I'd like to call this meeting of the House State Affairs Committee to order.
The time is 3.18 on Thursday, January 29th, 2026.
We're here in Room 120 of Alaska State Capital and please mute your cell phones today.
Members present include Representative St. Clair,
Representative McCabe, Representative Holland,
Representative Hymshoot, Vice Chair Story,
and myself, Chair Kerrick.
Let the record reflect we do have a quorum
to conduct business.
Our record secretary today is Cecilia Miller,
and our moderator from the Juneau LIO is Jude Augustine.
Our committee aid for today, as always,
is my staff, Stuart Relay.
On today's agenda, we have two items.
Three items actually consideration of amendments on House bill 133 prompt payment of contracts will be first
We also have consideration
of Amendments on house bill 81 marijuana conviction records and then we have public testimony and
Continued discussion on household 124 data today
We only have one hour for our hearing as the second hour is being lent to the Department of Administration budget subcommittee
And we will be lending each Thursday through February as this to the DOA subcommittee.
So, to start with today, the first item on our agenda is House Bill 133 on payment of contracts from Representative Hymshoot.
This is our fourth hearing on the bill at our hearing last Thursday, January 22nd.
I set an amendment deadline for Wednesday, Jan 28th at 5 p.m., and we received two amendments.
The first amendment is from my office, and I'm going to move amendment one,
also known as L dot one and all object to it for discussion.
So amendment number one seeks to address a main cost driver for this bill,
which is department of health grants administration quick at ease.
I know you agree.
I am rusty, but we're not we are still live.
How state affairs is back on the record? Sorry about that. We just were ensuring we had our processes in order here.
So, again, I moved Amendment 1 and I objected for discussion, and Amendment
1, before you, seeks to address a main cost driver for this bill, which is
Department of Health Grants Administration. So one cost that was identified in the
Department
of health fiscal notes is necessary technology upgrades,
and this amendment simply identifies rural health transformation fund dollars
as a potential funding source for those tech upgrades.
Since the Constitution prohibits dedicating funds and prohibits both funding and policy
bills from being in the same legislation, this amendment is just in 10th language, so
I want to make that clear.
My hope is that when the Finance Committee considers this bill and as they continue their
budget process, that they might consider utilizing World Health Transformation Fund dollars to
address these cost drivers.
Representative Vance. Thank you madam chair. And the question that I have is do you know if technology upgrades are permissible use of the rural health?
Transformation program funds. I know that a lot of times there are
specific strings attached and didn't know you had any idea on if this is one of those
That's an excellent question, Representative Vance.
My understanding with the Rural Health Transformation Fund
is it can't be used for capital improvements
like building costs or for hardware,
but it could be use for software costs.
And so technology upgrades that would be
within the parameters of the rural health transformation fund
is the intent here.
And
I know that there's some other restrictions around rural health transformation funds.
I just want to make it clear that this could be a potential fund source for helping to
advance prompt payment in the future and to have our departments continuing to look at that as a
potential resource. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on amendment number one?
Seeing none, I'm going to remove my objection to amendment one and
Seeing no further objection amendment number one also known as L dot one is adopted
That brings us to Amendment number two
Which I understand rep McCabe might be withdrawing amendment. Number two. Oh, yeah, i'm gonna withdraw number three. Thanks
So amendment Number Two also know as T dot 1 has been withdrawn
And that brings us to amendment number three representative McCabe. Thanks. I move amendment three
we'll object for discussion and
Representative McCabe, thank you
So this amendment addresses an unintended consequence to HB 133 as written the bill applies
Prop payment penalties not only to private vendors and municipalities, but also to nonprofit organizations
Let me be clear. We should always be paying our bills on time. There's no doubt. However, Alaska has a proper
approximately 6,300 nonprofit organizations, many of which already received state funding
through grants and appropriations.
Unlike private businesses, nonprofit payments often involve reimbursements,
reporting requirements, and compliance reviews that can delay payment through
no fault of the state.
In fact, it's probably the legislature's fault that requires all that oversight.
So we have put a bunch of things in place that require oversight,
and then we're going to say, oh,
and by the way, we'll give you a penalty if we are regulations, delay your payment.
Applying these automatic penalties in these situations creates unnecessary fiscal exposure
and administrative challenges.
This amendment simply removes nonprofit organizations from the penalty provisions while keeping all
the other protections in place and keeping these penalty provision protections from municipalities
and our private contractors who are the ones who really need to be paid on time.
Ensuring this bill remains workable and fiscally responsible.
So, prompt payment laws typically in many in other states are designed for private commerce.
