Energy Policy: What short-term solutions do you offer towards immediate emergency gas-price relief…especially for places like Rural Alaska, Fairbanks and Juneau? What long-term solutions do you see in Alaska’s/the country’s energy future and what steps will you take to get there?

A friend told me yesterday that his gas bill for a commute from the Mat-Su to Anchorage will be more than $500 a month. Every time I go to the grocery store, the cost of food goes up and up. Fairbanks has declared an energy emergency. Juneau saw prices increase five-fold when an avalanche took out its power polls. Kenai has shutdown Agrium and its good-paying jobs because they couldn’t afford to run it on Cook Inlet gas any longer. And in rural Alaska – prices will soar when the next fuel barges arrive; heating oil keeps setting record prices, in too many villages the cost for electricity pushes closer to a dollar per kilowatt hour. This is all happening as oil goes past $140 a barrel and the state is awash in a budget surplus.

The goal for energy policy is energy security and energy independence – to make sure that energy bills don’t break the budgets for Alaska families and Alaska businesses, and that high prices don’t strangle choices and opportunities.

Short-term solutions include a combination of structural changes to prices, conservation, and local energy production. In addition, we must continue funding and improve the state Power Cost Equalization (PCE) program.

Structural changes include state coordination of bulk fuel purchases, so that communities are guaranteed the lowest possible price for energy. It also includes payment of utility infrastructure debt, so that consumers won’t pay have to include interest payments as part of their fuel bills – when the state paid off the remaining $2 million on Cordova’s hydro project, it took a load off Cordova’s fuel bills.

Conservation can have an immediate impact. Juneau responded to its price jumps by cutting back on consumption, and was able to scale back power use considerably. The state put $300 million towards a weatherization program that will improve the thermal efficiency of homes across Alaska, reducing energy costs. There are a lot of options for conservation – for example, work at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center shows that we can build or retrofit structures to make them much more efficient.

Local energy production offers both short and intermediate term answer to energy costs. Every time we import a dollar’s worth of diesel, we export a dollar and export a job. It’s time to innovate, to be bold, to invest in transformative technology so that we’re never held hostage to global energy markets again. We all hope to bring North Slope gas on line (or from other sources, including Nenana Basin or Cook Inlet), or oil from new fields. We also have considerable sustainable, renewable energy sources. We could put wind power in the eighty villages that have a good resource for approximately $150 million. Cook Inlet has the largest tides in the United States, and Alaska has 90 percent of the country’s tidal potential. There are in-river hydro opportunities all around. Geothermal energy, whether small scale like Chena Hot Springs, or large scale, such as Mt. Spurr, makes great sense – the country of Iceland gets 95 percent of its power from geothermal sources. 160 communities could make use of biomass – in some areas we’re already converting wood to energy, capturing methane gas at the downs, and turning fish waste to a diesel equivalent. And, occasionally (not often enough this summer!), solar power is part of the energy mix of solutions.

Price relief assistance can come in many forms. Emergency business loans and tax breaks for investment in conservation and energy production can change the economics of family and business decisions. Energy assistance, such as Gov. Palin has proposed can help stressed family budgets as the state bridges to longer term energy solutions.

Longer-term solutions build on these initiatives. Energy is at the core of my campaign for Congress. I have long made it a focus – I was the first lawmaker in Juneau to propose a statewide energy plan. I led the way in promoting renewable energy resources (and in the private sector set up an alternative energy company), and I believe that developing the right resources offers full spectrum solutions to many of the issues that confront America. Doing energy right means lower cost utility bills and jobs. It means taking the responsible course on climate change, and it helps free American foreign policy from its dangerous addiction to foreign oil. It means energy security and energy independence.

Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault: Do you have a plan to address and provide solutions to protect the mostly women and children affected by this chronic problem? Can you address solutions especially geared towards the Alaska Native Community considering the frighteningly high number of Native victims in proportion to their population?

Too many lives, too many families have been shattered by domestic violence and sexual assault. I worked on too many cases with too many victims, and know that this violence casts a dark, dark shadow over Alaska. The statistics impersonally convey the extent of the problem.

I know the humanity from experience.

I remember the dignity of a young woman, raped repeatedly, under circumstances too horrific to recount here. I remember the strength of an abuse victim, so badly beaten, her face swollen, her arm broken, supported by two officers as she made her way to the witness stand to testify against her attacker.

Those experiences as a prosecutor, my work with the Criminal Justice Assessment Commission, and my time in the state legislature make it clear that any effort to reduce crime depends on implementing a comprehensive strategy linking prevention, policing, prosecuting, and prison. It depends on making sure that victims can have a voice, and that they receive the counseling and treatment needed. It means making sure that government provides adequate resources so we can break these cycles of violence

Rural Alaska suffers disproportionately because it lacks so much.

There is simply not enough law enforcement in the Bush – more than eighty villages don’t have even a VPSO. There is a lack of drug and alcohol treatment, and a lack of probation and parole officers to help offenders reintegrate into communities. Too many places in Alaska lack a complete justice system. And too many rural Alaskans fall easy prey to predators when they come to our larger cities because the support they should have, the deterrence that should exist, and the prevention measures that should be in place are simply lacking.

