Thomson. By 2016, Exxon expects to be producing 10,000 barrels of condensates per day at the Point Thomson site. Condensates are kind of a liquid gas. As it stands, when they are produces they will be treated like gas for royalty purposes but will be taxed like oil.

Perhaps it’s all of the above. One thing’s for sure: if it there isn’t a special session to deal with gas taxes they will be dealt with in the next session. And the committee hearings again will be endless and excruciating.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com