They're not designed non-profit organizations, which are fundamentally different because
they're grand funded partners of the state rather than traditional vendors.
Alaska has 6,300 non profits, as I said, and they receive state funding applying these
automatic penalties to this entire group.
create a significant fiscal problem and administrative backlog at the risk of
unbudgeted costs across multiple agencies. This amendment does not reduce funding to the
non-profits or delay payments. It's then they already are.
It simply removes the automatic penalties when payment timing is driven by compliance,
By exempting non-profits from the penalty provisions, the amendment protects the state treasury, preserves agency oversight and
strengthens HB 133 by keeping it realistic, targeted, and enforceable.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I see a couple of questions.
Representative Holland.
Great.
Thank You.
Chair Carrick on amendment number three. I want to speak I guess of opposition to the amendment
I've been a volunteer and non-profits.
I have been board member.
I had been an executive director.
I spent nearly 40 years in nonprofits and nonprofits are absolutely essential to our communities.
They get work done in our community that would not be done otherwise yet at the end of the day they are
operate as a business. They have payroll that they have to make on time, they
have vendors they, have pay on-time, when they are not paid in a timely
manner through their grants or contracts they
have, to figure out how to juggle the money just like a private company does.
And they have even greater challenges on trying to find that working capital.
Many of these organizations rely upon probably all of us who have funded nonprofit organizations
in our community that we provide the working capitol to help those organizations do that
work.
And we make it so much harder for those organization when they figure out how are they going to
But now they've got to wait for an extended amount of time to be paid.
In this case by the state that might be trying to use them as their bank to hold on to their
money.
So I think our nonprofits absolutely need to
be treated as well.
I would argue even better than perhaps municipalities and other organizations because they are
Donated to we have volunteered for and we
have asked them to do work that we want done by a nonprofit and I think we owe
it to those folks that have contributed and supported them
to make sure they get paid in a tiny manner. As far as the issue of the
compliance work I've done a lot of this stuff and you're you know I agree with
Representative's comments that the compliance side of this is very hard, but I also know that
the hard part of the this compliance is on the front end of negotiating the contracts and on
the very back end when you have to go through a single audit and later auditing.
doesn't have any of that.
Non-profits can submit an invoice, they get paid right away.
And this bill is not addressing the time
to develop the contract or it's not
addressing what might be at the end of the year
a single audit type requirement.
This is just the day to day.
If they've done the work, do they
get payed on time?
I think they should be.
And I'm going to go to Representative Hymshoot
and then St. Clair.
Thank you through the chair.
I just want to point out some nonprofits
So, again, I'm hoping that nonprofits are not banking a ton of money that they're spending
the money on their mission, and so they have this very thin margin that their working on,
which is a big driver on this bill.
And so I was just going to name a couple of the nonprofits that would be impacted across
the state.
So the Alaska Literacy Program, Presbyterian Hospitality House, set for Alaska, food banks,
and obviously I could go on for a long time.
This bill is for tribes, municipalities, and non-profits as organizations that generally do not keep the margins that the private sector I hope will have, not always, but we hope.
And again, like my colleague from
Upper Hillside mentioned, these are organizations doing the work that the state is either not able to do, or they're probably doing it better than we could do it.
So I think they deserve our support and they deserved to be paid on time.
And I also would question of the 6,300 nonprofits, a whole bunch of those are in my hometown and
they are not all getting state funding.
So, I'm not sure 6300 represents the actual number of nonprofits receiving funding, so I am opposed to the amendment.
Representative St. Clair.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I support this amendment.
There are still so many unknowns with this bill that we don't know if they're seeking,
if non-profits are seeking reimbursement if needed for their day to day.
As was stated by my colleague to the right, he said that they submit invoices and they get reimbursed.
Okay, 30 days, when does that start?
I believe that the non-profits need to be exempt from this.
They are not necessarily part of it.
I understand the importance of them.
I'm not saying non profits are bad.
What I am saying is a lot of even, it was stated earlier
that they submit invoices that just adds another layer to it,
they're doing stuff before they've actually gotten the money.
Thank you.
Representative McCabe.
Thanks, so you are portraying or we are
portraying nonprofits as the small humble mom and pop
volunteer organizations.
I would submit to you that Providence Hospital, arguably
the largest landowner in the Anchorage
Bowl, is a nonprofit headquartered in Seattle.
That's a nonprofit. They have thousands of employees that get paid tons of money
They are not just the general volunteers like you are talking about and I applaud your your you know participation in those
But that's not what we're talking. About here. We're talkin about nonprofits like Providence, right?
So I think we need to remember that
I am not opposed to what you're talking about.
