Foreign Interests Attack Alaska’s Voice
Here it comes. We knew it would happen. Because it always does.
This time, the Alaska citizens’ initiative that’s in the cross-hairs of multinational corporations is the August 28th Ballot Prop #2, which would bring back Alaskans’ ability to have input into decisions made regarding management of our coastline. Local input. Kind of a no-brainer. Coastal Zone management worked fine for decades, but recently the Parnell administration and big moneyed interests let it go… Now, we have no say, even though we have more coastline than the rest of the nation combined. It’s all up to the feds.
Makes no sense to you? There’s a good reason for that – it actually makes no sense. That is, of course, unless you’re one of those giant multinationals who care about nothing but development at all costs – local input be damned. They’d rather deal with federal agencies they’re used to, than spunky, smart, local Alaskans who actually have a stake in their own backyard. Those real people can be scary, and they can interrupt the bigger agenda.
The latest Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) report confirms that opposition to Alaska’s coastal zone management ballot initiative is funded largely by Outside sources. Shocking, I know.
Alaska Sea Party co-chair Terzah Tippin Poe said. “We assumed all along big Outside money would oppose our local voices, but we didn’t expect such a huge flood of non-Alaska funding. These mostly foreign companies are opposing Alaskans having a say in how our coastal lands are managed. They are trying to buy this election any way they can.”
So far, Outside entities have contributed nearly 70% of the whopping $767,000.00 in the opposition’s campaign war chest. More than half a million dollars came from companies headquartered outside Alaska and some even outside the U.S. There is also sneaky funding which appears to be from Alaska, but can be traced to non-Alaskan sources. For example, fourteen of the fifteen member companies of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association are based outside of Alaska.
Those who would like it if Alaskans didn’t get a say in how we manage our own coastline have thus far gotten more than ten times the amount of donations than what has been raised by the grassroots Alaska Sea Party. Shell Oil of the Netherlands gave a staggering $150,000. Four Canadian-owned mining companies gave a total $135,000 (International Tower Hill Mines, Ltd., owners of the Livengood prospect; Kinross Gold Corporation, which owns the Fort Knox mine near Fairbanks; and Barrick Gold Corporation and NovaGold Resources, Inc., owners of the Donlin gold mine). Barrick Gold is also the force behind the proposed massive Chuitna coal project right across the Inlet from Anchorage. An Idaho-based mining company contributed $75,000.
Even though these numbers are already staggering, they’re likely to increase. The next report will be issued August 21, 2012.
“If this pattern holds, the next APOC report will be even more unsettling,” Poe said.
“Alaskans need to recognize this is unprecedented. If Outsiders succeed in defeating our proposal, this will be the first time corporations have just walked in, written a few big checks, bought an election, and driven the policy decisions of an entire state. It’s stunningly blatant, arrogant, and aggressive.”
Support for the grassroots effort to reinstate coastal management to Alaska is far more widespread and locally based. More than 200 Alaskans from around the state have provided the Yes on 2 campaign 99.7% of their funds, amounting to just over $64,000 by the July reporting period deadline.
“We’re lucky so many individual Alaskans support coastal management, not only with their dollars but especially with their voices” Alaska Sea Party co-chair Bruce Botelho said. “Over 30,000 Alaskans signed the petition to get the initiative on the ballot, it has 280 co-sponsors, and is supported by the majority of Alaska’s mayors and hundreds of Alaska organizations.
“Our opponents may throw all kinds of big Outside money at us, but Alaskans know what’s right and what’s best for the state in the long term.
“Big business can try to buy this election, but we trust Alaska voters to see through their scheme. They have three individual donors; we have 200. David can defeat Goliath one more time. Our message is Alaska is not for sale.”
Remember to VOTE YES on #2, VOTE YES for Alaska’s voice, VOTE YES for our coast.
Prop 2 will be on the PRIMARY ballot on August 28th.
DONATE HERE to add your voice to the voices of real Alaskans.
People stop giving your powers away…gather and file a Class Action Lawsuit on the State of Alaska…
Money is the root of all evil, right? Sad that outside interests can come in and take over to get their profits, then leave a big mess for others to clean up years later. I hope that does not happen in this case.
