Here is a sampling of Alaska editorials:
Oct. 26, 2018
Ketchikan Daily News: AK’s vital statistics
Numbers can tell stories, as is made clear once again by?Alaska’s annual report of vital statistics.
On Thursday, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services’ Health Analytics and Vital Records Section released the 2017 report, which contains more than 60 pages of numbers and other information about births, deaths, marriages and separations that occurred in Alaska during that year.
Included within the report, for example, are the most popular baby names bestowed that year.
According to the report, Emma was the most popular name given to baby girls in 2017, followed by Olivia, Aurora, Isabella, Evelyn and Sophia.
James was the most popular name on the boys side, followed by Liam, William, Wyatt, Noah, Oliver and Logan.
2017 was less productive, so to speak, than the preceding year. Alaska mothers delivered 10,447 live births during 2017 - down from 11,216 in 2016, according to the report. A total of 755 of the 2017 live births occurred in the Southeast Alaska public health region, which was sixth among the state’s seven public health regions. Anchorage topped the list with 4,128 live births that year.
The 2017 month with the most deliveries was September, with a total of 934, according to the report.
That’s just scratching the surface of detail available about Alaska births in the 2017 report. The other categories also have significant levels of detail, but here are a few basics.
The old saw about Alaska having more males than females continued to be true in 2017, with the estimated overall population of 737,080 containing 379,423 males and 357,657 females.
There were 5,123 marriages and 2,680 separations in Alaska during 2017, according to the report.
A total of 4,415 deaths were recorded, with cancer noted as the leading cause of death in the state. Cancers were deemed responsible for 908 deaths during 2017, an age-adjusted rate of 136.2 deaths per 100,000 population, according to the report. Heart disease was second, responsible for 799 deaths during 2017 in Alaska.
It’s appropriate that the State of Alaska collects and maintains databases of these types of information. A one-year report like the one published on Thursday provides an interesting snapshot. Combining that data with information from previous years provides trends - the stories about the cycles of life here in the Last Frontier. This can inform our understanding of Alaska society and help us identify and develop solutions to issues that we face.
Take a look for yourself. The Alaska Vital Statistics 2017 Annual Report is available in the Data and Statistics page of the Alaska Division of Public Health website at http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/VitalStats/Pages/data/default.aspx. You might be amazed at what can be learned.
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Oct. 27, 2018
Anchorage Daily News: Ballot Measure 1 is wrong for Alaska
Fish, and particularly salmon, are Alaska’s signature renewable natural resource. Since before statehood, protecting fisheries has been a key tenet of self-determination for Alaskans. Over-harvest of fish via traps at the mouths of salmon streams were a major driver for Alaska statehood, as outraged residents sought protections that would prohibit unsustainable fishing techniques.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that a ballot measure revolving around fish management has been a political flashpoint this election season. The motivations of many of the measure’s supporters come from a noble place, the goal of greater protection for Alaska salmon. But the practical impact of Ballot Measure 1 would be this: Improvement in salmon habitat would not be meaningful, but the negative impact on Alaska’s economy would be substantial. Our state can’t afford that.
Ballot Measure 1 is far too complex a mechanism to expect most voters to be able to make a fully informed decision in the voting booth. The initiative is a full eight pages of legal jargon. The percentage of those who read the entire measure before voting will be in the single digits; the percentage of people who understand it will be even smaller.
Recognizing this, the opposing sides of the Ballot Measure 1 debate have run as far in the other direction as possible and oversimplified the options to a pair of three-word slogans: “Stand for Salmon” with a yes vote, or “Stand for Alaska” by voting no. That doesn’t offer much information - or much comfort - for the vast majority of us who believe we stand for both.
And really, those aren’t our options. Approving the ballot measure would institute a new, much more rigorous permitting process for projects - whether resource development, transportation or municipal infrastructure - that could have an impact on water where fish could live. One of the most disruptive changes in the proposal is that all of Alaska’s waters would be presumed to contain migratory fish until proven otherwise - and proving a negative is a long, costly process. It would also put limits on the kind of mitigation efforts projects could make to offset that impact. And, crucially, it would also provide several new steps in the permitting process that would allow for obstructionist lawsuits if people or environmental groups weren’t satisfied that enough was being done, or to simply delay or derail good projects.
Effectively, this would hamstring any development opposed by a group or individual with deep enough pockets, as they would have an excellent chance at keeping it tied up in court long enough that it would become uneconomic, regardless of actual impacts on fish habitat.
In addition to threatening new projects, Ballot Measure 1 would threaten existing infrastructure that Alaska has relied on for decades. Most of the hundreds of habitat permits that have been issued for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, Red Dog Mine, the Dalton Highway and every other major project on the North Slope and beyond have to be re-issued every five years. Each of those renewals would be subject to these new regulations, adding unnecessary cost, burden and uncertainty to good projects that have proven themselves to be in Alaska’s best interest.