I absolutely said we should be paying our bills on time.
All I want to do is remove that automatic penalty clause.
It would just be status quo for them right now would be
status quote for the nonprofits for
the mom and pop said and I would I
would suggest that those folks are probably getting paid
because their bills from the state or.
Their money from the state is probably not in the millions or hundreds of millions.
Their bills from this state are probably pretty small and I'm sure they are getting paid.
So I don't want to seem heartless to you and it's not a bunch of volunteers that we're talking
about here. We're taking about nonprofit, big nonprofit entities. And now all of a sudden we
limited funds and there's a bunch of regulations that need to be done and
there are a lot of things that be I'm sorry I can't do it I cannot do and I
think that we need recognize that there is a difference a huge difference
between nonprofits and cruise construction or some of the folks that
absolutely depend on money coming from the state
And I see no further discussion, but I am going to maintain my objection.
I do want to just note that I think there is something a little bit valid in the argument behind this amendment in that nonprofit organizations do encompass a huge variety of different types of organizations.
But that said, and I recognize the intent in this Amendment.
Since its inception to now, every single entity that I've heard from that would be directly impacted was a smaller municipality or nonprofit, and I think they're hit a lot harder than some of those larger ones.
Though I'm opposed today, I might ask the sponsor of this amendment to possibly work with the bill's sponsor and see if there's a way to narrowly tailor the amendment a little bit more closely, if that's something that might be of interest.
Sure, so keep in mind.
Representative McCain.
Thanks, sorry.
This leaves municipalities in there.
It simply removes the non-profits.
So it leaves the municipalities.
It leaves tribal.
It leave contractors.
It's simply remove the word non profits.
So, I'm happy, and I will continue to offer this if need be on the house and
on a floor, or we can work out a way to do what I think needs to be done to make this a good bill.
I can take him.
No.
Yes, happy to work with Senator Pimshir.
So thank you for that discussion and for the clarification about municipalities.
That said, I do maintain my objection and will the clerk please call the roll on amendment number three
Representative Hinshaw
No
Representative Holland no
Representative Vance yes
Representative McCabe yes
Representative St. Clair. Yes
Representative Storey. No. Co-chair Carrick.
No
Three A's and Four Nays.
And with three A's and four nays, amendment number three is not adopted.
That brings the underlying bill back before us for consideration.
Final discussion on this bill today before I entertain a motion.
And I'm gonna ask members to try to keep their comments
fairly brief because we are working on a short time frame,
but representative Holland.
Great, thank you and for that reminder, I probably need it.
You know,
I am gonna be in support of the bill and moving it on.
However,
I just want to voice a concern in a request.
that as this bill moves forward, I know the fiscal impacts issue will be particularly important for
the finance committee to work on.
And I have, and I've heard of other members who have concerns with these fiscal notes.
There are 15 fiscal note, eight of them have.
Zero fiscal notes, six of them have a fairly substantial size as well as a seventh one that has got a number of different aspects to its fiscal.
There's a great degree of disparity in the fiscal note and the approach here.
From my standpoint, paying bills on time is something that should not be generating a fiscal not.
This ought to be how the departments are staffed.
generating fiscal note makes no sense. It should take no more time to pay somebody on time as it does to
pay someone late. That's the same amount of work. So I'm supportive of the bill moving on. I feel that
Hope that as this moves on that we will find a way to recognize that the staffing required to pay on time
It's the same work that's been going on. It is the work
That needs to happen in the future and if there's a problem paying on-time
Then let's figure out the workloads and the tools and technology
I think the amendment that
We just put in was a valuable addition because it speaks to the right approach
Which is if they're tools a process that need to be improved
Let's deal with that but to let this bill carry along some notion that
And in some of the departments, a significant increase in staff to just process payments,
I think, characterizes the bill in a way that I hope is not something that carries through
in its final form as it passes out.
My opinion, this shouldn't have a fiscal note on it, but I recognize it.
That's for the Finance Committee, and I look forward to the work there to examine this
in more detail.
Representative St. Clair.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
And contrary, or not contrary but agreeing with my counterpart,
the fiscal notes on the opposite end of the spectrum,
I believe, are indeterminate.
because they just don't know. We would have to go through a time period
and see, okay, how many were late? I've contacted several of the departments
and yes, they were slow getting back to me too. Predominantly,
their numbers of late grants, contracts, and reimbursements
were drastically different than that of The Forker Group.
And I spoke to someone from the forker group, and they stated that they were the ones that originated, no one commissioned it.
I don't think we have all the information that we need right now.
I'm not going to stop it, I am going let it go out of committee because it has another committee referral and I believe in the process.