I shall revisit the history of Alaskan Coastal Zone Management. I first became aware of its ramifications during the era when ANILCA was being implemented. At that time many, many indigenous Alaskans did not understand what had just happened. Fortunately ANILCA did intervene between fast talking, booze lying development types and Alaska Natives and local coastal communities.
From my observations over this time, 1980s to today, while it got off to rocky starts it did necessitate development types, including Alaska Native Corps. (ANC), to look longer range as opposed to short term rape and plunder of Coastal Zones that can never be restored, once destroyed.
This ugly (by the opposition) campaign concerning CZMP in contemporary Alaska, is a definite and critical window for Alaska’s people to declare their willingness and capability to lead this practice for a collaborative and cohesive consensus for Alaska’s Coastal Management.
I have mentioned this elsewhere. Cruise the docks in our fishing communities for registered Alaska voters. Help get them absentee ballots. Follow thru to ensure those votes are mailed.. The fleets of subsistence, commercial and recreational fishers just must be counted to reestablish the dialogue. N
urban and rural need to be divided,we take whats on our feet,and urbans can have all the pavement they want from the feds.
At a coastal zone hearing in Kodiak a few weeks ago, very few people were able to attend because so many were out of town at the height of salmon season. Unfortunate timing for a fishing town …
There were about 30 people at the hearing. When it came time for testimony, all of these unfamiliar faces approached the microphone to speak against Prop 2. Turns out, they were from the mining industry, oil and gas industry, State chamber of Commerce and the Resource Development Council — all visiting Kodiak during a week of the snottiest, crappiest weather of the summer (Lt.Gov Treadwell wasn’t able to make it in due to weather but conducted the hearing via speaker phone).
Of course these people have a right to provide their testimony – but it bothered Kodiak residents that they sort of ambushed our coastal community’s hearing. Their biggest ‘concern’ was how ‘poorly written’ the initiative is.
My God, Parnell is constantly filing lawsuits against the feds and telling them to butt out of Alaska’s business — but he is willing to hand over management of our coastline to the feds — and squelch the voice of the people??? Aaaarrggghhhhh!
And let’s not forget that Parnell also sided with Pebble in its lawsuit to try to keep lake & Peninsula voters from being able to go to the polls to protect the region’s salmon.
Vote YES to have a say in the future of Alaska’s coastline — by doing so, Alaskans will be thumbing their noses at Capt. Zero, the Koch brothers and the mega PACs.
One response to the argument of bureaucrats writing the regulations to implement (scary for us, not so much for the diehard developers) is that it is the Parnell administration with all their pro development stances that will write the regulations. Since the GOP and development crowd has made sure they are on the inside, what are they afraid of? These regulations will go through the normal publication and comment processes.
In the normal course of legislative work, a bill is written with implementing statutes. All regulations are written and submitted for public review and comment long after the legislature provides the implementing legislation.
All you hear from Parnell and friends is about State’s rights and each state should make its own decisions on a variety of issues. Here you have an initiative that is locally based and wants local input and the GOPers and developers are saying NO! What gives? Why the hyprocisy?
Yes. What gives?
Especially what gives in a state which planned for maximum autonomy and authority for local governments in our state constitution?
In a state where Dillon’s rule does not call the shots between local and state governments?
It’s the right for local input which scares them.
The right for local plans being considered.
Pffft
Big business shows its worst side when it spends money to defeat a citizen initiative that allows communities to have a voice regarding development along their coasts. If mooses could vote, we’d vote YES on 2. Go people of Alaska!
Welcome to the melee`..the pristine farmable lands almost to the ..last one..around us..have had realestate types..covering them with subdivisions since 1959,then amp the routines to gentrification. One hopes the alaskan citizens..pause long enough to..’watch the future ..say 5 years’..unfold..before they walk into a voting booth later. My heart and hopes..are with you.
My voice joins with yours. YES on 2! Speaking to your post, juneaudream, I’ll paraphrase the quote from a farmer’s kiosk at my local Greenmarket: Once we lose agricultural land to development, we never get it back.