Peggy's Corner of the House

Hello and welcome to week three of Peggy’s Corner of the House.

I introduced a Legislative citation this week designating February as American Heart Month in Alaska. This also recognizes the American Heart Association and their efforts in reducing cardiovascular disease in Alaska. This year the AMA is focusing on encouraging citizens and especially women to recognize the warning signs of a heart attack or stroke.

The Resource Committee has been very busy this week.

HB 80, Governor Parnell’s bill dealing with cruise ship wastewater discharges, came before the Resource committee. The Department of Environmental Conservation gave an overview of the bill, which would remove the end of pipe water quality requirements for cruise ship wastewater discharge. Under this legislation, ships with over 250 berths would be able to use their current advanced wastewater treatment systems (AWTS) and the dilution effect of designated mixing zones to ensure their discharge is compliant – this is not a change from what they are currently doing. This bill does NOT change clean water standards or the criteria for a mixing zone. The ships will still continue to meet the federal and Alaska standards for clean water. The committee heard a diverse range of pro and cons through public testimony and correspondence. Ultimately we decided to pass HB 80 onto the next committee.

Also in Resources we are currently hearing HB 77 – this is another bill from Governor Parnell intended for streamlining the Department of Natural Resources water permitting and land exchange processes. We will be looking at all aspects of this bill to ensure that these reforms do not inhibit due process for the public. We will also see if it does indeed create efficiencies while still protecting our environment and allowing for responsible development - which is what we all want!

In the Education Committee this week we heard from Pat Gamble, the president of the University of Alaska statewide system. He delivered an overview of the university organization and provided us with a performance report card.

I am pleased to report there are over 34,000 students within our statewide university system and most of the certification and degree programs are trending upward. The rural student distance program continues to have challenges with internet bandwidth but that is something that continues to evolve and more progress is made each year. The University has been growing their public/private partnerships to help train our local workforce.

In Juneau there is the Center for Mine Training that is partnered with the mining industry. It is my understanding that a similar program is underway for implementation on Prince of Wales and in Ketchikan. In Dillingham the university is training nurses that are then hired locally. I am hopeful we will see more expansion on these types of partnerships including with the Alaska Ship & Drydock. Training our workforce is crucial to the future in Southeast and across the state. We want Alaskans to be qualified for the jobs that we see coming in the future and we do not want employers to go outside our state to get their workforce. I am in full support of these types of partnerships within our communities to train our workforce for jobs in local industries.

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That’s all for now from Peggy’s Corner of the House. I’ll talk to you next week. http://www.peggywilson.com