EDITOR'S NOTE: Les Gara is an Alaska State House Representative. This commentary appeared in his legislative e-newsletter on June 29, 2011.

I’m not a big fan of failure, and not a big fan of spending money on wasted special sessions.  I’ve now voted three times, including yesterday, to pass the Coastal Zone Management bill that passed the bipartisan Senate Monday, but surprisingly failed by three votes in the House yesterday.  Failure to pass the bill gave away a big piece of state sovereignty to the federal government.  Click here for a link to my speech on the House Floor on why I believed the bill should pass, or read the text at the end of this newsletter.  

For all the talk we hear from the governor and others who say they want to stand up to the federal government, their opposition to this bill gave the Feds the farm. The bill, if it passed, met every FOX TV talking point we hear -- local control, state control instead of federal control, and quicker project permitting.  But most House Republicans voted against it. Here’s what was at stake, and what happened, and why I think Alaskans were “Lucy and the Footballed” -- again.

The Coastal Zone Management bill would have required state development laws to apply on coastal federal waters and lands; and would have required that local communities be given a voice at the table. By failing the bill, the federal government will now exclusively apply federal law to those projects, and those decisions will be made by bureaucrats who largely don’t live in Alaska, don’t understand Alaska fisheries and communities, and don’t necessarily share our interest in moving forward with responsible development. Communities won’t have their concerns aired before state representatives (under the bill's local comments, on fishing stream protection or other matters, could have been incorporated into a development project plan, but only if those concerns were consistent with state development and resource laws).  Now they’ll be allowed to comment, largely in writing, to federal officials who have the power to ignore their comments, and ignore state law.

When I was asked to go down for special session, I was told that we had 27 votes in the House for the special session on the very bill that failed.  I assumed that meant we had 27 votes. So did everyone in the Senate. I wouldn’t have gone down to Juneau if I knew we’d be playing “Lucy and the Football.” We went to kick the winning field goal, and the football was removed just in the nick of time to give away state control over these projects. 

It didn’t help that at the last minute oil industry members’ organization, “the Alliance” and the Alaska Miners Association wrote letters in opposition to the bill. I don’t know if that changed any votes, but these companies have now bought themselves slower permitting by federal bureaucrats instead of faster permitting under state law -- all because they didn’t want local communities to have a seat at the table. 

Maybe oil companies didn’t want to hear about strong oil spill contingency planning, or mining companies didn’t want to hear about project amendments aimed at protecting local fishing waters.

So -- basically, failing this bill gives Alaska’s destiny on development projects to the federal government, and cuts out the voices of local Alaskans, and the application of our state’s laws on development. In addition it will slow down development projects. Every Democrat and four Republicans voted for the bill. Eighteen Republicans voted to end the program. The bill failed on an 18-18 vote -- with four people who wouldn’t have changed the outcome absent.