The choice Alaskans have as we enter the polls this year is not between strong protection for salmon and no protection. It is between the system we have, which has successfully provided for sustainable fisheries for six decades of statehood, and a new system that would greatly harm economic development for scant - if any - additional benefit to fish.
Alaska’s salmon have had a tough year. But biologists tell us the problems affecting salmon returns lie in the Pacific Ocean, where Alaska’s laws don’t apply and we can offer no protection to the salmon that will one day return to our streams. Fresh-water habitat has been scrutinized, and not one study has shown that a properly permitted project has impacted salmon returns. Tightening salmon stream restrictions for a problem that takes place at sea would be like buying a security system for your barn to stop wolves from eating your sheep in the pasture.
For most Alaskans, the motivation to protect a signature natural resource is a default inclination, and a noble one. But Ballot Measure 1 isn’t the right way to protect our salmon and other migratory fish. Those salmon have been amply protected by our laws, regulations and the biologists at the Department of Fish and Game for nearly 60 years of statehood. Imposing an overreaching system of regulation such as the one proposed by Ballot Measure 1 won’t help fish, and it will hurt our state’s recovering economy. Looking behind the bumper sticker slogans, the truth is clear: we can “Stand for Salmon” and “Stand for Alaska” by maintaining the existing permitting system. When Alaskans vote Nov. 6, we should vote no on Ballot Measure 1.
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Oct. 28, 2018
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Oil is not a cure-all for fiscal problems
The price of a barrel of Alaska North Slope crude oil sat at $83.86 at the beginning of the month. On Thursday the price had fallen to $76.68 per barrel, according to the Alaska Department of Revenue. It was $73.98 on Aug. 1, $79.54 on July 2 and $72.89 on June 1. It started the year at $66.50 on Jan. 2.
And one year prior to that the price of a barrel of North Slope crude sat quite a bit lower at $53.59.
Now comes the news in the up-and-down world of the global oil market that the oil supply stockpiles are burgeoning. The Reuters news service reported Friday that “U.S. production is soaring, boosted by technological advances that have enabled drillers to tap shale formations, with output this year forecast to overtake the previous annual record in 1970.”
CNBC had this to say on Friday: “At the start of October, oil prices were rising on signs that U.S. sanctions are shrinking Iran’s crude exports faster than anticipated, potentially leaving the world with a shortage of oil. The sanctions are expected to cut crude exports from Iran, OPEC’s third-biggest oil producer, by about 1 million barrels per day. But concerns about faltering demand and rising output from OPEC and Russia now have traders focused on potential oversupply.”
Prices have tumbled in recent days. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, the crude oil benchmark, has fallen nearly 12 percent so far this month, according to Reuters. The price of Brent crude has fallen 10.5 percent in the same period.
Low oil prices are good for the consumer, of course. It means lower prices for gasoline and diesel - and just in time for the holidays.
But a low price isn’t so good for the state of Alaska, which relies heavily on oil industry revenue to fund government operations.
Why mention this now? Because the Nov. 6 election is drawing near and candidates for governor and seats in the Legislature are on the campaign trail offering their solutions for fixing the state’s recent and continual budget gaps, which have at times have been in the billions of dollars.
It is foolish for a candidate to base his or her solution to the fiscal gap on the idea that oil prices will hold steady for the long term at an amount that allows Alaska, assuming stable oil production levels, to close its budget gap without finding either additional revenue, making more budget cuts, or further drawing down its rapidly depleting savings account. The constitutional budget reserve account, which just a few years ago held more than $10 billion, now holds only about $1.7 billion.
For the years ahead, state revenue officials wrote in their spring revenue forecast that their estimate for unrestricted revenue from fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2026 has increased by between $124 million and $213 million annually. That’s due in part to an increase in both prices and production.
That’s certainly a good thing for the state and its budget.
The spring revenue book forecast is based on an annual North Slope crude price of $61 per barrel for fiscal 2018 and $63 for fiscal 2019. Those estimates are increases of $5 and $6, respectively, over the fall 2017 revenue forecast. But the forecast also wisely includes other price scenarios, which show either annual revenue declines of a few hundred million dollars or increases of a couple of billion dollars.
The spring forecast states that oil prices will stabilize in the low $60s per barrel over the long term.
That prediction, however, is followed by this important caveat:
“Predicting future prices is inherently uncertain and this publication includes a table with alternative price projections and their associated revenues.”
And that is something that Alaskans and those campaigning for elected office should always remember when talking about oil prices. The dollar per barrel moves around - sometimes a lot and in a rapid manner, influenced by events both domestically and foreign. That happened again last week.
Oil isn’t the cure-all of the state’s fiscal ailment. Although it remains a good part of the recovery regimen, it’s price volatility always needs to be considered.
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