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• Position: Alaska State Chamber of Commerce: Advertisement - Brief Article

A report from the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce - The Voice of Alaska Business

The second session of the twenty-second Alaska State Legislature is in progress and the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce, the "Voice of Alaska Business", is actively lobbying for positive and productive legislation on issues of importance to business. Following is a summary of the issues identified by our statewide membership as the highest priorities for legislative action in the legislative session of 2002.

Fiscal Planning

We are urging the Legislature and Administration to adopt and implement a unified long-range fiscal plan for the state. The plan should address a strategy to bring state spending in line with revenues, encourage and promote economic investment and business development, maintain the state's infrastructure by means of a deferred maintenance plan for all state-owned facilities, and further establish performance measures for state services in concert with results-based government.

The fiscal plan should implement a biennial state budget; privatize state services that can be competitively provided by the private sector; promote developmentof new businesses that can competitively provide goods or services currently provided by the state; and utilize a systematic funding mechanism, such as general obligation bonds, to meet the state's capital needs.

Exploration, Development, and Transportation of Oil and Gas in Alaska

We are urging the Legislature and the Governor to continue to support and actively participate in efforts to open the Coastal Plain of ANWR to environmentally responsible oil and gas development and to be receptive to all viable commercialization technologies to develop North Slope stranded gas resources. A review of gas commercialization options should include an analysis that encourages producers to proceed with development of a southern gas line route through Alaska.

We are also urging the Legislature and the Governor to support the 30-year right of way renewal for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Repermitting will allow for the uninterrupted flow of commerce in a pipeline system that has to date transported over 13 billion barrels of oil from the North Slope to the Port of Valdez.

Subsistence

The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce urges the Alaska Legislature to resolve the subsistence issue in 2002 by restoring state management of fish and...