In his address to an early January RDC breakfast meeting, Senate President Charlie Huggins challenged RDC members to get engaged and make their views known to our elected leaders in Juneau. In late January, over 40 RDC board members did just that spending two days discussing RDC priorities and concerns with the legislature, the Governor and key administration officials.

This session RDC’s top legislative priorities are all focused on increasing investment to grow our resource-based economy. To continue to attract the investment needed to grow our resource industries, we need: tax policies for oil and gas and all our resource industries that encourage investment; science based regulatory programs that protect public resources without unnecessary burdens and delays; and a legal system that holds all parties accountable for their actions including those that routinely use the courts to frustrate the State’s constitutional mandate to use its resource wealth for the benefit of all Alaskans.

The majorities in the 28th legislature along with the Parnell administration are well aligned with RDC’s priorities, but Alaskans can’t merely sit back and assume our lawmakers will craft the public policy changes needed to keep Alaska vibrant.

RDC members need to stay engaged to help steer the ship of state to ensure our best days are yet to come. In his RDC address, Senate President Huggins stressed that we shouldn’t wait to be asked, that we should push information that we have to make the legislature more capable of addressing investment in this great state of Alaska and help elected leaders understand what it takes to bring investment into our State for the benefit of Alaskans.

The RDC board and staff routinely communicate with elected officials, but our real strength is in the voices of our diverse membership. I’m challenging you all to become champions of Alaska’s future. Here’s how:

• Become informed. This newsletter, akrdc.org, and our bimonthly breakfast meeting presentations (available online) are all great ways to stay current on important issues facing our state.
• Answer the call of the RDC action alerts. Because we know your time is valuable, we don’t pull the trigger on action alerts unless we know your voice is needed to shape an important policy decision. If you don’t answer the call, others with a very different vision for Alaska may be speaking for you.
• Know who represents your house and senate district and engage them by phone, email or public opinion message. Encourage longer-term thinking. The legislature by its nature operates within two and four year election cycles, and often a longer view is needed.
• Perhaps most important, communicate with your friends and neighbors on why the health of our resource industries affects us all, regardless of vocation. Too often important issues like oil tax reform are framed as solely an industry issue. Industry will respond to the policies Alaskans establish, it is in every Alaskans interest to ensure we have a policy that supports growth, not one that accepts and manages decline.

Governor Parnell, and the 28th legislature under the skilled leadership of Senate President Huggins and House Speaker Chenault are poised to make some critical course corrections to ensure Alaska’s best days are ahead. Be a champion for Alaska’s future and get engaged to help them move Alaska forward.

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