Senate panel adopts committee substitute as working document for Climate Change Commission bill, adds Interior municipal seat

The Senate State Affairs Committee on March 25 in Juneau adopted a committee substitute as its working document for Senate Bill 120, the Climate Change Commission bill, after the bill’s sponsor and staff explained changes that add an additional municipal representative from Interior Alaska.

Senator L. V. Gray Jackson, sponsor of SB 120 and representing District G in Anchorage, said the substitute — labeled 34LS0073 in committee materials — will be the working draft while the committee continues hearings. Deirdre Goins, staff for the senator, read a summary of changes from the substitute, which the committee identified as “version n.”

Goins told the committee that version n amends multiple statutory sections (as described in committee materials) and changes several numeric references in the draft. The substitute increases the commission’s membership “from 15 to 16 members by adding an additional municipal representative from the Interior,” and inserts language identifying “Interior Alaska, including Fairbanks North Star Borough and the Denali Borough,” among affected areas. Goins read the committee-summary language line by line into the record.

Senator Gray Jackson acknowledged the change and apologized for previously omitting Interior representation. “I just wanna apologize for not including Fairbanks from the get go,” she said, adding she did not expect the even number to be a problem given other local bodies with even membership. After no further objections, the committee chair removed an earlier hold and the substitute was adopted as the committee’s working document.

The committee then opened public testimony on SB 120. One person, Ken Huckaby of Wasilla, testified online and was recorded as unaffiliated and representing himself. Huckaby told the committee Alaska produces a “minuscule amount of emissions” and urged caution about policies he described as harmful to the economy. “We don’t know the cost of any actions anybody’s talking about,” he said, adding that he believed there was no consensus on the science and warning against policies he characterized as economically damaging. No other public witnesses testified and the committee closed public testimony for the day.

Committee staff said a new public draft version of the elections omnibus bill (SB 64) will be posted soon; public testimony on SB 120 may be emailed to the committee at senate.stateaffairs@akleg.gov for inclusion in the record. The committee set SB 120 aside for further hearing with the newly adopted substitute as its working document.

What happens next: committee staff indicated the substitute will be posted online once the new draft is finalized and the committee will schedule further work sessions or hearings on SB 120 before any final votes.