But as it stands right, now I cannot support this, thank you.
Representative McCabe.
Thanks.
My problem with the culture or chair, Carrick,
I have a huge problem
with automatic payments, automatic penalties.
I think it's a really poor way to do government.
I really do.
And I thing there is a better way
to require that our state government
do its fiduciary responsibilities
and pay the payments on time.
Automatic penalties on us essentially.
We could set up a
Uda loop some sort of a some sorts of loop in there where we could cost ourselves a whole bunch of money
Just by putting something into regulation and now all of the sudden there's this automatic payment there and we caused this
Department to take longer to make a payment and
Now there is an automatic penalty in their for something that we cost. I'm sorry. We can't support doing government that way
Representative Vance, thank you
I have, I think, not to sound very kumbaya-ish.
I, think everyone has highlighted the truth about this bill.
Every statement I hear is very, very valid and true.
But what I
think it's highlighting is that our departments are struggling.
On the fiscal notes, my recommendation is to the bill sponsor that she look at how many available PCNs are there.
That they should not be asking for, they shouldn't be requiring fiscal nodes for additional money.
But how any positions are available that are simply not filled.
That maybe the funding is already there, but they still need the staff to be able to keep up with the workflow.
But, you know, what recruitment and hiring practices has that department done to help
in this area?
We know that we have departments who have made changes that helped with their workflow.
We've heard from Department of Administration, I think, in the OIT, that they have implemented
some of the newer technologies and programs and also AI that has helped streamline some
backlogs and issues. So I appreciate the sponsor bringing this bill forward because I think it's
touching on a broader issue that we're always trying to figure out how to reduce the regulation
and just all of the extra nonsense that is accumulated over time. I am also with Representative McCabe
A penalty like that may not be the best avenue, but I understand the motivation with the bill sponsors trying to accomplish.
So, my recommendation today is to seek out available PCNs and challenge those fiscal notes and find out what a good motivation is for them to be able to meet these deadlines because something obviously needs to change.
I see a few more comments vice chair story, and then we'll go
I've already had one bite of the apple, but I just want to kind of expound on what she said
And more calling in all the time so
Vice chair Story
Yes, thank you through the chair.
I wanted to highlight a discussion we had last time on the bill.
And that is we really were trying to get an idea for how much penalties we are having to pay to private contractors.
And I think having that number, and I'm hoping through some of our audits, we can find that out.
We can see how big of a problem this is, so I appreciate everyone's comments on this.
Thank you.
I want to let the Bill sponsor have the last word, or the.
Yeah, last, I'll take the last representative to the chair.
I looked through based on what representative Vance said.
There are seven PCNs that are requested within these fiscal notes.
So that leads to a question, do they need additional people or
do the need money because they think they're not going to meet it on time?
That would be I just wanted that information to get out this based
Uh, filling vacancies and that's what the money was coming from, not necessarily from late payments. Thank you.
Thank you so much before I let the bill sponsor have the last word
I just want to say you know
I really appreciate the work that this committee has done on this legislation and the thought put into it
I don't think there's disagreement at this table about the state should pay its bills on time
And I'm really hear that I think. There's just different approaches to how we accomplish that
What we heard from our office very loud and clear
from multiple independent municipalities as well as AML,
but what we also heard from
multiple, independent non-profits across the state
and tribal organizations is that the
The carrot approach wasn't working.
Everything they were trying to do to get the state to work with them,
to give them timely information, and to
get prompt payment wasn t effective.
And so this legislation, in some ways,
I look at it as the stick.
This is the other end of that spectrum from a lot of groups,
hundreds of organizations in Alaska that are pretty well at their
So I think there's different approaches to get their House Bill 133 represents one of those ways.
And I can respect some of the challenges.
I would like to see this bill move forward and have a chance to be heard in the Finance Committee.
I want to let Representative Hymshu have the last word though.
Thank you. I'll go as fast as I could.
Thank You, Chair Carrick.
I wanna echo what Chair Carrack just said about this is probably an all of
the above like we need to do everything we can to help make sure that these payments go out on time.
agencies are staffed because they have the training, because we need to make sure that they
have what they need. And then if we can find more carrots, I'm all for it. But at the same time,
it's not going to hurt to have a stick. As far as the idea that it is a bad idea to use a penalty,
I do disagree with that unless we take the penalty for private contractors off the books.
And there's a thing called cruft that I learned at a national conference a couple years ago
where we keep adding regulations and never taking any regulations off that aren't used anymore.
Some states dedicate entire interim committees to going through statute and finding what they can take off.
And I would support that.
