Nearly three months after winning election to the northern Kenai Peninsula’s seat in Alaska House of Representatives, and only two weeks after his last meeting as a member of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly, Bill Elam will on Tuesday be sworn in to the 34th Alaska Legislature.
Speaking in Soldotna on Friday, Elam said transitioning into living and working in Juneau for the coming months requires “so many moving parts.” But, he said, he’s excited to get onto the floor and start legislating.
“I’m hoping it doesn’t get as contentious,” he said. “But I do expect that we’re probably going to wind up going straight to work pretty fast.”
Moving from the assembly to the Legislature, Elam said, means navigating regional differences that can create competing agendas. He gave as an example a solid waste issue that, in the borough, everyone would agree needs to see resolution — “it’s our community, it’s all of us, we pitch in and work together.” He said he’s seen less of that cohesion as he approaches state government.
In the months since the election, he’s waited for certification of the results — which didn’t come until “four weeks of nail biting” after the election — and spent time getting up to speed largely within his caucus.
Elam said that resources, education and fisheries are likely to demand a lot of time and oxygen from the Legislature this session, demanding “a lot of effort and energy” from himself as well.
“We’re going to be looking at another polarizing year if we’re not careful as a legislative body,” Elam said. “I think there’s a consensus that education funding needs to be stabilized.”
The question and the conversation, he said, will be what number can be reached — “a number that I hope is great for our communities.”
Elam said a potential challenge could be the creation of another large omnibus bill, like the Senate bill that was passed by the House and Senate last year before being vetoed by the governor. That bill included an increase to school funding while also creating a new statewide charter school coordinator, providing funding for the Alaska Reads Act and creating an application process for federal funding to boost internet speed in rural schools.
Elam said he’d rather see the issues tackled in smaller chunks.
In addition to stabilizing school funding, Elam said he wants to see assistance for Alaska’s charter schools and bolstering of career and technical education in the state. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District has fairly robust CTE programming and can be an example to other districts and programs, he said. Drawing on his background in information technology, he also cited improvements to broadband and correspondence programs.
On energy, Elam said he understands there may be some need to import gas, but that his preference would be to use Alaska resources. He said he’d support moves to make exploration of Cook Inlet more attractive.
Elam said he’s also excited by recent developments towards the Alaska LNG Pipeline — the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation this month said it was in talks with New York-based Glenfarne Group to potentially lead development on the long-gestating project.
“Everybody was telling me, the whole campaign season, that’s a pipe dream,” Elam said. “A lot of people within the energy area are very excited about this — I’m excited that they’re excited.”
Fisheries, too, were top of mind on Friday, Elam said. He wants to ensure that state biologists maintain management authority over state fisheries, citing opposition to a recent exploration by the National Marine Fisheries Service of listing Gulf of Alaska king salmon under the Endangered Species Act. He said he’d also like to see the State Board of Fisheries meet on the Kenai Peninsula for its Upper Cook Inlet regulatory meeting.
There are other bills, Elam said, to “make things a little better,” that are also on his mind. Among those are policy for labor and transportation, cybersecurity, agriculture and education efficiency.
Specifically, Elam described liability protections for IT professionals, improvements to bandwidth and infrastructure, and improvements to policy to increase trust in elections.
“I think there’s some things that I can add value there,” he said.
Elam said he’ll be “diving headlong” into the Legislature, seeking to pick up experience, get his bearings and “figure out how we work together to get some of this done and build a good brand for the Legislature.”
For more information about the upcoming legislative session, visit akleg.gov.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