Campaign Finance: Senator Barack Obama, as the new leader of the Party has told the DNC that they are no longer permitted to accept money from lobbyists or PACs. For his own campaign, this requirement has been so stringent he’s returned small, personal donations to anyone who identifies him/herself as a “lobbyist” of any kind. Will you be incorporating that directive into your own campaign and refusing money from these sources?

Time and again I stood up in Juneau for campaign finance reform. For limits from big money, against easing restrictions on lobbyists – for more accountability and more transparency in our political process, and for measures that defended the integrity of institutions against corruption.

Those are the principles I have imparted to my campaign.

It’s about more than PACs. I believe that working families, and not just the wealthy, should have a voice in the political process and am proud to accept the support of labor unions. I am honored to receive the support of members of Congress. I am grateful that supporters of groups like Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign have found a way to pool their resources and support my candidacy.

I will continue to speak out for public financing of campaigns. I will continue to oppose corporate participation in the political process, and I will continue to be a proven voice for ethical government.

Earmarks: While the use of earmarks by Senator Stevens and Congressman Young has given Alaska a black eye throughout the rest of the country, that practice has also made them popular with many Alaskan businesses as well as individuals. Do you think it’s possible to juggle Alaska’s dependence on earmarked government projects without making some of those same mistakes and/or further damaging Alaska’s reputation? If so, how will you accomplish that?

Alaska’s next member of congress has the challenge of restoring trust and transparency, of making sure that the public interest, not special interest is served. Against that backdrop, earmarks can serve a useful purpose. Take the Denali Commission, for example.

The federal bureaucracy sometimes fails to move quickly enough, or be flexible enough to respond to uniquely Alaskan conditions. Earmarks — discretionary spending — can correct those sort of problems. We just need to know who asked for them, that there is a clear process to examine them, and that they are not used to reward contributors and supporters.

How would you end our occupation of Iraq? Would you recommend getting out completely or maintaining a long-term presence? Would you pull out the contractors and other civilians as well? How long do you think it would take?

The troops who have served in Iraq have performed with great courage and achieved military victory. Our entire country should express gratitude for their effort and sacrifices. However, a continued military presence in Iraq is not in America’s best interests. Winning in Iraq calls for more than military success – it calls for diplomatic and economic success. A recent White House assessment to Congress reports satisfactory progress on 15 of 18 benchmarks of progress. That’s victory. Further advances are up to the Iraqis, and it’s time for our troops to come home.

A continued presence compromises America’s ability to protect American interests.

It drains our military resources – talk to returning Guardsmen who’ll tell you that our equipment is beat, or to those who’ve served in Afghanistan and about how we need more troops to fight the Taliban and to go after the terrorists along the Pakistani border.

It’s exhausting our economic strength – at a time when we have to compete with China and India, the value of the dollar has plunged, our trade deficit has soared, we haven’t made the investments we need in 21st century infrastructure, and the American economy teeters on recession. I will always remember the conversation I had with a soldier who was worried about going back to Iraq, and worried about finding a job when he came home.

It undermines our ability to demonstrate diplomatic leadership – historically, our reputation gave us the moral authority to launch and land diplomatic initiatives that brought ceasefires, and even peace to troubled spots around the globe.

In short, a long-term presence makes these problems worse, and injures long-term American interests. We should withdraw with all deliberate speed.

Veterans: The treatment of our Veterans is not just a recent problem as the VA has been chronically under funded for decades. This has precipitated questionably ethical money-saving practices by the agency such as forcing their employees to remain “temporary” so they don’t have to pay benefits. Veteran’s care has often been the first thing on the chopping block. However, it is often cut in ways that defy sound bite explanations so is therefore ignored by the media and the public, including the utilization of the OMB Circular “A-76” and other outsourcing practices which led to the Walter Reed Hospital debacle. Members of Congress have touted their “support of the troops” through bills that are simply window-dressing, avoiding the real “spendy” issues of Veteran’s health and long-term care. How will you address these issues and come up with permanent, long-term solutions?

In the wake of 9/11 and light of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has become obvious that the Veterans’ Administration is drastically under-funded and mismanaged. Funding shortfalls, program inadequacies and deplorable conditions in Veterans’ hospitals have outraged Americans. Alaska has the highest per-capita population of veterans in the country. We must ensure that veterans receive the appreciation, support and services they have earned.

My Priorities for Veterans’ Services are:

Fund the VA fully to provide excellent and comprehensive health services, including psychiatric and mental health services for Veterans struggling with Traumatic Brain Injuries and PTSD
Ensure that Veterans receive the full extent of benefits they have earned, from a GI Bill-funded college education to federal support for Veteran-owned businesses
Quality housing, life insurance benefits and better family separation allowances must be adequately funded for the families of our Veterans and service members.

The families of our service men and women must also be guaranteed the services their loved ones have earned.