But in the meantime, we have a problem.
we're like business, then we need to pay on time.
I am going to turn to Vice Chair Story for a motion at this point.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move that the House State Affairs Committee move CS for
a House Bill 133, also known as 3-4-LS.
0114 backslash l as amended with attached fiscal notes and authorizing legal services to make any
necessary technical and conforming changes.
And there is an objection so I will ask the clerk to please take the role.
Representative Story.
Yes.
Representative Hymshah.
Yes, yes.
Representative Holland.
Yes.
Representative Vance.
No.
Representative McCabe.
No
Representative St. Clair.
No
Representative Co-Chair Carret.
Yes
Four gays, three nays.
With a vote of four yays and three
nayes, House of 133
backslash L has been moved from the House State Affairs Committee.
We'll take a very brief at ease to sign the paperwork.
At ease.
House State Affairs Committee is back on the record.
Next on our agenda is House Bill 81,
Marijuana Conviction Records from Representative David Nelson.
This is our third hearing on this bill
and at our hearing, on Tuesday, January 27,
I set an amendment deadline for Wednesday,
January 28 and received one amendment from my own office,
which I'm going to move now.
I move amendment number one, also known as N.1.
I'll just subject very briefly to say what this amendment is.
It is simply an effective date change,
so that the effective dates becomes January 1, 2027.
It was before January one 2026.
Is there any discussion on this amendments?
Yeah.
I just want to confirm on the record that the bill's sponsor is supportive of the amendment.
To the chair, yes, I am supportive.
Thank you. So I remove my objection. Is there any additional objection?
Seeing none, amendment number one, also known as n dot one is adopted.
And this brings.
This brings House Bill 81 back before us.
Is there any additional discussion on House bill 81 before we entertain a motion?
I'd like to give the bill a sponsor one more opportunity to say why this bill is great.
This bill has been three different sessions in the making.
So I encourage all of you to say yes for workforce development and
for people that have served their time and paid their debt to society.
So thank you so much.
Thank you.
I'm seeing no further discussion.
Vice Chair Story, can I have a motion?
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move that the House State Affairs Committee move House Bill 81,
also known as 3-4-LS 0474 backslash N,
as amended from the committee with attached fiscal notes
and authorizing legal services to make any necessary technical and conforming changes.
Without objection, House Bill 81, as amended,
has been moved from the House State Affairs Committee.
Similarly, to last time, we will save the paperwork
for when we adjourn the meeting.
Thank you, Representative Nelson.
The final item on our agenda today
is a continuation of House bill 124.
on the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority from my office.
At our last hearing on Tuesday, we began a presentation from our ADA Executive Director,
Randy Raro, and took some public testimony.
Today, what I'd like to do because of the time crunch is try to complete public
testimony, I believe we can do that in the
time we have left.
I do not believe we will get to the presentation continuation today, Mr. Raro,
but I would really love to schedule with you at a time that works for you to continue that next week.
Given our time crunch, I'm going to turn straight to public testimony on the legislation
so that we can close that today.
For our public testifiers online, we are going to hold to a very strict two-minute timeline for testimony.
I apologize in advance if I do have to cut you off today.
And I just want to remind folks before we start testimony that you can also email your testimony after today to house.state.affairs at akaledge.gov.
And it will be entered into the public record.
Also, if you have testified previously on this bill, I will not be calling on you again today.
So, just if folks have called in and listed for testimony,
I'm only going to accept the testimony once.
So that said, we have public testimony open currently and we will start with our testifier in the room.
Jim Clark, welcome.
And if you could please just state your name and affiliation if any for the record.
My name is Jim Park, I'm an attorney in Juneau.
I've been representing clients in the natural resource field for 50 years here in
Juneaux and I have been, representing,
I represented the Alaska pulp mill in Sitka for 30 years.
I was Chief of Staff to Frank Murkowski for four years and
several years. So, all of that time I've dealt with ADA and it is our, essentially our industrial
development bank and any attempt to make changes to it necessarily, you're going to have unintended
And I would ask that this bill be held up until you've exhausted all the due diligence you can do with the ADA about concerns you may have.
I think the legislation is premature before you have really done that.
I know of no harder work here and diligent state employee than Randy Ruaro.
I dealt with him for 25 years.
And I know that he will pay attention to your concerns and deal with them.
And, I think that before we risk the unintended consequences that I see,
particularly in Section 7 and 8 of this bill, that you exhaust that lane.
I just am very concerned about the uncertainty you'll cause.
From the Southeastern's point of view, they represent the shipyard in Ketchikan.
I've been working with them on the opportunity for additional processing in Southeast Alaska,
as you'll recall.
