Mark Begich

By Rebecca Logan
Alaska Standard Contributor

The highlight of serving on Mayor Sullivan’s transition team was attending a series of public forums to listen to what citizens of Anchorage had to say about their city. More than 100 people spoke at three different forums that I participated in. People talked about both the good and the bad things that they saw in the city of Anchorage. Read more

By Dave Bronson
Contributor
The Alaska Standard

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, has been confirmed by the Senate. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski wisely voted against Judge Sotomayor, and she explained her vote by detailing Sotomayor’s troubling record. Alaskans should thank Senator Murkowski for standing up for their values on this important vote.

Unfortunately, Mark Begich voted to confirm her. He voted in favor of her confirmation despite the fact that she has one of the most liberal records of speeches and judicial decisions of any Supreme Court nominee in recent history. She has stated that she believes courts are where policy is made, and that judge’s should base their judicial decisions on their gender and ethnicity. She also has a disturbingly bad record on racial quotes and racial preferences, on unlimited abortion on demand, and on the importation of foreign law into U.S. Courts. And she may be the worst nominee in modern history when it comes to the issue of our Second Amendment fundamental right to bear arms. Read more

By Tim Bradner
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Alaska Sen. Mark Begich said he and his colleagues in the Senate are digging into a massive 1,300-page climate and energy bill passed by the U.S. House June 26 to understand its impacts and to put their own imprint on the bill.

"Our first priority is to find out what this bill does to Alaska," Begich said. Read more

By Alex Gimarc

Dave Harbour’s article on our Boy Senator’s proposed Arctic Regional Citizens Advisory Council prompted me to take a deeper look at his so-called five Arctic Climate Change Initiatives. Like any rock you pick up, you are surprised by what scurries out when the light of day is shining underneath.

In a report in the Arctic Sounder on June 18, the five initiatives include: Ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty; ratification of treaty on persistent organic pollutants; creation of the Arctic Regional Citizens Advisory Council; appointment of an Arctic Ambassador; and finally more money (is this unexpected?) for funding arctic science and infrastructure. Read more

By Dave Harbour

Alaska's natural resources are natural treasures, from environmental and economic perspectives. I hope our new U.S. senator successfully balances Alaska's resource potential with appropriate environmental, national security and consumer considerations.

In particular, the federal Minerals Management Service estimates our outer continental shelf holds 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of gas. Developed, this resource would make Alaska the eighth largest oil producer, ahead of Nigeria, Libya, Russia and Norway. Read more

By MANU RAJU
Politico

A series of setbacks in the Senate has Democratic leaders warning their supporters that they won’t be able to accomplish everything they set out to do this year — even if Al Franken joins them as a 60th vote.

With a 59-40 majority — just short of what they need to overcome GOP filibusters — Democrats watched helplessly this week as Republicans blocked the confirmation of one of Barack Obama’s top Interior Department nominees.

They also struggled with the confirmation of one of Obama’s Justice Department picks, witnessed the adoption of an amendment allowing guns inside national parks and suffered major pushback against Obama’s plans to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Read more

By Alex Gimarc

Every now and then, you get a bit of good news out of this congress. On Thursday afternoon, the Senate defeated legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to tear up contracts and rewrite the terms of mortgages. It was called the Cramdown Bill, and as with most things out of the Democrats, would have taken care of their voters (people in homes they can’t afford) and pass the costs on to the rest of us (people who pay their bills, taxes and do not overextend themselves).

Interestingly enough, our Boy Senator, Mark Begich, voted in support of the bill. Our Senior Senator, Lisa Murkowski voted to defeat it. For some reason, Mr. Begich believes that we all ought to have to pay for our neighbors’ fiscal folly with higher interest rates, more volatile mortgages, and an elimination of the Rule of Law for contracts. Read more

By Dan Fagan
Publisher
The Alaska Standard

I've been thinking a lot lately about my friend Mark Begich. I've been hoping to share my heart with him over what I see coming out of Washington, D.C.

It is not a stretch to say I am speaking for tens of thousands of Alaskans when I tell you the policies proposed by our current president terrify me. My fear is if Mr. Obama is successful in implementing all of his radically leftist policies, this country may never recover.

I am disappointed our senator went along with Mr. Obama's pork-filled, special interest-driven, stimulus package. The almost $1 trillion bill does very little to stimulate the job creators in our country but instead is designed to increase government dependency.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the stimulus bill guts most of the historic Welfare Reform Act of the mid '90s. Remember inner city America before this legislation? It was a cesspool of crime and drugs. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 transformed inner city America and dramatically reduced welfare dependency and child poverty. Obama's stimulus package ends those reforms. Read more

By U.S. Senator Mark Begich

Observers say the first few months of this congressional session have been the busiest and most productive in years, as Congress and the new president work together to deal with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and other pieces of major, long-stalled legislation.
In just the four months I’ve been Alaska’s new senator, several major pieces of legislation have passed into law, including an historic Lands Bill, the Fair Pay Act, Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Omnibus Bill, and the budget resolution.

I was pleased to be one of the critical “yes” votes on the Recovery Act, as I believe we have to inject money in our economy to get the economy going and sustain or create new jobs. Alaska is in line for about $1 billion, with 8,000 jobs created or protected, if we take advantage of the money available to our state.

Fortunately Alaska has been sheltered from the worst of the economic downturn, but we are not immune to the national recession. Our state’s unemployment rate reached 8 percent in February, the highest since 1992. And recently we learned that more Alaskans lost their homes through foreclosure than at any time since the oil price crash of the early 1990s. Read more

By Alex Gimarc

Friday a federal appeals court tossed out a 2005 Bush administration plan to open federal waters off the coast of Alaska for drilling. The areas impacted include the Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, and Beaufort Sea. The action tosses the entire plan back to an unwilling and unsupportive Ken Salazar-led Interior Department for additional study.

Opponents of offshore oil and gas exploration include, but are not limited to, the Center for Biological Diversity, Bristol Bay commercial fishermen, and North Slope subsistence whalers.

Last year, federal leases for drilling in the Chukchi brought in nearly $3 billion to the federal treasury. Oil and natural gas experts believe there are trillions of cubic feet of natural gas available for production in the three areas now off limits for exploration. The impact on jobs and revenue for the state of Alaska will be in the vicinity of tens to hundreds of billions of dollars and tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next half century. Read more