There's a bond issue that Aida passed for a processing center in Ketchikan.
It was Senator Stedman's bill, and it is an area where we are looking to combine some
that are, in some cases, can DEC contaminated sites
that we could pick those resources up
and move them to a central processing center in Southeast.
And ADA has kind of taken the ball on this
and had a big meeting in mid-December
that made this a very, very useful undertaking
and getting things started on that opportunity.
So I know your time is short, I won't belabor it.
But I would just ask that this bill be set aside until you have conducted oversight hearings.
You've conducted more due diligence than I think you
have because I thank the risk of unintended consequences here is great.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify.
Thank-you so-much for being here, Mr. Clark.
I really appreciate you waiting to take public testimony.
Thank You.
Thanks, Jim.
We're going to go online now and begin with Carolyn Keller in Fairbanks, and again, please
put your name on the record and present your testimony in two minutes or less.
Yes, this is Carolyn Keller.
I'm a private citizen and calling from Fairbank's.
I wanted to say that I am in favor of the AIDEA Accountability Act.
I think it's valuable to encourage public participation to ensure that it works in
the public interest. I like that board members would be confirmed by the legislature and also
increasing reporting to the Legislature.
I liked the idea of designating a seat on the board for someone from an environmental advocacy
organization. Thank you.
Thank you very much Miss Keller and thank you for testifying next we will go to Jasmine vent in Fairbanks
Did you say Jasmin, sorry, I know I did yes Jasman vent. Thank You. Hi
Good afternoon. My name is Jasmyn vent
I am quick on and you back from the village of Huxia
Born and raised in Alaska and the resident of Fairbanks since 2016, and then on the call today to
express my strong support for HB 124, the IDEA Accountability Act,
and I would like to thank Representative Dookar for introducing this important legislation.
IDA is a state-funded development authority supported by a public dollars
yet it has operated for far too long without sufficient accountability for the people it is
can be especially concerning for Alaska Native communities who are often directly impacted
by large-scale development projects while being excluded from fair and meaningful public
processes.
And I'm at a dogyard right now so it's cute to talk in the background, but oftentimes
So that can be really concerning as it disregards a lot of tribal voices,
even when projects affect tribal lands and subsistence resources.
So I believe that HB 124 would approve accountability by tightening the rules
to prevent conflicts of interest within ADL leadership, ensuring large-scale
projects receive direct legislative review before moving forward and making
ADAs records and decision-making subject to public disclosure laws.
I believe that these changes represent basic standards that should already apply to an
agency with such expansive authority and spending powder, and transparency and legislative
oversight are essential to ensuring development decisions reflect the public interest, not
just private, industrial, primary use.
So to end on that note, I urge to support HB 124 and help ensure ideas accountable to
all the last news, including the Alaska News communities who have long borne the consequences
of decisions made without our consent.
Thank you. I have a good day.
Thank You Miss Fent for your testimony.
We will go now to Rika Mao in Homer.
Thank
you, am I on?
You are. We can hear you
Thank
you I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak to HB 124.
My name is Risa Mao and I'm a private.
to the sense in Homer, I have to say,
I am thrilled that this bill is before you
and being considered an insult support
of the proposed wording to The Language
in the IDA Accountability Act,
because there is a true need for increased accountability
and a more transparent relationship
between the authority and legislature and the public.
This bill is so necessary.
I urge you to pass it through this committee
and onto the next step
and bringing it to the floor of the legislature.
ADA is a public corporation meant to serve Alaskans
and it must answer to accountability, transparency
and a broad input of
the public members of The Authority
that have knowledge and diverse voices.
environmental and public interest projects. I urge you to pass this through the committee
and thank you so much. Thank you. So much Ms. Mao for testifying. We're going to go now to Megan
My submit name is Kigwa and my English name
is Megan Lingo and originally from Keith Warren
of the Chuck Nidey from the Wishby Tom clan.
Our people are sure criticizing on a Kwan land,
Virginia Alaska.
I was born and raised in Alaska,
and I'm calling to support HV124,
the ADI Accountability Act.
For indigenous people in Alaska,
land is not just an economic resource.
Our land are not dollar signs.
Our food system, our culture, and our responsibility to future generations.
We understand ourselves as interconnected with the lambs, the water,
the animals, in each other, when the land is termed or people is
termed, are harmed.
Decisions about roads, mining, industrial development determine whether our children
will be able to hunt, fish, gather, as our ancestors did, or whether those
ADA has put a major role in advancing the Amber Road Project.
This project threatens salmon, caribou, clean water,
and subsistence life ways for many rural and tribal communities.
Yet these decisions are being made by the state authority
with very limited legislative oversight
and very little direct accountability
to the people most affected.
That is unacceptable.
Economic development should not come up
the cost of indigenous sovereignty or subsistence survival.
In public, many have used to push projects that permanently alter land and water,
there must be robust public review and meaningful checks on that power.
HB 124 does not stop development and ensures that it is governed with
transparency, legislative oversight, and respect for the public interest,
including tribal and subsistence communities.
A loss of constitutions of our resources must
be managed for maximum benefit of the people.
Rural communities are a part of that people.
Subsistence users are part
of the people who deserve a seat at the table before
irreversible decisions are made.
I urge you to support HB-124
so that no state authority can use massive industrial projects
forward without accountability to the
people, the land, and future generations.
I'm going to teach for the time and for listening and a special thank you
appreciate your leadership. Thank you, Ms. Lingoll. And thank you for testifying.
I'm going to go now to Grace Kirky in Anchorage.
And just as a reminder for testifiers who may have just called in,
we are keeping to a strict two minute timeline today. So please,
Ms Kirk, if you could provide your testimony in two or fewer minutes.
Hi, my name is Grace Kirky.
I live in Anchorage, Alaska,
and I'm calling to support HB 124.
I really think Alaskans deserve transparency
and stronger oversight.
This is really a common sense step
to strengthen the accountability,
ensure actions align with the needs
and interests of Alascans.
Development should never come
before the expense of public trust.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank-you so-much, Ms. Kirkie, for calling in.
We'll go now to David DeLong in Fairbanks.
Hello, my name is David deLong. I'm in Stairbanks, Alaska.
Am I being heard? We can hear you. Thank you! Oh, thank you, yeah, I am calling in to support
And a member of the general public data is sort of like this black hole that massive amounts of money go into, and we have no idea what's going on, except that in many cases it's projects that the people who will be directly affected are very much against.
Thank you for calling Mr. DeLong and for testifying.
We're going to go now to Teresa Obermeyer in Anchorage.
Representative, can you hear me?
We can, thank you.
Representative Garrett,
can do you here me.
Can you tell me now?
We are testifying
I'm going now, Teresa.
We can't thank you.
Okay.
Representative, can you hear me?
I was.
Can you?
Hear me right now?
Yes.
What does almost do?
We could hear you, I could I turn off my cell phone, how about you to read out?
Remind me.
I turned off myself.
I'm just a breaker.
So.
Representative.
So, Ms. Overmeyer, if you can still hear us, we can hear there's a lot of feedback.
If we will potentially try to come back, but just as a reminder, please.
Also feel free to send your comments to house.state.affairs.akledge.gov, and we will record testimony that way, too.
We're going to go to Don Duncan in Fairbanks.
Well, this is Don Duncan in fairbanks, master guide number 136. I got to in the fairbank in 1975 with $197.
photography guide, I retired when I was 60.
I worked everywhere from the new she got,
Bristol Bay, to the lake top point, dead horse and white horse,
and the Arctic Ocean. That's where 124
is without a doubt. The wolf and sheep's clothing.
The past will be a death by a thousand cuts.
This take relies on resource development, and it's never going to please everyone.
And ironically, the people that are benefiting the most from the oil money and the mineral
money, and resource development, are the
people who get that money.
People with profit from it.
The people we get paid when we don't get our PFD for allotment.
If those that be the one to see, or you to put out a dividend, I suggest you strongly
look at the University of Alaska and start demanding it be one as a for-profit and a
dividend payable.
to the state of Alaska to be positive in the university from the University under the PFD.
The whole road is 50 years old. I'm still waiting for a boat loss to
be built so I can get back to The Arctic Ocean without having a strong arm to
the biggest oil companies in world to get permission to browse through a laptop coin.
It seems to me the testing only given
It's a small business line. It was like I never got from a bank, not one loan in the bank in 50 years.
It doesn't like been something I couldn't use.
It sounds like they're paying off and they'll have any default rates. I think that's the good thing.
I take what Aiden needs to work on is getting us a salmon hatchery for the Yukon River.
Kind of like what they are doing in Wiresworth.
We've started to death while the salmon and cheese aren't coming back.
But one thing for certain, they don't know how many are making it down to the ocean.
So the only choice we got is to build a hatchery and start dumping more and more fish engines
you can create a guide.
Some of them actually come back.
And for those of you that think this process is down in southeast, are a good thing, or
elsewhere, and hatcher is everywhere else but here, I want somebody to tell me who is
to the villages out there that don't have access to fish.
We've been cut off the fish for the last 10 years.
So I'd say be real careful who you want to get a dividend from.
First get it from the University of Alaska.
It is actually doing the best thing it can to bring money
into the state to those that are free loading on it, still get paid.
The university is $100 million in department maintenance behind
department of maintenance and it put a billion dollars in debt.
Start getting a new, start getting the dividend from them.
That's for you Kyle.
Have a good day.
Thank you, Mr. Duncan.
I can offer a little bit of latitude there, but thank you so
much for calling in and for testifying.
We're going to go to Bernie Hoffman in Fairbanks.
Yeah.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me? We can thank you. Thank you, thank
you representative Carrick.
Thank You for you and the others that are brought forth this
this motion.
This is the the HP 124.
There does need to be accountability.
There's been some stuff happening this past summer where my news was transferred and
given away.
We need find out where it's going.
We needed accountability and I'm so glad that it brought this up and it is coming forward.
And yes, the resources need be developed but they need developed in a way that we know
what's happening unlike what is happening in D.C. where we've got the grift and the
corruption.
up to date and let the people know what's happening. So we can make a choice.
Thank you so much for your time and you'll have a great time. I'd be safe down there. Thank
you.
Thank You, Ms. Hoffman. Really appreciate you calling in. And last but not least for folks
that did not get a chance to testify on Tuesday. Again, if you did get
a change to testify, you can still submit written testimony, but we are going to
Last but not least today, we have Jamie Bittmar from Fairbanks.
Hi, everyone. My name is Jamie Dittamar. Can you hear me?
We can. Thank you.
Great. I'm calling in from fairbanks, I am a business owner calling
in terms support of HP 124 because I want to see transparency,
responsible decision-making and accountability in how to use
its public resources.
Specifically, Jay has been spending significant amounts of public money on the AMBA road
projects, including improved $35 million for pre-development work in the recent $50 million
work commitment, plus additional millions allocated for work, in 2024, without law and
legislative oversight, a clear accountability to people of the state.
And this is just for a speculative road project.
Some of public funding are being directed towards a controversial project that many
of us can include in charge of the governance and community leaders do not support the project's
costs and benefits remain uncertain, millions of dollars being authorized about transparent
legislative review, or meaningful public input. In a strong focus on resource development,
especially through its road to resources program is short-sighted because it prior
eventually decline, leaving potential
in bringing the cleaner costs and long-term damage
to public health.
And this is only one example of where it is investing.
That doesn't make sense for Alaska.
So, our reasons I urge the committee
here to support and advance HV-124.
Thank you so much.
Thank You, Ms. Bitmar.
Really appreciate calling and testifying.
Let's try one more time.
Teresa Obermeyer.
Representative Carrick apologized because I was on my computer and my
cell phone previously. I just wanted to commend you, particularly Representative
Carick, for bringing this ADA issue forward. It sounds to me like every person
that is testified is for more accountability of ADA.
Full of this is what we should be doing in our state.
Representative, I truly commend you, and I ask that this committee support this HB 124 and pass it out of committee.
It should approved by the legislature.
Thank you for hearing it.
Thank You, Ms. Obermeyer, thank you working with us through those tech difficulties.
I appreciate you calling in.
And that concludes everybody that's on the list for public testimony today.
At this time, we are going to close public
testimony on House Bill 124.
We did not get to finishing today our presentation
from Executive Director Randy Raro, and so because we did
not, I'm going hold House bill 124 and not set an amendment
deadline today until we're able to finish our dialogue with ADA.
So, at this time, we're just going to be setting House Bill 124 aside and we will take it up next week at a later hearing.
Ashley, is Mr. Raro still online?
Yes, Representative McCabe. Mr Rarro is still on line.
Can we ask a question or do we have some time before?
We don't. We have to adjourned like now.
Calvin can wait.
We're going hold questions just because...
Fine.
I'd rather have a more substantive dialogue when we have the time to get into it.
We'll just do it all on social media.
All right, thanks representative McCain.
So again, we're setting House Bill 124 aside for now.
Seeing no additional items on today's agenda.
This concludes our business for today.
Our next hearing is Tuesday, February 3rd at 3.15 here in room 120.
We will have full two hours at that hearing.
And the agenda for next Tuesday is as follows.
We will finally get to that introduction
of House Bill 202, designating a state vegetable
from Minority Leader Representative Delaina Johnson,
just wanted to be clear about who was sponsoring
that legislation.
do an introduction of House Resolution 6, the USA 250th anniversary from Representative St. Clair,
followed by introduction, of the same similar resolution, HCR9, USA250 from my office. And
with no further business before the committee, we are adjourned at 4.15 pm.